New Changes to Old Names

 Well, I kinda got a burst of inspiration from working on the Australian bush foxes yesterday. So, I've been working on my checklist for Metazoica. I thought it was proper to add the other foxes to the canine family in the Metazoic, because to be honest with you, I don't believe foxes are going anywhere. There's a slight difference. There are 4 genera of foxes, instead of simply using the one that is classified today. I divided the genus Vulpes into 4 separate genera. I'm using not only Vulpes (northern forest foxes), but also Fennecus (for old world desert foxes), Neocyon (for American prairie foxes) and Alopex for the arctic and corsac foxes. Then, of course I added Urocyon, which is a genus currently in use today for the gray foxes.

I also added a few species of my own to these genera. For example, the silver and "cross fox" are separate species in the genus Vulpes. Today, they are simply mutations of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). But, I figure by the time the Metazoic comes around, those varieties will have had enough time to become separate, solid species of their own. So, in the Metazoic, there is not only V. vulpes (or the red fox), there is also V. cinereus (silver fox), V. variegatus (or the canadian variegated fox--known today as the "cross fox"), and V. decassatus (the scandinavian variegated fox). I've seen pictures of cross foxes before. Their markings and colorings seem to be fairly uniform among individuals. So, I think there is some potential for a distinct species in the Metazoic. But instead of calling them "cross foxes", which is basically a pub name for the animals, I call them Variegated foxes because I think it sounds more scientific.

I am also trying to fix a lot of the generic names of my animals as well. Particularly the species I thought up back when I started this project. In those days, the only guide I had to determine scientific names for the animals I came up with was my father's Spanish dictionary. Half of the species, I don't even remember what their names mean. I cannot change the species names, that gets confusing! Which kinda sucks because I have some species named after people I'm not even speaking to anymore! But I made the stupid mistake once of changing a species entire classification, that was the genus and species name. I see it in old texts of my Metazoic checklist, and now I cannot even find it in the newer texts. I don't remember what I changed it from! UGH! Or even if I changed it at all. I MUST have! Because there's a picture of a species of that genus in a book I did back in 2000. So, my frail, zombie-like state that I was in between 1998 and 2000 did not cause the loss of that species. It had to have somehow been lost after 2000.

However, I frequently change generic names. Mostly because my mind is evolving along with today's mammals. My father's little Spanish dictionary is simply not useful anymore for naming species. And then also in those days, I was just learning Latin and Greek, two of the more typical languages used to create scientific names. I wasn't as fully versed in those languages as I am now. Plus, in those days, we didn't have Google. So, coming up with generic names that has anything to do with the animals' appearance or characters was a lot more difficult back in the early days of Metazoica. I cannot discuss the exact changes in generic names I've made, there's simply too many. But you can see them in my next edition of my Metazoic checklist. You can order the next checklist for a mere $21.57 by clicking on the picture in the sidebar⟶⟶ 

Sorry, I will no longer be offering the checklist for free. Google is being a bitch about my storage space and sharing!

Another thing I finally did that I'd been meaning to do now for years! Murognathus. Originally, it was in the Deinognathidae family. But having tweaked it some, I've decided to make it into its own family. Now it is the single genus in the family Murognathidae. Still has 2 species. But being it lives in Batavia (Hawaii) and would have likely descended from a different ancestor than Deinognathus and its kin, I felt it was only proper to finally place it in a family group of it's own. I'm even thinking of completely removing the family from the order of Trelatebrates, and make them more closely related to the cats of Hawaii. Such a thing happens like once in 100 years in classification. It happened with the aye-aye from Madagascar. They were originally believed to be rodents. Then it was realized they are really and truly primates. So, I may be doing the same and completely reclassifying Murognathus. And the cats that took up being wild in Hawaii have to go somewhere. It doesn't look like they are going to become extinct.

I've even been thinking about it carefully, and may someday remove the entire Deinognathoidea from the order of Trelatebrates, though I might keep them closely related, I don't know. But they are very different from other families in the Trelatebrates. They are much more carnivorous and have carnivorian teeth and jaws. Part of what influenced this rethinking is this picture that I got from an AI program when I put in a description of Tamanoa...

If you notice, it looks very catlike. That was just using a few descriptive words. The last thing on my mind was cats and panthers. I remember when I used to get on the Speculative evolution forum, a lot of those people complained because I modeled the Deinognathids from elephant shrews instead of cats. But looking at this image from AI, after putting in a detailed description of what Tamanoa is supposed to look like, I don't know! I kinda like it. I can see this animal running after prey and eating other animals in the Metazoic.