#taxonomizing

"god is a woman and exists" - feminist religious

"god is a man and doesn't exist" - classic atheist

The term fish is commonly used to refer to members of Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish, mostly what people think of when they imagine fish)and Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish, the sharks, rays, etc, and chimeras). It is also used for Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fish, the coelacanths and lungfish) and Agnatha (jawless fish, the hagfish and lampreys), although people don’t talk about lobe-finned and jawless fish as much as they do ray-finned fish and sharks. Tetrapoda (four-limbed vertebrates) is nested within Sarcopterygii, and mostly contains animals which traditionally have not been considered fish (you, me, your cat, the chicken eating your popcorn, the frog hopping away from the chicken). In modern cladistics, this is a little bit of an issue, because the common use of fish as described above is paraphyletic, i.e. it does not include all of the descendants of the group’s last common ancestor. Here are some different ways this issue can be resolved. 

Option 1: Fish is not a cladistic term, and therefore we don’t need to worry about whether it’s a good and well formed clade. Reasonable and understandable, we have loads of scientific terms to unambiguously talk about groups of animals, but also boring. Play with me in this space!

Option 2: Fish includes Osteichthyes (Actinopterygii plus Sarcopterygii), Chondrichthyes, and Agnatha, therefore it is essentially synonymous with Vertebrata. You, me, and Moby Dick are all joyfully fish (Melville was right!) (and also a fish). Is this really helpful? Maybe not, but it’s fun. 

Option 3: Fish is not a cladistic term, it’s a non-scientific term used to refer to any animal that lives in the water. Jellyfish are fish, starfish are fish, dolphins are fish, humans are not fish, why would you ever suggest such a silly thing?

Option 4: Fish is essentially synonymous with Vertebrata, so why not expand that to all of Chordata? Tunicata and Cephalochordata are welcomed into the Fish Club. 

Option 5: Fish is a lifestyle. In the same way that a tree is any plant that gets tall and kinda woody, a fish is an obligate aquatic animal that actively swims. Salmon are fish, tadpoles are fish, frogs are not fish, sea stars are not fish, porpoises are fish, octopuses (-pi, -podes) are fish, most gastropods are not fish, but Phylliroe is absolutely a fish. 

Which of the two following birds are more closely related, and which one is the outgroup? Answers under the cut. (Disclaimer: I'm not a bird scientist, just a gal reading Wikipedia, so if the latest science disagrees with any of these, please let me know! Also I am linking to the Wikipedia pages for all of these birds, so you see the relationships as they currently stand for yourself)

Round 1:

A) Quail plover (Ortyxelos meiffrenii) (Nigel Voaden) B) European herring gull (Larus argentatus) (Andreas Trepte) C) Short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) (James Lloyd)

Round 2:

A) Parakeet auklet (Aethia psittacula) (Art Sowls) B) European herring gull (Larus argentatus) (Andreas Trepte) C) Great skua (Stercorarius skua) (Ómar Runólfsson)

Round 3:

A) Parakeet auklet (Aethia psittacula) (Art Sowls) B) Erect-crested penguin (Eudyptes sclateri) (C00ch) C) Short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) (James Lloyd)

people back in the day were right to call the flute in G one fourth below the standard flute the bass flute, instead of the alto flute like we call it now. the whole family makes more sense if you treat them like the recorders. the standard C flute matches the range of the tenor recorder, and the picolo matches the soprano recorder. here’s how i would rename the flute family (also every flute should get an extension to written B3), the format as follows is [naming note+octave]: [current name] -> [my proposed new name]

C5: piccolo -> soprano (piccolo can stay as an alternate name)

G4: treble -> alto

C4: flute -> tenor

G3: alto -> bass

C3: bass -> greatbass

G2: greatbass -> contrabass

C2: contrabass -> subcontrabass

Here lies a list of a few providers/platforms for publishing App Books and Magazines. It purposefully ignores aggregator apps like Flipboard and Zite.

Inkling

Baker

Laker Compendium

PugPig

Woodwing (in bed with Adobe now)

Adobe Digital Editions

Kindle

OnSwipe

Treesaver

Bibliotype

Additions, please.