The Taxonomy

[Human No More]

Well, the actual taxonomic name of a species can take quite a while to be established, it isn't a 'oh, well x person who discovered it called it y so we have to go with that', especially with an incorrect genus.

As for dinosaurs, they were not only one genus, neither was dinosaur some taxonomic name, just the generic name that referred to a wide group of related genus and species (technically, it could be applied to one superorder containing multiple orders, families, genus AND species).

Txur'Itan, that only fits if the rules of classification have been changed in the 22nd century. There is clearly no evolutionary link between Na'vi and humans and no common ancestor, so placing the two in the same genus is incorrect. Homo refers to a genus, not to species that are 'similar to' humans (or the majority or primates would be included). The point is that you can go up a level (e.g. species to genus or genus to family) and have the groups below be demonstrably related.

[Txur’Itan]

If you were to design a way to taxonomically name Alien species, would you prefer to use familiar hierarchical systems, or completely new vocabulary? 

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

You can only use familiar terms if you envision the creation of a completely separate system. Doing this within the existing framework wouldn't work. Applying the genus homo to any Pandoran organism would be cladistically invalid. The genus would no longer be monophyletic. In fact it wouldn't have any basis in phylogeny at all.

As terrestrial life and pandoran life are separate trees I think it is just possible (but highly unlikely) that a distinct, separate system would be created. All terrestrial names would then be up for grabs.

[Amaya]

Personally I think using the genus "Homo" would be appropriate ONLY if the Class, Order and Family were different.  In that case, the use of "Homo" would be in reference to the similarities of the Genera, and not imply that they were a member of the "Primates Homonidae Homo" genus.

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

Personally I think using the genus "Homo" would be appropriate ONLY if the Class, Order and Family were different.  In that case, the use of "Homo" would be in reference to the similarities of the Genera, and not imply that they were a member of the "Primates Homonidae Homo" genus.

It's different all the way up to the top of the hierarchy.

[Amaya]

Personally I think using the genus "Homo" would be appropriate ONLY if the Class, Order and Family were different.  In that case, the use of "Homo" would be in reference to the similarities of the Genera, and not imply that they were a member of the "Primates Homonidae Homo" genus.

It's different all the way up to the top of the hierarchy.

Well, quite likely, but I would think that Animalia and Chordata can still be presumed to apply, and possibly Mammalia, although perhaps not XD that debate is in a different thread though.

Maybe just add "P" for "Pandora"?  so "P-Animalia P-Chordata Pseudomammalia" etc.

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

They may appear to belong to Animalia but I think this is just convergent evolution. I think they're no more members of Animalia than an echidna is a hedgehog.

[Amaya]

>.> Ooookay, so what would you classify them as if not animals?  Please remember, protozoa are technically animals too.

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

That's what's so amazing! It's an entirely separate tree of life! You can make up new labels or re-use old ones with the understanding that they have no relation to organisms on Earth. I like your idea of P-Animalia, P-Chordata indicating that these are Pandoran analogues of familiar terrestrial forms. Perhaps Homo is really P-Homo?

[Amaya]

  glad you like my reasoning!  Being of both a scientific (although I suppose certain people here would criticise my open-mindedness) and a writerly bent, the idea of coming up with totally new classification systems is fun, but at the same time, for clarification and ease of general understanding, keeping things roughly equivalent would be helpful, which is where I came up with the "P-" idea.  For Pandora you'd have to come up with a whole extra Kingdom anyway, most likely, as according to certain reference material they have what is known as "Zooplantae"

*grins* going through and coming up with complete taxonomic names for all the species of plants, animals and zooplantae we're aware of would be fun but far more effort than I'm willing to put in unless someone (Mr. Cameron, are you listening? *blinks innocently*) paid me to do it.

Which isn't all that likely to happen  but hey, you never know!

[Human No More]

Technically, they do still belong to Animalia (and chordata and mammalia) since nothing there calls for a specific single evolutionary history AFAIK, they just couldn't be in the same genus as unrelated species.

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

But if they're in mammalia (rather than just being mammal analogues) that would mean that they share a common ancestor with Earth mammals. That would imply that Pandora was deliberatly seeded with Earth mammals.

[Kekerusey]

If you were to design a way to taxonomically name Alien species, would you prefer to use familiar hierarchical systems, or completely new vocabulary? 

Good question ... personally I think they would go for familiar (unless there was another species involved that had it's own classification system). Furthermore they might have to introduce a new overarching grouping (above kingdoms or whatever) that defines the native planetary location so a full species name going down (or is it up) the tree-of-life would start with location and then on down to class and species.

Also, thinking on it more (even if "Homo" were allowed), Homo Pandorus is a daft name for another reason ... it doesn't allow for any other species related to the Na'vi to be classified properly (I'm thinking of the way humans are just one of 5 of the great apes on Earth.

Keke

[Human No More]

But if they're in mammalia (rather than just being mammal analogues) that would mean that they share a common ancestor with Earth mammals. That would imply that Pandora was deliberatly seeded with Earth mammals.

I said that AFAIK, there is no requirement for common ancestry at the kingdom, phylum or class level, but I may be wrong there (now I think about it, there's no reason that that would necessarily be true)
Thinking about it, having a second tree for life on Pandora actually makes a lot more sense.

[Eyawng te Klltepayu]

I said that AFAIK, there is no requirement for common ancestry at the kingdom, phylum or class level.

I think this used to be the case, but more recent attempts at classification try to make everything monophyletic.