This is just a request for a bit of help with my Advanced Bio final project. We have to create an organism, and do all sorts of fun stuff like decide how it evolved, what its body systems are like, consumer/producer, etc., and just generally a bunch of work that turns out to be pretty amusing.
The organism I decided to create, or rather explain, was Animal, from “The Muppet Show.” I’ve got just about everything done so far (the food web was easy, since he eats everything), but I need to think up a scientific name for the organism. I tried looking in our book for the process to naming organisms, but to no avail, and the teacher doesn’t want us to just make something Latin-sounding up. So my plan to dub it Animalis Muppetis seems to be in a bit of trouble.
So, science Dopers, I come to you in my time of need. What factors go into the construction of a scientific name, and how in God’s name to they pertain to a fictional, drum-playing muppet?
I’m not sure why you shouldn’t just make up something Latin sounding - it’s what the actual biologists seem to do. There’s a louse called “Strigiphilus garylarsoni” and a dinosaur called "Masiakasaurus knopfleri " after Mark Knopfler. As well as a midge dubbed “Dicrotendipes thanatogratus” by a Deadhead and a wasp called "Polemistus chewbacca " by a “Star Wars” fan.
The pattern seems to be “use an existing genus or make up a descriptive name for it, then go ahead and exercise whimsy with the species name”.
I like “Muppetus Bashofreneticus” off the top of my head, but that won’t fly, I suppose.
Taxonomic nomenclature is easy to describe, though tough to carry out.
One is required to coin a name, using Latin (or Latinized Greek) roots for common-noun terms and Latinizations of personal and place names, etc., where a proper noun is being incorporated. The trivial name identifying the species must modify the generic name identifying the genus, and the genus name must be unique within each kingdom (it’s permissible to have a plant and an animal with the same genus name, and there are a few such genera). Always capitalize the generic name and lowercase the trivial name, regardless of source. The classification would then have to identify the organism’s classification at the mandatory higher levels: family, order, class, and phylum, with any needed sub- and super- classifications included.
E.g., if you were naming a new species of wolf, you’d use Canis (dogs, wolves, and coyotes) for the genus and ceciladamsi if you were naming it after Cecil. If you discovered a new genus of frog in Madagascar, you might name it Xenorana malagasiensis, assuming that Xenorana is not already in use. To properly construct a new genus for Animal, you’d have to search the entire zoological literature to ensure that nobody has already used the particular construction you wish to use.
We had this argument in another thread when many Dopers incorrectly argued that Oscar the Grouch is not a monster. In fact, he is a species in the genus monsterus, as is Animal. Muppet taxonomy is as follows:
KINGDOM: Animalia (Animals)
PHYLUM: Manochordate (Having spines made of puppeteer’s hands or bodies)
CLASS: Puppets
ORDER: Cutefeltia
FAMILY: Muppets
GENUS: I have indentified five separate Genus for Muppets, including:
Monsterus, (incl. Grover, Cookie Monster, Animal, Oscar, Telly, etc.)
Humuppetus (incl. Ernie, Bert, Scooter, most of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, etc.)
Amphimuppetus (jncl. Kermit, his nephew)
Fuzzimuppetus (incl. Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Rowf)
Avimuppetus (Big Bird, Sam the Eagle)
Animal is therefore species Monsterus percussionus, so named because he plays the drums. “Monsterus animalius” would be too confusing with phylum “animalia.”
Completely separate is Gonzo, who as we now know is an alien, not evolved from Earth life, and so I don’t know how to classify him.
I’m not sure I’m satisfied with that classification, RickJay. It looks like your genera correspond to classes of chordata (amphibians, mammals, and birds, respectively), and I would suspect that all of the Humuppeti would be of the same species (yes, Bert and Ernie look significantly different, but then, so do Gordon and Mr. Hooper). And you would seem to only have one class in phylum manochordata, although that’s not necessarily a problem.
I’ll leave out the fact that some Muppets are apparently members of kingdoms other than Animalia (I know I’ve seen singing trees, and I’m not willing to rule out mushrooms, either), and there are many other alien muppets (the Meep-meeps from Sesame Street and Yoda come to mind).
Where do the Doodlebugs and the Fraggles fit in, by the way?
Yeah, Rickjay, I’d classify Animal in genus Homuppitus (or, as you prefer, the older spelling Humuppius) He’s bipedal, is never considered a monster, does not have hair all over his body, as is typical of monsters, and in many other ways, doesn’t seem to fit into the genus Monsterus. What we’re seeing here is a seperate species of humaniform muppet.
Definitely – Animal is no monster; he’s a humaoid muppet who needs a shave and a haircut. Animal has to be ~human. It’s funny to call an animalistic person “Animal”; it’s dumb to call an actual animal “Animal.”
It is customary if not mandatory that a family’s name be created from a genus within it (deemed the type genus) by dropping the ending and adding -idae. Hence “Family Muppets” would not be acceptable – you would need to select one of the five genera and modify it appropriately: Monsteridae, Humuppetidae*, Amphimuppetidae, Fuzzimuppetidae, or Avimuppetidae. I’ve starred my own preference, as the “type Muppet” would probably come from within that group.
Wow. These are some really great answers, and I can’t profess to understand everything completely, but from what I can follow, this is actually really interesting.
As for the Homuppitus vs. Monsterus, I think I’m going to end up going with Monsterus, simply because Animal’s brethren are classified in the paper as Cave Trolls. So as it stands right now, Animal has the scientific name of Monsterus bashofreneticus, thanks to yabob for the second part. Debates are still open, however, since the paper isn’t due until tomorrow.
All Humuppetis are, in fact, Humuppetus sapien. You’re right, they are all the same species. It’s a genus of one species. That would include Ernie, Bert, Scooter, Stadtler and Waldorf, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, The Swedish Chef, and so on. Well, the jury’s out on Beaker.
I’m starting to wonder if I wasn’t wrong about Animal, because it occurs to me that he may, in fact, be the last remaining member of a species we thought was extinct: Humuppetus neanderthal.
The meep-meep aliens, like Gonzo, aren’t classified under my taxonomy. We need a comprehensive understanding of the zoology of their home worlds before coming up with one. I haven’t gotten around to plants yet. Are there Muppet bacteria?
As for Yoda, I have it on good authority that in fact there are not one, but two Yodas. The Yoda we were introduced to in “the Empire Strikes Back” is apparently classified as Xenomuppetus jedi, but the one we saw in “Attack of the Clones” was apparently a new species, Seegeeeye phonius.
What an excellent question. Fraggles are, of course, Monsterus fragglus. Doodlebugs, good question. Unfortunately the damned Henson site is harder to navigate than the Bermuda Triangle, so i’m having trouble getting some evidence I need.
