Heya. I just tried to remove the tag 'caprine' from a picture of a sheep, only to find that it's apparently aliased to appear when the tag 'sheep' is used. 'Caprine' is the adjective for goats, not for sheep. 'Ovine' is the equivalent Latinate adjective for sheep. I did read the wiki entry that argues that they may be part of the same taxonomic family. True as that may be, 'ovine' is what's used for sheep.

Caprine/Caprinae is the subfamily of both goats and sheep.

Ovine is the genuis for sheep (99% drawn), which is higher up on the classfication.

Capra is the genuis for most goats - but goats have a much greater diverity then sheep have. So some goats may fall out of the Capra genuis.
A furry drawer in the Asia may draw a different genuis of goats then say, an american or british drawer.

Murmillos said:
Caprine/Caprinae is the subfamily of both goats and sheep.

Ovine is the genuis for sheep (99% drawn), which is higher up on the classfication.

So, why not cut to the chase, and just have everything alias to "animalia"?

"Ovine" is a better tag because it's more specific, and because people looking for sheep and their allies are much more likely to search on "ovine" than "caprine".

Skiltaire said:
sheep and their allies

Skiltaire said:
So, why not cut to the chase, and just have everything alias to "animalia"?

And that reads rather more sharply than I'd intended. I'm sorry if I gave offense. Still, my point remains that applying caprine to sheep, while biologically valid, produces IMHO an overbroad search result.

"Allies" in the zoological sense - animals which are morphologically and behaviourally similar.

I agree with Skiltaire. Technically, sheep are ovines and goats are caprines.

Murmillos said:
Caprine/Caprinae is the subfamily of both goats and sheep.

Ovine is the genuis for sheep (99% drawn), which is higher up on the classfication.

Capra is the genuis for most goats - but goats have a much greater diverity then sheep have. So some goats may fall out of the Capra genuis.

Actually, genus is lower down in the taxonomy, one step above species. Family is one step above genus with subfamily inbetween.

Sheep are mostly (but not all) in the genus Ovis. Goats are mostly in Capra. All are in the family Bovidae, but I think we'd get some strange looks if they were tagged as bovids.

Addendum ~ Nevertheless, Murmillos is correct with subfamily Caprinae covering both goats and sheep. The question is where to draw the line (however fuzzy it may be)?

So. here's what I wonder.

Caprine = goats
Ovine = sheep

What *else* is under caprine other then goats? What ELSE is under ovine?

If we search ovine -sheep what will we come up with?

Do we... NEED ovine/caprine if they're just "fancy" words for goat/sheep?

SnowWolf said:
So. here's what I wonder.

Caprine = goats
Ovine = sheep

What *else* is under caprine other then goats? What ELSE is under ovine?

If we search ovine -sheep what will we come up with?

Do we... NEED ovine/caprine if they're just "fancy" words for goat/sheep?

One could say the same about equine (before the massive influx of ponies) and porcine; They seem more filler tags comparative to their implication tags than anything.

Clawstripe said:

When I was writing what I was, I was thinking network levels, the base levels at the bottom, transport and applications going up.

So if you look at it as Domain at the bottom and Species at the top...

Murmillos said:
When I was writing what I was, I was thinking network levels, the base levels at the bottom, transport and applications going up.

So if you look at it as Domain at the bottom and Species at the top...

The problem there is that everyone else thinks of it as a branching tree diagram going down; Sorta like how the US and third world countries are the only ones left that use the Imperial Measurement System.

123easy said:
One could say the same about equine (before the massive influx of ponies) and porcine; They seem more filler tags comparative to their implication tags than anything.

That's *true*... except equine covers horses, ponies, donkeys, mules, unicorns, pegasi, zebra, and wild asses of various sorts

Porcine covers boars and pigs, hogs.. etc. TECHNICALLY, Porcine is a word that doesn't refer to any sort of taxonomical information--the "proper" word would be Suidae or something. Warthogs "should" be porcine also, as they're all a part of the same family and look, well, piggish. :) But most people will say "suidae? isn't that a pokemon?"

that said, now that I"m awake and can do my own digging... Caprine could technically count for goats, some sheep, ibex, serrow, goral, and some other things that are all pretty goatlike, honestly

but Ibex really shouldn't 'be' "caprine", I don't think.

Uhm... anyway, now that i've done some digging, my thoughts:

goat implies caprine
sheep implies ovine
potentially, ovine implies caprine, as they are both technically caprine. One can search 'goat' if they want goats, sheep if they want sheep, caprine if they want both, and ovine for fun.

OR... get rid of caprine and ovine entirely as tags and just use 'sheep' and 'goat', because outside of Ibex and one or two others that look closer to antelope-ish critters, the caprine/ovine tag doesn't really include anything else, but goat/sheep.

also, this is freaking adorable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_Serow_Wakinosowa_Japan.JPG

Quoth Murmillos:
When I was writing what I was, I was thinking network levels, the base levels at the bottom, transport and applications going up.

So if you look at it as Domain at the bottom and Species at the top...

Whoops, sorry. I was thinking of the species being put at the bottom or end of the list.

Quoth SnowWolf:
TECHNICALLY, Porcine is a word that doesn't refer to any sort of taxonomical information--the "proper" word would be Suidae or something.

Split hare #1: "Suine" (pronounced "soo-in" with a long i).

Caprine could technically count for goats, some sheep, ibex, serrow, goral, and some other things that are all pretty goatlike, honestly

but Ibex really shouldn't 'be' "caprine", I don't think.

Split hare #2: "Caprid" would probably be better than "caprine". "Caprine" refers to goats while "caprid" refers to all related goat-like mammals. Of course, then we'd come up with the fact that foxes are labeled as "canine" (which they're not; they're "vulpine") rather than "canid" and that zebras, wild asses, and the like probably should be labeled as "equids" instead of "equines".

At this point, I think an argument could be made that we're starting to get too pedantic for an art board.

OR... get rid of caprine and ovine entirely as tags and just use 'sheep' and 'goat', because outside of Ibex and one or two others that look closer to antelope-ish critters, the caprine/ovine tag doesn't really include anything else, but goat/sheep.

I think this would be the best idea, perhaps even have the two alias into "sheep" and "goat" to reduce confusion. I think most people wouldn't bother with caprine, ovine, and caprid when they can just as easily search for "goat" and "sheep" and still get the same results. After all, who's going to search for "sciurine" when "squirrel" is better?

Split hare #3: Hares hate getting split up into harepieces. It gives them a splitting headache.

Damn, I've had this open for three days and forgot to reply :(

Clawstripe said:
Split hare #1: "Suine" (pronounced "soo-in" with a long i).

Yeah, I wasn't even trying to get that one right. ^^;; Still, good to know.

Split hare #2: "Caprid" would probably be better than "caprine". "Caprine" refers to goats while "caprid" refers to all related goat-like mammals. Of course, then we'd come up with the fact that foxes are labeled as "canine" (which they're not; they're "vulpine") rather than "canid" and that zebras, wild asses, and the like probably should be labeled as "equids" instead of "equines".

yeah, It's a good point, but as you already note.. more problems then it's worth ^^;

At this point, I think an argument could be made that we're starting to get too pedantic for an art board.

Yep! :)

I think this would be the best idea, perhaps even have the two alias into "sheep" and "goat" to reduce confusion. I think most people wouldn't bother with caprine, ovine, and caprid when they can just as easily search for "goat" and "sheep" and still get the same results. After all, who's going to search for "sciurine" when "squirrel" is better?

Alright.. then..

Proposal:

• Ovine aliases to sheep

Capine aliases to goat
Sheep implies nothing
goat implies nothing.
sheep regrets nothing!

Split hare #3: Hares hate getting split up into harepieces. It gives them a splitting headache.

Poor lil bunnies....
(also, lol XD )

Okay.

Ovine has been aliased to sheep.
Capine has been aliased to goat.
Goat and Sheep imply nothing.
Sheep has no regrets. :3

Also, there were a few tiny hiccups in all this, but I'm 99.9999% sure I ironed 'em all out.. BUT, if you see any untagged goats or sheep, please fix 'em :D

Caprine sounds like something that would go on a salad. Don't know why.
I need to go to bed.

I see it and think Capri Sun.

ippiki_ookami said:
Caprine sounds like something that would go on a salad. Don't know why.

Capers, perhaps.