SporeWiki:Taxonomy

This is the project page for SporeWiki:Taxonomy. The project's mission is to scientifically catalogue as many Sporian life forms as possible, including both creature, cell and plant specimens.

Participants
This project is not for wimps. Be wary that cataloging creatures is no easy task, and neither is cataloging real life forms! To indicate that you're participating in the project, simply place the user taxonomy userbox on your page.

Related categories
The full list of Taxonomy categories is found at Category:SporeWiki:Taxonomy, and the contents of these categories should be monitored regularly by SporeWiki taxonomists.

Going about assigning taxa
First do some research on both the alien and any real animals displaying similar characteristics. Start at the kingdom, and carefully assign each daughter taxon in order of heirarchy. If no real life taxon exists that makes sense, consider a made-up one. Try to use the taxa already in SporeWiki instead of creating new ones, when possible. Taxa created in SporeWiki tend to be very broad and cover more species than real ones do, so this shouldn't pose many problems.

Deviation
SW:TAX deviates from Linnean rules on occasion. For example, Tetrapoda is ignored. This allows mammals, reptiles, and amphibians to have more or less than four limbs. However, note that Primates does keep this rule, as do a few others. The limbs are not the only thing that may barely exclude an organism: Hydrohippus is kept out of the seahorse order, because its jawbones are not fused together, and Stungfish is kept out of the lamprey order, because it has matching fins on either side. If, as in these cases, there is no better match, do not violate the rules of the taxon, but create a sister "pseudo-" taxon.

Technically, every single creature in Spore should be classified as an amniote. Each one has a backbone, reproduces sexually, and hatches from an amniotic egg. Because the egg is always external, non-monotreme mammals and live-bearing reptiles/amphibians/fish are impossible. Invertebrates and simple chordates would be hopeless. The only actual possible creatures would be birds, monotremes, egg-laying reptiles/amphibians/fish, and a bunch of "-oid" type creatures. To compensate, the backbone should only be recognized if it is important to maintain the structure of the organism (if it stands on legs, for example). The amniotic egg should be ignored entirely. Reproduction methods should also be ignored. Do not worry about how many vertebrae an organism has, since this is not really that important.

How to request a scientific classification
When you create a new organism page, be sure to add Taxonomy request to the top of its page; this will flag taxonomists so they know this article needs attention. These pages are then automatically listed in at Category:Taxonomy_requests.

If not enough information is given to properly classify the organism, a message at the top of the article appears, prompting more information. The template for this message is tax-more-info. These are automatically added to Category:Creatures lacking vital information for classification.

Different kingdoms
In biological taxonomy, a domain (also superregnum, superkingdom, or empire) is the highest taxonomic rank of organisms, higher than a kingdom. The four different kingdoms used to classify SporeWiki content are:


 * - animals (creatures)
 * - flora
 * - cells
 * - Simpler microbial life than cells

When is it time to divide a taxon into two?
As Charles Darwin stated, and is recognized widely, the difference between a species and a genus is the degree of difference between its sister taxa. This degree of difference is undefined, yet common sense tells us when it is time to divide a taxon into two sister taxa.

When dividing a taxon, do not divide it simply because it is a large taxon. The Nicrophorus genus of beetle (a real world taxon) contains tens if not hundreds of species. Should there be another beetle discovered that fits into Nicrophorus, but it seems more unique than any other beetle in the genus (today this is determined by a ratio of DNA differences), that lone beetle would form a new genus.

What if two species seem identical? Is there still any reason to separate them?
Surely there is some subtle difference, such as a bend in the neck or the number of horns. If they are exactly identical, which is highly improbable, it sounds like a case of either plagiarism or misidentification. One way to check for plagiarism is by using the parentage tool on the Sporepedia. Type "http://www.spore.com/rest/asset/xxxxxxx" in your browser address bar, where "xxxxxxx" is the ID number of the creature you would like to check. If a creature is original, its PARENT tag should show as NULL. Otherwise, the SporeWiki article ought to be recreated to display the parent (unless there is a significant and honest difference, such as a creation made from a template).

Taxon authority
It is customary to add a reference stating the authority behind the lowest mentioned taxon. For example, a species page needs a species authority, and a phylum page needs a phylum authority. The authority is not the person who discovered the taxon, but the person who first wrote formally about it.

For real-world taxa, consult Wikipedia for the taxon authority. For Spore-only taxa, look at the page history, and use the earliest username (the person who wrote the article, not who created the creature) and year. References should be in this format:

Last name, year of description (four digits)

For example, should be written: Animalia (Linnaeus, 1758), and  should be written Floridata (Neini8, 2008). Note that Spore-only taxa require linking the name to the user. Also, remember that the person who describes a family is NOT the person who wrote the first article on that species, but rather, the person who first wrote about that particular family as a whole (the first editor of the family page, or consult Wikipedia).

Epithets
The second part of a species name (for example, in "Homo sapiens", it's "sapiens") is a special part of the species name, because the person who created the creature, not the article, gets to choose whatever name they like. Due to the unlikelihood that this will happen, however, SporeWiki taxonomists often choose this name themselves. HOWEVER, the creator of the creature has every right to change this epithet to whatever word they like, provided it is a single word and is acceptable on SporeWiki. If you are changing an epithet, be sure to change it on the appropriate taxon pages (usually family/genus pages) as well.

What should I name it?
Whatever you like. Generally, the names of genuses end in -ii and species with -us, but this is not required. Here are a few common sources for names:
 * 1) Special traits unique to the species, such as a distinguishing feature or color (i.e. rhodi for a red creature, longirostris for a creature with a long beak)
 * 2) Personality (i.e. rex for a king, timidus for a timid creature)
 * 3) A person (i.e. doeii for a creature discovered by John Doe, elvispresleya for a creature named after Elvis Presley)
 * 4) The place of discovery (i.e. nabooii for a creature discovered on Naboo)
 * 5) The possibilities are endless!

Species names
There is a common error while classifying that many people do by accident. Let's use the Debug Squid's scientific name for example: "Calamari debugger"

As you can see, the species name must use small letters.


 * Calamari debugger (Right)
 * Calamari Debugger (Wrong)

Also, while giving your creature a taxon, remember that the species name is made of two words, not only one. For example, the Debug Squid again:


 * Calamari debugger (Right)
 * Debugger (Wrong)

Only the second name alone has no meaning on taxonomy. Remember to put the genus in the front when putting the species name on the template.

Machines
It is impossible to classify robots (creatures with the Mech Parts) in this system. Cyborgs (such as the Grox) can be classified, but their classifications are based on their biological nature, with their robotic parts disregarded.