yall joke but this is actually a serious conundrun with cladistic-based classification
The choice is this:
Birds are reptiles
Or crocodilians (and probably turtles) ARENT
That’s it, that’s the choice
What if Bird and reptiles are two different things that came from the same thing
Nope
Because you can’t group (lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians) without also including (birds)
So if you don’t want to include birds in reptiles then you have to leave out some things we’ve called reptiles
birds are dinosaurs though, full stop. we’ve already defined what a dinosaur is and it includes birds. but reptiles isn’t really defined so much as thrown against a wall angrily.
But don’t turtles and alligators have more in common with modern reptiles than modern birds have in common with modern reptiles?
I’m not trying to contradict, I’m trying to understand. Mammals and reptiles have a common ancestor as well, but we do not make them the same group.
It’s not about having things in common. It’s about common ancestry, which is how we classify animals in light of extinct species, which defy trait-based classification.
And, the common ancestor of [lizards, snakes, tuatara, turtles, crocodilians] by definition is also the common ancestor of birds. It is NOT the common ancestor of mammals.
So, either we decide that Tuatara Lizards and Snakes are the only reptiles, or we include birds as reptiles. Or we just decide reptiles are no longer a thing.
i say we allow birds to be classified as reptiles. i wanna live in a society where we complain about sea reptiles swooping in and stealing our fries
@ adults who grew up in the age of “don’t even give out your first name online” what was ur fake name growing up online
I went by Snowfall on neopets for six years.
I went by Flicker for years and still have a friend that calls me this lmao
Moosh! Not based on anything, just thought it sounded cute
i think the first name i ever went by online was DEL which kind of stuck with me as i went through my gender discovery so now when i change my name and gender legaly im going to change it so my initials are DEL
