Thread:Dinoman972/@comment-25175729-20180614202045/@comment-24941009-20180615164526

Wormulon wrote: I think we should try to follow the real life taxonomy as much as possible, as a guideline, while also sticking to morphology in Spore. How to reconcile the two?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a major issue seems to be about whether we should merge morphologically identical taxons (like whether pterosaurs modelled in Spore should fall under Dinosauria).

Perhaps the criterion we could be asking is, are these differences that could actually be modelled or noticed Spore? I think there are grounds for keeping pterosaurs and dinosaurs separate, because as Disgustedorite as said to me, there are features like limb placements and wing shapes that are distinctive enough to not be classified as dinosaurs or mammals (there's some species that look like bats, but should not be classified as such because the wings are different). Furthermore, these differences can be modelled by a sufficiently good creator. On the other hand, if we can't find a sufficient difference, e.g. if pterosaurs more closely resembled dinosaurs and we couldn't model the difference, then they could be merged under Dinosauria.

I don't think wing structure has ever been so strict in this project (it is in the sense of whether is dragon/bat, bird or insect, but not in matter of whether is a pterosaurian or a dragon/bat wing). Neither such specific traits such as limb placement.

Also, the idea wasn't to merge Pterosauria and Dinosauria, but to make the former an order inside the latter (I think). And if dragons can share class with other reptiles, while being so morphologically different from ordinary reptiles, I don't see why can't pterosaurs share class with other dinosaurs.