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[Chrizzy]

Re: Magnus Irae Pantibus

[tMan930]

Re: Magnus Irae Pantibus

[tMan930]

Re: Magnus Irae Pantibus

[jamman1]

Re: Magnus Irae Pantibus

[Capitan_Barbossa]

My contribution to our affectionate MGP:

Xenomonstrous Terroquaticus NuevaYorkus

[Chrizzy]

Not to sound like I'm taking this over, but this is more fun than, perhaps, it should be, lol.

This what I have so far:

Life
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: ?????
Order: ?????
Family: Monstridae
Genus: Grandis
Species: Profundum (or whatever)

As for Class...MGP may fit in with Amphibia, but it'd be a tight squeeze. I'd feel better if we made a new Class.
And, as for Order...we have to make up one of these, too, 'cause Order goes along with class, and, even if we think MGP fits in Amphibia, it doesn't fit in any of the current Amphibia Orders.

[Mikeyj]

This has got me thinking too much for my own good. And I was always bad at zoology, if it don't fit under a microscope (whole, not hacked-off lumps) it's hard to keep my attention.

Naming using Linnaeus' binomial system requires a half-hearted attempt at classification. I'm tempted to stick it in a whole new Kingdom, but that's lazy, so here goes. You can use the "tree-of-life" here for reference. I don't like trees that aren't based on DNA or protein sequence information, but I'm swallowing my professional prejudices.

Domain is the top-level classification, there are three domains, Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. All the big-stuff's in Eukarya, and I'm assuming that it's a multicellular organism so Eukarya it is. Lovely, we've crossed off most of life on Earth, so there's not many things left it can be related to.

The next big feature that's useful is the fact that it eats people. Or at least has a big mouth with teeth and such like. Not a lot of use for teeth if you're a plant, so I'm assuming that it eats other stuff for energy rather than producing its own via photosynthesis. Plants crossed off.

It has bilateral symmetry, rather than radial so we're ditching the challenging to pronounce Cnidaria (the uncharismatic jellyfish and corals, I really don't fancy a monster coral movie. Polyp from the Black Lagoon anyone?).

More easy classification, it seems to have a backbone. Bye bye Arthropods and Molluscs, this isn't Arachnophobia or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Let's also ditch the starfish, sea cucumbers and urchins at this point. I feel justification is unnecessary here.

So we're in with the vertebrates; it's either a mammal, bird, reptile, fish or amphibian.

It gets trickier to find distinguishing characteristics here that are consistent to one branch or another. No information on how it reproduces, though mammals are usually furry. Has anyone who's seen the film noticed whether MGP has nipples? I'm making an executive 'it's not a mammal' decision.

I'm ditching birds as no feathers.

Reptile, fish or amphibian. It's capable of marine existence. There are marine reptiles (sea snakes, marine iguanas, turtles), but considering it's not often seen on the surface or on land (just the once so far) it doesn't have to come up to breathe that often.

Fish and amphibians. Within the fish it has to be capable of breathing air, so that rules out most of them.

Within the amphibians, MGP has a tail - my blinding logic reveals that he/she is not a frog.

In conclusion, it's a great big Lungfish, but with better lungs and a bad temper, or an over-large newt or salamander. Salamanders are cool and can regenerate body parts. The biggest of the salamander family are these guys, though it's safe to say that MGP would probably be a new genus in this family. Cryptandrias rex?

To shoot myself in the foot, extra arms don't really support any of this at all and new Kingdom's much more fun.

[jamman1]

Re: Magnus Irae Pantibus

[Chrizzy]

To Mikeyj: I'd actually prefer giving MGP its own class. When you start mixing amphibia and ichthyes (which is what MGP appears to be doing), then that's what you need...a new class to encompass the relavent parts of both.

[d0nu7]

The little buggers, as I think they are related to crabs, (specifically Japanese spider crabs) would probably go:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Infraorder: Brachyura
Superfamily: Majoidea
Family: Majidae
Genus: Parasite
Species: P. trifolium

And for MGP, personally I doubt it would warrant a new kingdom, let alone a new phylum, but a new order is possible.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Neptunus(latin name for god of the sea)
Family: Belua (beast)
Genus: Invictus
Species: I. multiartus(multi jointed)

I don't know, this a lowly biology major babbling on about his worst part of the subject, lol. I like Mikeyj's approach, but I think MGP deserves a new order. Now that I look back some of this doesn't make much sense. Bah.

[Chrizzy]

Maybe it should be of the order Abramida

[d0nu7]

Abramida? Either I'm mistaken but I haven't heard of that order. What does it mean if it is a new one?

[Chrizzy]

[d0nu7]

Wow, can't believe I was so stupid to miss that. I was overthinking it a little bit lol! I like your classifications better than mine. I just wish I could see the autopsy and study of the little bastards. That would be like a dream thing to work on!

[Chrizzy]

I'd like to know if MGP is cold-blooded or not. Are there any visible characteristics that make it evident whether an animal is cold- or warm-blooded?

Even after we have the name down, there's something else to decide...and that is, who's gonna write the Wikipedia artcile. lol