#(if you like outdated taxonomy)

[leaping-laelaps-art]

Some sketches of Triassic stem-crocodiles (Prestosuchus chiniquensis and Saurosuchus galilei)

[bogleech]

Could I mayhaps know what's the name of that arachnid field guide you have 0//0 it looks really pretty and I have. A thirst for all arachnid related field guides and biology books, love those critters

The Golden Guide to Spiders and their Kin! There were lots of them, originally made in the 60's or 70's I believe, and they used to still be so common when I was a kid - still in print, and sold for just a couple dollars everywhere - I thought everybody had a few! But now they seem to be forgotten.

I had the spiders one, insects one and "seashores" one (mantis shrimps and nudibranchs!!) before I could even read, just looking at the pictures all day. As I learned to read they were how I learned concepts of taxonomy and ecology, why I knew what a "parasitoid" was in first grade and I'd talk constantly about insects that aren't really RARE, but culturally most people never heard about. These books made things like velvet ants, bolas spiders and hairy millipedes seem to me like knowledge as ordinary as dogs and cats.

That "pests of animals" page in particular is why I knew there were wingless parasitic flies, and I thought that was so cool, I was obsessed with "SHEEP KED" for my entire childhood. This bug that nobody ever heard of when I mentioned it, but was at one time deemed worthy of inclusion in an everyday field guide. And they include "duck louse" as an animal pest you're expected to encounter. Sheep and duck parasites?!.....Oh, right! When these books first published, it was still commonplace for almost everyone to have experience with farm animals. Most people at least had grandparents or aunts and uncles with a farm they might visit and help out on. Of course they would encounter sheep and duck parasites. I think they still publish these, actually, I'm sure I still saw them in Barnes and Noble only a few years ago, but it's remarkable what a different America they were made under. My old copy even recommended DDT to control bed bugs....they did eventually edit that out in newer editions.

Some of their attitudes may be outdated here and there, and they're only intended for North American wildlife, but I think the golden guides might still be perfect introductions to their topics for anyone, anywhere of any age really?? They're such well-balanced overviews so densely packed with just the most essential information about each organism.

....Did people really ever just call tree frogs "hylas?!" It's one of their genus names, but was it also used as a common name anywhere? That's a cute idea. Maybe it was, briefly, so at some point to someone there was a concept of Frog, Toad, and Hyla?

[onenicebugperday]

Hello

I hope you are having a pleasant day.

I have been interested in animal taxonomy for a while now and would like to spend more time working on it. Do you have any recommendations on sources, et cetera, that could guide me on how to start?

(I cannot figure out how to ask this anonymously, hope that is bot some sort of Tumblr faux pas)

Regards

I'm afraid I can't really recommend much as I don't own any books on the subject and I've learned the taxonomy I do know just by IDing bugs regularly and having to know the classes, orders, families, and genera that I see commonly. I primarily use iNaturalist for IDing and they organize everything there taxonomically which is hugely helpful.

Although even if there are good books on the subject, it's literally constantly changing, so they may become outdated very quickly.

I think if you want to get into it, it may be helpful to narrow your area of interest to at least a class (Insecta, Arachnida, Mammalia, Reptilia, etc) just so it's not such a huge undertaking.

Beyond that, maybe some of my followers have recommendations for resources?

P.S. - You can't ask anonymously because I have anonymous asks disabled to avoid rude messages. But this certainly wasn't any sort of faux pas!

[sahonithereadwolf]

"D&D isn't racist, it's just obsessed with taxonomy" falls apart immediately when you remember 1. Some of the shit the gygax's family have said and done. Things like Gary calling the wounded knee massacre “an act of lawful good” or the current lawsuits around TSR and some very explicitly racist material one of his failsons is involved with. 2. Racism in academia exist, especially in the very outdated models anthro/socio models they're parading around with calipers. Say like, who gets to be considered a culture in dnd and which folks don’t. Don’t even get me started on how they handle religion... 3. How they have treated irl workers. Gosh, It’s not like there isn’t a whole class of BIPoC game designers that have their face, name, likenesses, and work used as marketing only to be treat like crap, have their work altered last minute without consent or consulting that alters the very nature of the work and reinserts the shit they were hired to avoid, ect putting these designers in an unfortunate position to be scapegoats for their community. 4. intent =/= harm done Lived experience of racist aggression on both a micro and macro level tells me as much and it’s not like I’m the only one out there repeatedly going “this sucks”. sorry my working conditions as a designer and wanting to be treated like a human being annoys you though.

[little-cereal-draws]

So here's a little hc i thought of, fueling my need for Nimona-found-family-including-blitzmeyer fluff.

Every three months or so is "hair dye day." Ballister has helped Ambrosius dye his hair a few times so somehow, he got delegated to be the official hairdresser. He tried to protest and say he only helped a few times with the roots but no one was listening.

It's an all day activity. Everyone puts on their ratty t-shirts and prepares. He usually starts with Ambrosius and they chat (read: flirt). He takes his time touching his roots up because he likes playing with Ambrosius' hair and will usually throw in a super secret head massage too. (Don't tell the others, they'll get jealous.)

He does Blitzmeyer next. He doesn't rush hers but he doesn't take his sweet time either. They joke and gossip and debate things only nerds would care about like weather balloons or deep sea worms or whatever. It always ends on friendly terms but it can get pretty heated in the middle lol There have been a few times where Nimona and Ambrosius will run in thinking there's a serious fight/problem/attack because they hear yelling but when they get there it's just "BIRDS ARE NOT REPITILES! THEY'RE A DIFFERENT PARAOHYLETIC CLADE!" "YES, BUT SCIENTISTS ARE TRYING TO GET RID OF PARAPHYLETIC TAXA BECAUSE IT'S OUTDATED AND MISLEADING!" "WELL, 'REPTILE' IS A TERM THAT'S NOT BASED IN TAXONOMICAL BASIS AND IS USED TO GENERALLY DESCRIBE COLD BLOODED SCALY THINGS." "THE TERM 'REPTILE' IS LITERALLY TAXONOMY but giving you the benefit of the doubt, WHAT ABOUT FEATHERED DINOSAURS AND MAMMILIAN REPTILES, HUH? ARE WE EXCLUDING THEM?? " "I REFUSE TO TALK TO YOU ANY MORE ABOUT THIS. FACE FORWARD BEFORE I POUR THE BOTTLE OF DYE DOWN THE BACK OF YOUR SHIRT!" Ambrosius and Nimona silently leave and let them figure it out on their own lol Bal and Blitzmeyer usually forget about it a few hours later so it's all good.

Nimona goes last because she usually takes the longest. Sometimes she just wants her roots redone, sometimes she wants to recolor her whole head. Ballister has asked her if she could just shift it to the color she wants and she said she could but that isn't as much fun, and she wanted to be included. So he'll dye her whole head. And it takes hours. They have to strip off the existing dye, let it sit, and then put the new dye on. She's done pink, of course, purple, green, and blue. It can be hard for her to sit still the last few hours and Bal has been doing this all day so he's tired and prone to falling for any fights she tries to pick to entertain herself. Ambrosius and Blitzmeyer will have to come and sit with them and they'll have a group discussion.

For the most part though Ballister doesn't actually mind dying their hair. It's a good bonding experience and being able to play with their hair relaxes him. It's the waiting for it to set part that stresses him. Ofc everyone is walking around w bags/plastic on their heads in ratty tshirsts and towels but Ambrosius and Blitzmeyer are both very excitable and spacey and Nimona is a troublemaker so just because they're taking precautions doesn't mean his couch won't get dyed. And then there's the mad scramble for the shower that takes three hours and leaves the tub looking like it got tie-dyed lol Even though they're all spaced out so they can take showers comfortably, Ambroisius and Blitzmeyer forget until Nimona tries to get in. And then it's "Wait, it's my turn! I've been done for four hours." "Well, I've been done for seven hours!" "Yeah, but I'm the one already in the bathroom so..."

At the end of the day, everyone, but especially Ballister, are exhausted. They'll turn on a movie and flop on the couch until bed. It might not be Ballister's favorite day but in the end, he loves to be able to help them and will do it every time.

[amrosenberg]

Taxonomies of Fandom

In the 19th century, taxonomies were a big deal. A hundred years after Linnaeus developed the system of binomial nomenclature, Darwinian natural philosophy emphasized that new and existing taxonomies should reflect the principle of common descent, giving rise to today’s system of evolutionary taxonomy. 

If you’ve read the Aubrey-Maturin series of nautical adventure novels, you might be familiar with Testudo aubreii, the majestic tortoise that Stephen Maturin named after his best friend Jack Aubrey. It is an honor not lightly to be given, a sort of taxonomy as immortality: “This is Testudo aubreii for all eternity; when the Hero of the Nile is forgotten, Captain Aubrey will live on in his tortoise. There’s glory for you.”  Putting a name to something makes it easier to understand and discuss; it can provide a starting point for study and for further investigation. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about taxonomy lately, thanks to a few conversations I’ve had this month with people looking for expertise on fans and fan studies for final projects. I’m always happy to chat about this stuff, but sometimes I’m unexpectedly run up against the limits of my expertise: to be honest, I don’t know a lot about sports fans, or the practices of fans of massive commercial domains like Disney.

I’m interested in transformative fandom, which is a relatively small (but impactful) slice of the pie, as well as digital platforms and the ways in which youth audiences in particular utilize affordances of those platforms to express enthusiasm. I suppose I’m a fan scholar in the same way that an expert in ants is an entomologist: it’s a useful bit of nomenclature, but don’t ask them about spiders. There’s obviously a lot of benefits to specialization: but for someone who has aspirations towards the public humanities, I’m increasingly aware of my own need to have a more comprehensive overview of the different types of fans. 

Over the 30 years of fan studies’ existence there have been numerous attempts to do just that: create a useful paradigm that neatly sections off fan practices into families and genii. The split between “transformational” and “affirmational” fandoms, first proposed by a pseudonymous fan in 2009 and later taken up by scholars like Henry Jenkins, is broadly handy, but problematic: it can lead to viewing “affirmational” fandom such as cosplaying, merchandise-buying, and information-collecting (such as in wikis) as purely mimetic and of lesser cultural value than “transformational” fan activities (see Hills, 2014). 

That binary also ignores the large swathes of people that perform both types of fandom, or whose fan practices exist somewhere in between, or not on that axis at all; it’s also slightly outdated. In 2009, transformational fans who wrote erotica about non-canonical ships could still be safely said to be “against” canon in some way, non-sanctioned and acting transgressively out of bounds. I would say that in many cases, that is far from the case today. 

Something I’m interested in is how fan practices develop and spread from one “genus” of fandom to another. (Presuming “species” is an individual fandom, and “genus” is a group of species connected by ancestry and shared practice). You see this in the phenomena in sports RPF, for example: slash fanfiction is a genre of practice developed by media fandom (TV/film fandom) in the 1970s and 80s, but it has been “adopted out” so to speak to form the nucleus of a sub-species of sports fans. 

This circulation of practice is especially notable in the field of transcultural fandom (see Morimoto, 2017). Fan practices developed in the context of East Asian pop music fandom, such as chart-boosting, have made their way over to Western fandoms and communities centering on non-music media objects. Digital platforms afford this circulation, which in turn results in a blurring of boundaries between fan species and increasing difficulty in parsing out which “type” of fan someone is. Practices are contagious and amoebic. The type of sparkly fancams intially made by K-pop idol fans were adopted by Succession stans. 

Like the animal kingdom, there’s just so much going on. To say nothing of what was going on. Which types of fans have gone extinct? Which modes of interacting with media are now archaeological artifacts, thanks to the shifting relationality of the apparatus of cultural production with respect to audiences? 

I think that especially in a time when many groups who might not explicitly consider themselves “fans” have freely taken up digital practices developed and popularized in fandom spaces, investigations into the origins and classifications of fans and fan culture has the potential to provide broader behavioral insights into online communities. 

[ambyandony]

Monster AU - Monster Taxonomy [P1]

[P1: what the fuck is taxonomy and why does it matter in a monster AU]

OUTDATED

short answer it doesn't. you dont have to care butgod i fucking love classifying things an d making up names. and also there are some intricacies that taxonomy can help elaborate on when it comes to species.

Taxonomy is the scientific practise of ascribing names, categories and classifications to living things based on characteristics both individual and shared between different creatures. There is a taxonomical hierarchy that goes as follows, from least to most specific: domain, kingdom, phylum (sometimes division in botany), class, order, family, genus, and species (plus subspecies). Most things you think of as living fall under the domain Eukaryota, so you can assume everything I talk about belongs to Eukaryota unless otherwise stated. A part of taxonomy is binomial nomenclature, by which species are given a scientific name consisting of two parts, the genus and the species.

Vulpes vulpes, the red fox, is the species vulpes in the genus vulpes and Tyto multipunctata, the lesser sooty owl, is the species multipunctata in the genus tyto. Any normal person will call these 'the red fox' and the 'lesser sooty owl' or just 'the fox' and 'the owl' but taxonomically, they both have a very specific classification.

From kingdom to species, the red fox is: Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Carnivora > Canidae > Vulpes > Vulpes vulpes the lesser sooty owl is: Animalia > Chordata > Aves > Strigiformes > Tytonidae > Tyto > Tyto multipunctata.

See, they share a kingdom and phylum; Animalia and Chordata; more or less because they are both animals with spines. But then they diverge as their characteristics differ; in this case, the difference between mammals (mammalia) and birds (aves) is their morphology and reproduction; mammals have mammaries (breasts) and give live birth, and birds have no mammaries and lay eggs. Each further specification on the taxonomical hierarchy indicates a more specific list of shared traits between creatures in that classification.

Taxonomy helps to identify species that are related or have common traits. And why does it matter? Simply because monsters aren't human (Okay, well, on that front it's a little complicated) and there are many different kinds of monsters that fall under a single umbrella label; for example, seafolk. They are commonly widely miscategorised as 'mermaids' no matter what they actually are, but there are countless actual 'kinds' of 'mermaids'. Squalo, a Merrow, is fundamentally different from a Siren or a Selkie. Werewolves are a bit of a special confusing case, but I'll get into that later.

In other words, monsters aren't Homo sapiens and the term "monsters" is a catch all term, not an actual class or genus; and while some monsters are human adjacent, not all of them are, and even those who look human adjacent might belong to entirely different classes. (hint, theres a nonzero entirely likely chance that polymorphs don't belong to the phylum chordata)

And I'm a sucker for coming up with names and being silly. Realistically, monsters wouldn't have any taxonomical classifications because most people don't believe in them and those who do believe in them want them dead a good amount of the time. But we're talking biology here! Perhaps a biologist with an interest in cryptozoology would want to classify monsters and perhaps that biologist is hypothetically me (not a biologist) and I'm going to come up with scientific names and figure out some classifications for my Monster AU.

Stick around if you're interested and leave if you dont give a fuck i dont care i fucking love rambling about my monster au. ill update this post with more related posts and ill make a monster taxonomy tag

Monster Taxonomy Page 2:

[scientificmicroscope]

"Excuse me, Sir? A moment of your time? Excuse me!" A tiny little latex lad waves from afar, brandishing a well worn notebook as his feelers bob enthusiastically. "You are a scientist yes? As am I, my wonderful friend!" The little guy beamed with delight. "I was wondering if you would be willing to talk to me about some of how your species functions, or refer me to the appropriate department?" Hosin waddles over and reads over his recent notes he's garnered from other Cybertronians, tail thumping lightly on the ground. "I would very much like your expertise on some things!"

He almost dropped the data pad in his arm when he heard a voice suddenly. Looking around he saw no one till he looked down.

"Oh! hello there." He said as he saw the new small guest below him. He knew that there were a few new ships docking recently with new passages from other planets visiting Cybertron's reconstruction. He half expected most of them to see more of the newer sights than this old lab.

"Yes I am, I'm Quark of Rodion.  I am one of the scientists here but as for your question...It depends on the "What" functions you are looking for. If it's technology then you came to the right place. If it's Biological you might need to see the medical department, For Cybertronian Taxonomy you might have to look into the data archivists for some "Outdated" info."

"But I have a bit of knowledge on all and a few others so I can answer a few basic questions without too much digging around."

[furby-organist]

Aaand here comes Satan to edumacate and sin-splain @king-of-wrath

"OKAY, so: you've heard about 'dominant alpha males' in nature documentaries, right? You've seen guys online, calling each other 'beta boys' as an insult? That all comes from this old and now-debunked study of wolf social grouping."

"Some people are monsterfuckers, right? Werewolves are monsters. Bunch of people come up with erotica involving a werewolf hunting and cornering them, but not eating them. It goes 'catch, fuck and release'---or 'catch, fuck and keep forever', depending on tastes."

"In fiction, the werewolves have packs just like how vampires have covens and wolves have packs. So people apply that misinformation picked up by misogynist wannabe badasses and these smut tropes to the werewolves. Now, pack society is divided into three roles: alphas, betas and omegas."

"Alphas are, of course, the ones in charge. The physically strongest. They fight for dominance and breeding rights, then take their pick."

"The betas are a step below, but there's some different tropes given to them: sometimes, they're the equivalent of an actual spouse or a trusted companion. Other times, they're just the favorites."

"But then, there's the omegas: pretty much just slaves, minus the agrarian labor. Unironically, they are called 'bitches' by the alphas and the guys who think they're alphas. The smut revolves around power dynamics and the usual kinks---predator/prey, dubious or no consent, breeding, petplay, you name it."

"Imagine your average ancient or medieval historical or fantasy drama setting. There's the king, his queen, the royal court, the royal harem, the knights, all these people vying for power between interpersonal drama. It's just werewolves instead of normal humans."

> The big Sexuality Notebook (prop turned actual notes on sexuality he's started taking since like, receiving copious amounts of psychic damage over the years) is open, he's taking notes! Sexuality is fascinating. It's a mistake, but it's fascinating.

> (It's also pretty cool that Satan is chilling here and educating him about kinks. Nice.)

> "Werewolves? Pardon me, this is about werewolves and outdated pack structure taxonomy?" That's not something Vox had mentioned. Hmm... ignorant! "Normal drama, garden-variety kinks, but with a furry caste system. Huh!"

> It sounded like it should be interesting, but... it's just not. It sounds boring. He's not interested on even an intellectually curious level. It just sounds silly, and like nothing he pokes at is going to offer him any substance or entertainment. Y'all have fun, but this one's not for him.

[wri227philomena]

Emoji Marketing, 1-Star Reviews, and 37 Email Marketing Tips That Will Drive You Insane | Class 7

Today I Learned:

Emoji Rhetoric: A Social Media Influencer Perspective by Jing Ge and Ulrike Gretzel

I'm going to be honest. I am profoundly jaded when it comes to my perception of Internet marketing tips. Marketing, in general, hurts the more Marxist parts of my soul, and Internet marketing especially feels disingenuous at best, and deliberately malicious at worst. Influencer marketing, in my mind, is one of the worst things to happen to the social internet. As cited by Ge and Gretzel from eMarketer, "it is well accepted by firms that influencer marketing is an effective way to each and engage consumers, and influence their purchase decisions" (Ge et al., 1277). While this article was published in 2018, and thus is relatively recent/contemporary, the rapidly evolving landscape of the social internet has rendered its advice outdated in record time. The FTC was having such an issue with influencer marketing during this period that it was compelled to publish new guidelines governing the operations of influencers in 2019. The article identifies three use cases for emojis in influencer posts: "emojis add appeal(s) to the textual component that does per se not contain persuasive content", "emojis serve as an enhancer to further amplify the persuasive content delivered through text", and "emojis encapsulating emotional appeals act as a modifier to revise the appeal expressed through the text" (1286). They also state that "Surprisingly, influencers express not only positive but also negative and mixed emotions to trigger reactions in their followers." (Ibid) Is this the Twilight Zone? Do marketing professionals not know that human beings will try to seem human, especially when they want to appeal to their followers emotional biases in pursuit of money? It does not feel natural, to me, to describe this finding as a surprise! In terms of what I learned from this article: Marketing professionals can be scammed quickly and easily. Their attempts to establish a taxonomy of The Grift leaves them especially open to more skilled grifters.

2. Diagramming the Story of a 1-Star Review by Miriam Ellis

I appreciate Ellis's more neutral and personal approach to marketing dissection, but I suppose--then--that I must be being Influenced here by a more direct, human appeal for my time.

I'll preface my response to this page with this: Ellis is attempting to sell "reputation management" services. In addition, her Moz bio alleges that she is a "Local SEO [Search Engine Optimization] Subject Matter Expert". I don't know how much I trust this, given that the embedded link to her website throws a security error in Chrome:

In addition, her wesbite--Solas Web Design--looks like this:

Not to be a huge bitch, but this website is ugly. It does not have the feel of a boutique marketing firm, it feels as though it is attempting to appeal to the most general possible market, and is failing to do so.

The final suggestion in this article reads "Consider purchasing paid products that help you analyse your social media opportunities and manage your reputation". So, in sum, Mirriam has generated an issue--of the poor performance of a food truck--and has turned it around into a marketing tactic for her own business, disguised as a list of tips for marketing your business. This feels disingenuous and shady. Mirriam Ellis did not compose this article out of the goodness of her heart, she did it because she wants you to buy her product. In doing so, she only tangentially disclosed that the article was an advertisement for her own services.

I have a deep, biased malign for marketing professionals--this much is true! But, I feel as though my distrust of them comes from a relatively reasonable place, given Ellis's subterfuge here.

3. 37 Email Marketing Tips for Messages that Get Opened, Read, and Clicked by Henneke Duistermaat

This article feels like shovelware. Early in my academic career, I was not yet entirely comfortable with the difference between academic sources, and community writing on the Internet. During my Work Study placement, I was tasked with composing the foundation of the Community Writing archive of the Asexuality and Aromanticism Bibliography moderated by Dr. Liza Blake. During my work for her, I gained an irreplaceable sense of useful online content in the academic context. This website--Copyblogger--has the same issue as Solas Web Design. It is completely impersonal.

In attempting to appeal to every human being with an Internet connection, they have avoided any specific branding, going instead for the exact same thing every other website is doing these days: horrible white void with black sans-serif. It's not ugly, per se, but the nondescript aesthetic makes it forgettable, and the fact that Henneke says to "Add a personal touch. Because you're trying to get reader to know, like, and trust you, aren't you?" while the entire website she's hosting her writing on looks like the ceiling in the Davis cafeteria is unappealing to me. She doesn't take her own advice.

Tip 29, "Don't sell before the prospect is ready. Become a friend and trusted source of information first, and your readers will more readily buy from you" feels like she is attempting to proliferate a pyramid scheme. THIS is the untrustworthy marketing that is getting influencers in trouble with the FTC, Henneke!

Also, I feel compelled to add, both Henneke and Mirriam have some sort of copy+paste blocker on their websites, which compels me to transcribe their text by hand if I don't want to get elbow deep in the guts of their HTML. I suppose this is so their content can avoid being scraped by bots, which I suppose is valorous, but it limits my ability to share quick snippets of their writing with my social circle, non?

Anyway, it could be the Autism talking, but the only thing that compels me to spend money on the internet is JPEGs of Anime Girls tied to a deeply unfair gambling app. Yes, I am talking about hit rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! which I spend about 80 dollars on every month, specifically because the app has me locked in a truly horrific cycle of gambling addiction. That could also be why I view Internet marketing in such a poor light, because my own spending habits are so thoroughly tied to disordered behaviour.

4. Lecture, Part 1 - "Prosumers"

During our discussion of "New New Media", the phrase "Prosumer" was brought up, and I feel as though some dark god has plucked my soul from my flesh so that I might view my own corporeal form from the outside. In doing a bit more research on the origin of the phrase, I now know that it originates in Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave, which is the 1980 sequal to his book Future Shock. Both works attempt to map the emergence of society through anthropological and sociological stages. The 'third wave' described in the book refers to the Information Age that we currently inhabit. As defined by lecture, a ''prosumer" is someone who is both a 'producer' and a 'consumer'. I feel as though a great deal of modern fanwork could be considered Prosumption, particularly that which can be found in Artist Alleys at such conventions as Anime North or FanExpo Toronto. In attending such events--not FanExpo this year, though, sadge--one can see legitimate prosumption on display, as fans create unofficial, unlicensed merchandise for profit through fan art prints, sculpture, key chains, apparel, etc. I am truly the king of commodity fetishism. Had this course been in-person, you could have seen the cat o' nine tails of Bulbasaur acrylic charms I keep on my backpack. I benefit from prosumption as a consumer, because it allows for small, forgotten media works to be reappropriated by consumers, but it also allows for consumers to occupy a market share otherwise unoccupied by producers in a given region. My favourite anime girl from Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! for example--Emu Otori--has no merchandise available outside of Japan.

Everybody say hello to Emu :3

To acquire commodities with her face on them, I would need to use a proxy shipping service to even buy anything (note: I know this because I have already spent [amount of money redacted] on official Emu merchandise through proxies) as many Japanese retailers do not allow people with North American IP addresses to make accounts on their websites. Through the existence of prosumption, I can attend a fan event, and acquire hundreds of dollars in consumer-produced merchandise. In addition, I myself have become a prosumer in the creation of my initial Barbie movie fan podcast Put a Shrimp On It, and my subsequent existence as a guest personality on the podcasts Barbie Movies Slap and Fandoms Gone Wrong.

I feel as though it is extremely difficult to avoid prosumption in our current media landscape, as producers of media franchises continue to encroach on Fan spaces such as the Archive of Our Own and Wattpad. AO3 has, thankfully, been spared in an official capacity from corporate attrocity due to its existence as a non-profit entity, It goes against the terms of service to advertise for-profit fan works on the site. Wattpad, on the other hand, has become a hellpit in recent years in terms of corporate entities milling content out of fans for monetary gain through 'writing contests'.

TLDR: Prosumption is the natural product of our late stage of capitalism, and as a person who benefits from the democratization of production when it comes to Blorbos from my Shows I don't know if I'm in any place to judge

5. Lecture, Part 2 - Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Our definitions of ethos, pathos, and logos from lecture were thus:

Ethos - What the speaker says, and by what people think of his character before he begins to speak.

Pathos - Persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions.

Logos - When we have proved a truth of an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.

I have always been a big AOC fan, if one can be a 'fan' of any given politician, so my opinions of her tend to have a positive bias either way. I think that Representative Ocasio-Cortez is generally well-spoken, and that her words tend to carry the appropriate weight, and the appropriate emotion. In returning to this speech of AOC's for lecture, I am compelled to consider the political climate this speech came out of. January 16th, 2019 is two years prior to Biden taking office. It is deep in the mud of Trump's preidency. She is, in particular, discussing the 2018-2019 American government shutdown, caused by conflicts in the Trump government surrounding his request for 5.7 billion dollars in funding to build his proposed border wall.

"This shutdown is about the erosion of American democracy." I appreciate the reframing done by Cortez here. She is speaking truth to power throughout this address, but this is, I feel, a key, thetic moment.

I feel as though Cortez's appeals to economic stagnation through her constituent's paycheques has bipartisan appeal, which lends pathos to her argument. In addition, I feel as though her frank, factual delivery procides much-needed Logos during this period of American political history.

Much of what appeals to me about AOC is her down-to-Earth energy. I feel as though this must be a deliberate marketing tactic of hers, but at the same time, she puts her money where her mouth is, so to speak. I mean, AOC isn't out there blowing up pipelines in her spare time, but she is attempting to make the lives of her constituents easier through social welfare advocacy and legislation. She is attempting to make life in the United States less disgusting overall. Her political opponents not only sexually harras her on Twitter, they also actively want people like her to be, at best, deported--which is funny, becuase she was literally born in NYC, and even if she wasn't, Puerto Rico is an American entity--and at worst, literally shot. During the January 6th coup, insurgents entered her office in the attempt to locate and harm her, in fashions unknown.

In sum, there is a difference between appealling superficially to a base in the attempt to un-money them, and being appealling as a product of your work and actions, thus gaining support and finances.

TLDR: Commodity fetishism is a hell of a drug!

[sciencespies]

Bats' midnight snacks reveal clues for managing endangered species

https://sciencespies.com/nature/bats-midnight-snacks-reveal-clues-for-managing-endangered-species/

Bats' midnight snacks reveal clues for managing endangered species

How do we bring threatened and endangered animals back from the brink? The task is never easy or simple, but one thing is undeniably true: If we don’t understand these animals and what they need to survive, we have little chance of success.

Saving bats, then, is arguably a trickier endeavor than for other species. After all, the cryptic critters only emerge at night and are highly mobile, making it difficult to track their movements and behavior.

In a first-of-its-kind study, University of Illinois and Brown University scientists reveal the diets of endangered Indiana bats and threatened northern long-eared bats, providing clues to effectively manage both species and their habitats.

“This was an in-depth study of these two imperiled species in landscapes where they co-occur. Nobody’s done that before. This investigation gives us a much better sense of how bats not only coexist, but also how they benefit our forests and how we can thus manage the forest to provide bats with better habitat,” says Joy O’Keefe, an assistant professor and wildlife extension specialist in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

Previous research into these bats’ diets relied on older, outdated technologies that could miss important prey species. And no study had yet investigated how the two species divvy up their prey resources to coexist.

“When you have two closely related species sharing the same habitat, that means they’re probably built similarly and need similar places to live and things to eat. This brings up a lot of questions about how they’re doing that. Are they competing? Or is there some system in place where they’re able to divide resources? Our job was to figure that out,” says Tim Divoll, a data scientist in the Center for Computation & Visualization at Brown who completed his doctoral research with O’Keefe.

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Divoll and O’Keefe humanely captured bats and collected fecal samples at two Indiana locations — a large managed forest and an area with small forest patches near a major airport — over four summers. The researchers identified insect prey from DNA in the bat feces and added a size classification as a more practical way of looking at insect prey.

“If a bat sees two moths that are the same size and have the same flight pattern, the bat’s not going to distinguish what species they are. It’s going to eat whatever moth it can catch,” Divoll says. “I wanted to use an analysis that better aligned with how bats might perceive their prey. We tend to assume that genetic classifications of prey are the most meaningful, but bats don’t study taxonomy.

“But the taxonomic identification can be very interesting. For example, maybe there are some insects in the dataset that require specific host plants. We want to help managers recognize that so they can manage for a diversity of plant types that host a diversity of insects, leading to healthier forests and more food options for bats.”

Overall, the two bat species ate a lot of the same insects, including moths, beetles, crickets, wasps, mosquitoes, and more. They also ate a significant number of agricultural and forest pest species, displaying their role as providers of beneficial ecosystem services.

Somewhat surprisingly, the northern long-eared bats, the smaller of the two, picked up slightly larger prey items. According to the researchers, that’s likely because the northern is a gleaner, meaning it grabs prey off surfaces, at least some of the time. O’Keefe says bats that use a gleaning strategy would likely have an easier time locating larger insects on bark or leaves. That’s in contrast to aerial hawkers, bats that take prey mid-flight; they’ll detect and go after anything moving in the air, whether it’s large or small.

That slight difference in prey size preference and feeding style may be enough for the bats to avoid direct competition, but the researchers can’t be sure from this study alone.

“It’s difficult to say whether they’re in direct competition without measuring the availability of different insect types, and we didn’t measure that in our study. But our earlier research in the same forested site showed northern long-eared bats use much less space when foraging than Indiana bats. And they’re selecting habitat slightly differently. At the end of the night, they might end up eating all the same things, but they’re finding them differently,” Divoll says.

The bats’ diets were so similar that there were greater differences between sites — forest or airport — than between bat species.

“This tells us that, at some level, they are generalizing on whatever is available at a given site. They might be flexible and specialize at certain times, but these two bats are going to go after whatever is predominantly there,” Divoll says. “They may use different hunting techniques and search different heights of the forest, but they both likely capture easy targets while searching for preferred prey.”

#Nature

[fioras-resolve]

okay, look, people have replied to this telling me i missed fashion, rp, combat, and story, and like, i guess i should pull the curtain back?

this poll is based on a pretty old analysis of player archetypes called Bartle's Taxonomy. it was conceived by a guy who designed the first MUD, basically a proto-mmo, from 1978. Bartle's Taxonomy was written in 1996, before EverQuest was even a thing, so yeah, it's going to be outdated. however, it's not as outdated as I presented it here, because i used mostly natural language for each of these options.

if you wanted to know the original names for each of these, they would be Achiever, Explorer, Socializer, and Killer, each with explicit and implicit variants. Achievers like to act on the world, so combat would fall in line there. Explorers like to interact with the world, so story would likely fall under that. Killers like to act on other players, which can mean beating them in pvp or having some kind of concrete power over them. and Socializers like to interact with other players, which i would definitely use to describe rp and to a lesser extent fashion. obviously a taxonomy from 1996 mostly talking about online text adventures isn't going to explicitly mention character glams, but we do what we can. i was not expecting this to get over 1000 votes, but here we are!

[saturniidays]

Alright listen up nerds I want you all to read ALL OF THE FOLLOWING before commenting. I’m not in the mood to have the taxonomy police come to my door and arrest me for taxa crimes.

1. The contents of this video is an adaptation of the cladogram below into a new type of phylogeny that (I’m pretty sure) I created.

2. Yes I know that this is an outdated phylogeny. This is a phylogeny that I drew in my notes in a class I took a while back. My professor was older. Older professors tend to teach the phylogenies that they learned. I take the notes even if they are inaccurate because they test me on it and I just want the grade. I chose it because it is easy enough for me to read, and I wanted something that I could understand so I can do the mad scientist experiment I’m doing now. Also I’m ignoring strepsiptera because idk what’s going on w them.

3. The following are the rules for how to read my phylogeny.

This phylogeny is to be thought of as if it is a Venn diagram. This means that there are categories within categories. If circle B is inside circle A, that does not mean B stops being A, it means that B is a type of A. Unlike a Venn diagram though, the circles never overlap.

Each circle is a monophyletic group. Since circles cannot overlap, that means paraphyletic groups are impossible and can never be named.

If circle B is inside circle A, this means B is the descendent of A, and A is the ancestor of B. These ancestors might not have names. For example, Pterygota is the clade that designates winged insects. But the first insects to evolve wings were probably not called the “order pterygota” if that makes sense. They are unnamed in the phylogeny. Untitled circles are also unnamed.

If a circle has multiple circles inside of it, that means those circles are sister taxa.

The colors do not mean anything. They are there to make it easier to read.

4. Why did I do this? What is different here if both phylogenies contain the exact same information?

The answer is 1) on where the emphasis is placed and 2) I wanted to eliminate the concept of paraphyla and leave only monophyla.

On a cladogram, the emphasis is placed on the divergence of clades. It is placed on how the descendent has changed from the ancestor in a way that makes it look like it has become an entirely new group. I am not fond of this.

On my phylogeny, the emphasis is placed on how even though the descendent has changed from its ancestor, it does not fall outside of the ancestor’s group.

Now onto the topic of monophyletic groups and paraphyletic groups. A monophyletic group is a group that contains organisms that share a common ancestor. A paraphyletic group is a group that contains the descendants of a common ancestor, but excludes some of the descendants of that ancestor as well. For you visual learners out there, here is an example from Wikipedia.

The blue group is a monophyletic group because every descendent of that branch is included. The blue and green group put together are a monophyletic group because every descendant of that branch is included.

The green group by itself is a paraphyletic group because it excludes the blue group. Not every descendent of the green group’s ancestor is included.

Why do I have a problem with paraphyla? I find them to be arbitrary and therefore not really useful. If birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are reptiles, then why do we need to exclude birds from reptiles? I gain 0 amount of information from separating them, but I learn much more when they are included. This doesn’t mean you need to erase birds as a clade, it just means that birds are a type of reptile. Excluding them seems arbitrary to me. This paragraph just represents my own opinion. You are free to disagree, but I find that giving names only to monophyla keep things much more clear, concise, and consistent.

And now I must ask you, does this make sense? Are there any glaring issues I have missed? What are the pros and cons of each paraphyletic system, because mine sure isn’t flawless, but I want to see if you can spot any of the same ones that I did. Anyways thanks for reading my brain dump. You guys are cool.

[tyrantisterror]

THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE!  YOU THOUGHT THAT THE TIME OF MONSTERS WAS AT AN END!  BUT YOU WERE WRONG, FOR NOW YOU MUST WITNESS…

THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

That’s right, it’s back!  Celebrating the publication of The Atomic Time of Monsters Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! (which in turn completes The Ballad of Tyrantis arc for this series), I’m holding another monster design jam.  The third of such jams, in fact!

Like the first A.T.O.M. Create a Kaiju Contest, the aim of this contest is to create kaiju that would fit within the setting of my big kaiju story series, The Atomic Time of Monsters.  Think of it as me letting you into my sandbox to play with my toys for a bit, or like you’re being put in the director’s chair of a new ATOM-verse kaiju movie.  That means your entry does have to fit into ATOM’s world, which in turn means that yes, there are limitations to your creativity here.  But limitations can be good sometimes - they can make us explore options we wouldn’t consider when given completely free rein to do what we want!

(also you don’t have to make a three dimensional image or anything, the title’s just a pun on how the third movie in a monster movie franchise will often be a 3-D film)

Read below the cut to learn the rules and whatnot:

THE RULES:

1.  You are limited to one entry per person.  Work hard and make your entry count!

2.  Your kaiju must have some sort of description of its physical appearance and its personality - you can submit a drawing or a written description (or both!) for the physical appearance depending on what you’re most comfortable with.  Using the same template/format as my official ATOM Kaiju Files (https://horrorflora.com/monster-menageries/atom-kaiju-files/) isn’t required, but it was cool when people did it in the last contest, so feel free to do so this time too!

3. The kaiju you create must specifically be created for this contest  - no repurposing characters you made for other, wildly different stories.  This is not “trick TT into drawing/canonizing my main OC” time.

4. The kaiju must fit the setting and aesthetics of ATOM.  I’ll explain this in more detail down below.

5. The kaiju should add something meaningful to the world of ATOM. The more unique and interesting your kaiju is, the more likely you will win the contest.

6. Don’t make your kaiju too dependent on pre-existing ATOM characters - no “Tyrantis’s long lost evil brother who’s the strongest kaiju in the world.” These should be to Tyrantis’s story what War of the Gargantuas is to Godzilla’s movies – heroes (well, monsters) of another story in the same world.

THE REWARDS:

I will make pencil sketches of the top 5 entries in the contest.

I will then make fully rendered illustrations (lineart, colors, & shading) of the top three entries.

The winning entry will be made into a model ala the ones I’ve been making for ATOM’s core 50 monsters, which can then be shipped to the person who created it (should they be able to cover the shipping costs).  That’s right, your kaiju could be brought to life in THREE GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR DIMENSIONS!  (Hey, we worked the gag title in to the prizes!)

THE DEADLINE: All entries must be submitted by July 3rd, 2021.  You can submit it here on tumblr, via the horror flora e-mail, or any other channel you know how to reach me through.  I’m in a lot of places.

THE GUIDELINES (TO HELP YOUR ENTRY FIT THE RULES AND WIN):

The smartest thing you could do if you want to win this contest is familiarize yourself with the world of ATOM by, y’know, reading all the material I’ve published on the subject.  In addition to the many kaiju files that are free to read on horrorflora.com, there are now TWO, count ‘em, TWO novels in this series for you to peruse, both of which establish many of the rules of the setting as well as its general themes and tone!  You can get them in either paperback or e-book formatting (I’d recommend the former over the latter since I lack the technology to make a really nice ebook, but if money is an object, the kindle version is only $1).  Here’s the links again if you missed them:

Vol. 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us!

Vol. 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth!

However, since I know reading a bunch of stuff is, y’know, not something everyone is inclined to do, I’ll jot some good bullet points for you in an attempt to outline how ATOM works in a brief, easily digested way:

ATOM is an homage to the monster fiction of the 1950’s and 60’s (i.e. the Atomic Age), and is set in those two decades, albeit an alternate universe version of them where, y’know, monsters and space aliens exist.  If you aren’t familiar with the monster fiction I’m referring to, there will be some reference material provided at the end of this post along with some recommendations for further research.

Kaiju/giant monsters in ATOM work under very specific rules.  There’s a full description of those rules at this link, but here’s the jist:

ATOM Kaiju are created created by the radiation of a mineral called Yamaneon, which naturally converts harmful radiation into its own unique energy.  In natural circumstances, it takes hundreds of years of exposure to Yamaneon radiation for a creature to become fully transform into a kaiju (luckily, Yamaneon radiation slows the aging process while speeding up the healing process).  However, an explosive burst of energy - such as the geothermal and kinetic energy released by an earthquake, or the blast of a nuclear weapon - can speed up the process, turning a normal animal into a kaiju within a matter of seconds.  

All ATOM kaiju can heal grievous wounds within minutes or even seconds, are supernaturally strong and durable, and can convert harmful radiation to harmless energy that they then feed off of.  Kaiju do not have an equivalent of old age, and can theoretically live forever (though their violent lifestyle means that few do).

ATOM Kaiju generally don’t need to eat unless they are severely injured, getting most of the energy they need from solar or geothermal radiation - but many still have instincts that drive them to seek out food from time to time.

Most ATOM kaiju stand roughly 100 feet tall (depending on their body shape), i.e. smaller than the original 1954 Godzilla.  There are exceptions to this rule - younger kaiju can be smaller, while exceedingly old kaiju can be significantly larger, but these are rare.

In general, ATOM kaiju are significantly more intelligent and emotionally complex than people expect animals to be, though most are incapable of speech or complex tool use.  There’s a reason ATOM Kaiju Files have a “personality” section.

Most ATOM Kaiju are tooth and claw fighters - ranged weapons are a rarity in this setting.

While the terrestrial monsters in ATOM look strange, they are intended to fit within the taxonomy of animals in reality - reptiles, mammals, fish, arthropods, molluscs, etc.

ATOM’s mesozoic era was dominated by a fictional clade of crocodile-relatives called retrosaurs, which are based on the outdated paleoart that one would find in the 1950’s/60’s fiction - i.e. when dinosaurs were viewed as trail dragging lizards instead of strange birds.  You can learn more about retrosaurs here (https://horrorflora.com/2016/11/15/atom-kaiju-file-bonus-a-guide-to-retrosaurs/).

Kaiju appear on every continent in ATOM, but certain areas tend to be dominated by different types.

North America is mainly besieged by retrosaur kaiju and giant arthropods.

East Asia is technically also mainly plagued by retrosaurs and big arthropods, though they tend to look more fantastical and mythic - and, often, oddly well suited to being portrayed by a person wearing a monster suit.

Russia is beset by prehistoric monsters that seem to come from the Cenozoic, particularly the Ice Age.

Western Europe is plagued by creatures that vaguely resemble creatures from myth, if they were also prehistoric.  Dragon-y lizards, fiery birds, etc.

Towards the mid-way point of ATOM’s timeline, earth is invaded by a coalition of aliens from different solar systems called the Beyonder Alliance, and as a result a bunch of alien monsters can be found on earth.

Mars and Venus both host (or hosted in Mars’s case) animal life.  The surviving Martians colonized Venus, and sent some of their kaiju guardians to earth to help us fend off the Beyonders (who are responsible for the destruction of Mars’s ecosystem).  Martian and Venusian kaiju have specific anatomical quirks, which you can see by looking at these kaiju files:

Venusians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/03/atom-kaiju-file-29-karamtor/

Martians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-39-kemlasulla/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-40-podritak/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-41-sombarvot/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-38-ullawdra/

Giant robots exist in ATOM, but are big, bulky, and incredibly expensive.  Fancy beam weapons also exist, but are similarly clunky - there are no sleek, elegant machines in ATOM.

Since the fiction ATOM takes inspiration from was made at a time when interplanetary travel was only just beginning to be possible, its scope is significantly smaller than modern sci-fi.  Alternate universes/dimensions were pretty uncommon because the idea of alien planets still held a lot of wonder to it.  So, as a general rule, don’t try to go farther than the one galaxy.

ATOM is a setting for stories that are focused on humanity learning to coexist with monsters, rather than humanity destroying them.  A certain level of sympathy is put into almost every creature of its canon, even the ones that are meant to be villains.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Here is a playlist of 1950′s monster movie trailers.  

Here is some reference material from various monster comics of the 50′s and 60′s. 

Good movies to track down to understand ATOM’s inspiration and tone include Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Them!, The Black Scorpion, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Gamera, The Giant Claw, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

And here’s the intro cutscenes for all the different giant monsters in the PS2 videogame War of the Monsters.

[mt-clydesdale-poke-santuary]

Pokemon Patterns & Regional Variants

When you’re doing research on regional variants, you’ll inevitably come across the “Vivillon Adaptability Scale” (VAS) created by Dr Lamarack de Monet in 1804. This scale was developed based on, you guessed it, the Kalosian butterfly pokemon and focused on their various morphs. During Lamarack’s time, there were ten observed and noted variations of Vivillon, all of which made it into his later work “Kalosian Invertebrates: The general and particular characteristics of these Pokemon”.

The Lamarack VAS measures a species adaptability to their environment as is and without major genetic or phenomenological change. A pokemon with a high VAS reading is of course Vivillon which can be found in various biomes across the world without any change to their typing or bodies, beyond colouration. Pokemon with a low VAS would be Meowth which has multiple variants that change typing and physiology, even gaining a entirely new evolution.

The VAS has been used sporadically in research since its inception, some scientists consider it invaluable when determining pokemon adaptability and others prefer more modern instruments like the “Eevee A-E-E Test”, a multi-variate test that includes way more data points. And just like every other branch of research, those in the field will argue about which theories are right, who’s outdated and who should be banned from the next convention because they’re zubat shit bonkers.

Fun fact! There are ongoing debates on whether or not Beautifly and Dustox actually exist since they both evolve from the same base pokemon. Right now there’s a theory going around that the original pokemon are actually Cascoon and Dustox since moth pokemon have been placed further back on the evolutionary taxonomy than butterfly pokemon. According to the theory, Cascoon and Dustox were drawn to early human settlements due to their light but early humans considered them pests. Over time though, less aggressive Dustox were bred with Butterfree until they produced the daytime variant, Beautifly.

Supporting arguments include the “Beauty Contest Theory” which claim aggressive, powerful pokemon were specifically bred for aesthetically appealing characteristics. Milotic, Bellossom and Lopunny are prime examples of the Contest Theory with their original counterparts being Gyarados, Vileplume and Diggersby. However, these pokemon are considered for the Contest Theory due to their hyperspecific evolution methods whereas Wurmple has a random chance of evolving into either Cascoon or Silcoon.

Eh it’s a work in progress, just like other Contest Theory pokemon tbh, because coming back to the original point, would those pokemon be considered variants or have they drifted far enough to be classified as their own specific pokemon (the way we do right now)? And when you’re talking about variants as a whole, always remember it’s never as cut and dry as you think. Alolan Ninetales adapted to the cold by entirely losing its original typing but ice-pattern Vivillon exist just fine with a change of pattern and a fuzzy coat :3

[fatehbaz]

A thing that I love to do is to intentionally unlearn English common names for plants and animals. Ascribing of strict formal names to living things for processing through institutionalized knowledge systems is an act of capture. And I am not interested in capturing, possessing, any creature. Why do I call the “Idaho giant salamander” the “Nez Perce giant salamander” instead? Does the salamander have a meaningful reciprocal relationship with a political entity less than 200 years old, or does the salamander have a relationship with the ancient cedars of the rainforest? Which has existed longer: the arbitrary political entity of Idaho, or the Nez Perce people? Who has known these forests? What do some English common names teach us about a creature? Names are powerful. These are things that I often contemplate together in relation to each other: folk taxonomy, animal naming conventions, the way that people like Robin Kimmerer write about “the power of names,” erasure of local environmental knowledge, and rare and endemic species with specific microhabitat preferences. I know this doesn’t sound like a new or original observation, and it’s not. And forgive me for my navel-gazing tone of voice here, but I’ll try to describe why this is important to me.

What would you call this creature?

 A frog species might only live in one small stream system, cascading down the north slope of a single mountain ridge in temperate rainforest of the Andean slopes, in the traditional territory of the Mapuche people; the frog might always be found living alongside a special isopod, a rare orchid, and a community of soil microorganisms, all of which share the same dependence on these little pockets of suitable habitat in the shade of forest, at the streamside. Is the frog named after the stream, the source of its life? Is it named after the temperate rainforest ecoregion, this safe harbor of fertile vegetation which the frog requires? Does its name refer to the aquatic invertebrates that it relies on for food? If the rare orchid is always present, perhaps the frog might have a name alluding to the wildflowers? Does the name reference the Mapuche, who have known the frog for centuries? You might come to find, instead, that the frog is named for a museum curator in London who had never visited the Andes, or the frog is named after an eighteenth century plantation owner who contracted the European land surveyors to map the area.

As a little kid, I would draw my own custom “homemade” distribution maps for reptiles and amphibians. (I wanted to see snakes. Much of western Canada and the US had not really been surveyed for these creatures; at the library, the outdated mid-twentieth century field guides provided distribution maps, with huge question marks labelled over vast regions of geographic space. You had to guess where the creatures lived based on habitat associations with specific plants, which also required looking at plant distribution maps.) So I would be irritated to notice, when comparing maps, that a creature might have a distribution range that was so closely tied to a very specific landscape, with a very specific wider ecological community of plants and soil types that was also closely tied to that region, and yet the animal would be named after a wealthy Dutch scientist. A salamander might only live in one single river’s watershed, and would always live alongside a certain specific moss or fish or mollusc, and instead of being named after that ecoregion or after the Indigenous people who maintained the regional ecology, the creature would be called something like:

 “Smith’s salamander.” Now, not only has the creature been captured by formal name, but it’s also been possessed by an individual, literally given the name of a single powerful European administrator.

Does this name respect the creature? What does this name tell us about the entity? What does this name gift to you? I understand that no name in human tongue will convey the entire essence and weight of a creature.

But to me, this European style of naming still seemed inadequate, these names didn’t seem like they reflected anything about the creature itself. The name didn’t reflect where it lived, how it behaved, what its habits were, the fact that the frog seemed to love shaded north-facing slopes, the local culture that interacted with it for centuries, the trees and wildflowers and millipedes and ferns that happened to live in every place where you would also find the frog. A frog might be named after an imperial British adventurer who recorded the creature for audiences at European museums. They called “dibs” on the frog, despite the fact that local Indigenous communities may have had an ongoing relationship with the creature for centuries. So I would try to learn a folk name for the creature, or instead I would apply a new name for an animal based on the geographic area, ecoregion, plant community, or ecocultural region that the creature was most closely associated with.

The amphibians that I interact with, maybe more than any other, are the Pacific giant salamanders. They are the largest terrestrial salamanders in the world; there are only 4 species, in the same genus, and all of them are endemic only to the streams in temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest. They’re capable of “yelping,” like a bark or shout. Uncannily similar to a dog or child. Their aquatic larvae swim around in small, shallow, cold, fast-flowing mountain streams in the shade of pine forests with many hanging arboreal lichens, sometimes congregating in the relatively still pools beneath small waterfalls. At night, in heavy rain, the large adults may crawl across the moss-covered cedar logs of the streamside. Only one of the species lives away from the Pacific coast. Dicamptodon aterrimus, known in English as “Idaho giant salamander,” lives in the inland temperate rainforest region, away from the ocean. “Idaho” is a political entity with arbitrary borders. The salamander being named after “Idaho” does not reflect the fact that the salamander is closely associated with cedar, hemlock, mosses, lichens, ferns, fungus, and tailed frogs in mountains of the inland temperate rainforest region. The salamander is found almost entirely within the traditional land of the Nez Perce people. The extent of Nez Perce territory, and the extent of the giant salamander’s presence, mirror each other  very closely. 

And so I pointedly call this rainforest creature the “Nez Perce giant salamander.”

I think that maybe no name can do justice to the entire rich existence of a creature, but we can really do better than some English common names, especially in those cases when an animal is named after a lone individual human. And so, in naming, there might be a difficult decision to make. Do you name a creature for its behavior, its location, its appearance, its season of activity, its prefered habitat, its companion species? Maybe you have your own, personal, relationship with the creature. A living thing has so many interweaved relationships with others. Maybe its “meaning” changes with context or season or emotional state of the human observer. Maybe I will sometimes call the creature “the cedar salamander” or the “guardian of the waterfall pools” or “the giant of the stream” or “moss dragon” or whatever.

More navel-gazing: We are all of us, salamander and human, more rich and complex than associations with mere behavior, appearance, habitat preference, or the surveyors that try to capture and catalogue us. And sometimes, I’m uncomfortable enclosing us with a strict name. I don’t assume that I know enough about a living thing to possess it through formal naming conventions.