User:Disgustedorite/Taxon Placements

Sometimes a taxon has to be made for something really weird. Here are explanations for why I placed certain families and orders where I did.

Puffballia
Puffballia is the designated taxon for any cartoon character with a general body plan consisting of a fused head and torso, arms emerging from where the ears would be, and legs emerging from under the chin. Popular examples include Pac-Man and Kirby. Should any be made in Spore, I would also include Puffles and Meeps in their own family of limbless puffballs, and Tribbles and Flat Cats in another.

I placed Puffballia in the class Synapsida based on various traits observed in the creatures I initially referenced when defining it. Therefore, I've determined that puffballs, if they were real, would probably be very strange-looking non-mammalian synapsids. Realistically, they would be well-nested within Therapsida; however, due to their unusual morphology, I decided to give them an order rather than a suborder for accessibility.
 * The noses of puffballs which have them are typically human-like, so they're likely fleshy like human noses too--one of the defining traits of modern living synapsids, the mammals.
 * Puffballs are typically depicted with flexible, mammal-like lips.
 * Puffballs that have teeth often have prominent canines ; similar teeth are uncommon outside of synapsida
 * Despite above mammalian traits, puffballs may be depicted as naked or scaly while others have at least some hair or fur.
 * There is also very little room for mammaries in puffball anatomy, due to the face occupying the "chest", making it likely that from a biological standpoint they either predate mammaries or lost them secondarily, neither of which is the case in any known crown mammal. Female puffballs are typically only depicted with mammaries in creepy sexualized fanart.