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After seeing a video of a bat swimming and knowing that
there's a name for animals that can walk and swim, I
wondered if there was a designation for an animal that
could
also fly. I didn't find any and came up with the name
"aerophibian", or so I thought. I googled it and saw that
the name
had been
applied to a mythical comic book creature but not used
anywhere in science.
This is a perfectly good designation that should be
elevated
to "real word" status. Therefor the idea is for a new class
of animal called "aerophibians", ones that can walk, fly
and swim.
Count Duckula
https://en.wikipedi.../wiki/Count_Duckula
It all adds up ... [8th of 7, Jul 28 2016]
Trimodal Animal: Bat
http://www.earthtou...risingly-good-at-it
Swimming [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal Animal: Bat
https://www.youtube...watch?v=qWOUZAa5vlQ
Walking. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal Animal: Bat
https://www.youtube...watch?v=Upq7LyhCGXE
And of course, flying. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Flying Squirrel
https://www.youtube...watch?v=26O1FZaCSLE
Swimming. (couldn't find a flying squirrel but I'm sure flying squirrels can swim too.) [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Flying Squirrel
https://www.youtube...watch?v=1-FHzf4xnWw
Walking and flying. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Duck
https://www.youtube...watch?v=R3zsSMi24Gk
Swimming. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Duck
https://www.youtube...watch?v=XZVF0VS0VNQ
Walking. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Duck
https://www.youtube...watch?v=YP9ZyYZitpo
Flying. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Flying Dragon
https://www.youtube...watch?v=ewCCwMC46Pk
I'm sure it can swim. All lizards are good swimmers I think. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Trimodal animal: Flying Snake
https://www.youtube...watch?v=HMs8Cu8PNKM
Flying in this vid, but they can swim and travel on land as well obviously. [doctorremulac3, Jul 30 2016]
Neuston
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuston
Possibly fallacious justification for terms for groups of animals defined by their abilities and behavior rather than taxonomically [notexactly, Aug 01 2016]
(?) Cat-burning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-burning
Another form of cheap entertainment at cats' expense [notexactly, Aug 01 2016]
Trimodal animal: Water strider
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerridae
Interesting in that they traverse water using surface tension. [doctorremulac3, Aug 02 2016]
[link]
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Is this just an "mfd, naming?" |
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"Aerophibian" is an excellent word, except for the
fact that it's terrible. Greece may be on hard
times right now, but that's no justification for
mutilating their language. |
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"Amphibian" comes from Greek - the "amphi" bit
means "both" (like the "ambi" in "ambidextrous"),
and the "bian" bit means "life" (as in bio-). |
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So, the "phi" in "aerophibian" is only half of "both",
and an "aerophibian" would therefore be an "air-
bo-life" thing. |
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You might want to try something like
"triplophibian" ("three-fold life") or even
"oitreisbian" ("all three life"), or perhaps
"aeraquaterrian". |
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//Is this just an "mfd, naming?"// |
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Well, it's creating a new class of animal. Not sure if that's
just naming. I'll leave that one to the judges. I think new
designations should be allowed. Just naming something
like "Call all dogs: slogmotots" would be pointless naming
that would be MFD I'd think. |
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Would "Triphibian" work? It's currently a word meaning
"able to fight on land sea and in the air". |
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"Triphibian" again has that half-a-Greek-word "phi"
stuck in the middle, and therefore means "three-
bo-life". (Actually, the "phi" is the second half of
the Greek for "both", so I guess it would mean
"three-th-life".) |
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// it's creating a new class of animal. // Well sort
of, but not a sensible class. It's taxonomically
wrong, since the animals you're thinking of are
polyphyletic (ie, picked from different taxonomic
groups). It would be like creating a new class of
animal that includes all animals with reddish
markings. |
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Amphibians are a class of animal, but the name
denotes a taxonomic group - there are plenty of
amphibious animals that aren't amphibians. |
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Aeraquaterrian has a much better ring than triphibian. |
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Well, I think there should be a name for the group. There
are useful names and categories and not so useful
categories. If there were some link between all animals
with reddish markings, then indeed there should be a
category referring to it. The link between all
flying/swimming/walking animals is singular, they all live
and function in these three environments. There is no
link between animals that have reddish markings therefor
no need to consider this trait. |
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Maybe I'll post the various suggestions separately to be
voted on. I'll wait and see if there are others. I like
triphibian despite its not standing up to root
breakdown scrutiny. |
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Aeraquaterrian would work. |
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I like the idea of having tri in there though. Trikinision? As
in "The bat is one of few animals that practice trikinision,
flying, swimming and walking. Trimobility? Na. |
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Can you mix languages? How does this creating words
thing work anyway? What are the rules? I looked up "fin",
"foot" and "wing" but grinding those up and cramming
them into a word just makes a mess. |
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//Can you mix languages?// |
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Definitely not. The reason television never really
took off is that it is a mixture of Greek and Latin. |
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It's also worth noting that the Académie française
explicitly forbids foreigners from using french
words (or part-words) for non-french things.
Fortunately, the UK's Office for Public
Communication has, reciprocally, forbidden the
use of french words for any purpose, even in
France. |
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Aeraquaterrian. Dhunno, just sounds too sciency. Kids
should be able to remember it when they're at the zoo and
the tour guide points to the duck (it's a boring zoo) and says
"Do you know what an animal that can fly, swim or walk is
called?" |
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It should be short and catchy. Like "Twinkies". |
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[doc], have you ever asked a kid to name their
favourite dinosaur? If they don't say "Barney", they
are quite likely to say something like "Alcovasaurus
longispinus". (The ones who say "Barney" should, of
course, be beaten about the head with a blunt
object.) |
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"Omnibian"? Heh, I can sneak that into a review or
something. I reckon one of those diving gannets is
a reasonable example. |
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//(The ones who say "Barney" should, of course, be
beaten about the head with a blunt object.)// |
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Carefully administered corporal punishment involving
light head trauma never hurt my development into the
jenius I am today. |
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Max is the one to defer to on all that word stuff. I don't
cotton to all them book learnin' stuff. Max? Does
"Omnibian" pass the stink test? |
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I just read where a guy, fishing 1km offshore in a lake, was attacked by a badger which boarded his boat. |
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//Does "Omnibian" pass the stink test?// Well, the
head is Latin and the tail is Greek... |
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What do you call flying fish that can swim and fly, but can't
live on land? Or does their flight not count since it isn't
sustained fro more than 45 seconds? |
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Though by that standard, ducks (and bats?) only swim
underwater for a minute or two. |
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Also, what about burrowing animals? And tardigrades
can survive full vacuum. |
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// their flight not count since it isn't sustained fro more than 45 seconds? // |
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The Wright brothers first flight was 12 seconds. That counted ... |
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// Though by that standard, ducks (and bats?) only swim underwater for a minute or two // |
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Penguins can swim underwater for much longer ... cats can stay down for weeks (until the sack rots). |
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I have a can of tuna that's been sitting in my pantry
for months. |
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//Or does their flight not count since it isn't sustained fro
more than 45 seconds?// |
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Interesting point. Does gliding count? That opens this up
to
squirrels which can probably swim sort of. |
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As 8th pointed out, cats can stay underwater indefinitely
and by the same token are probably capable of flight with
a
little assistance. Landing maybe not so much. |
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Which name was that bun for? Or was it for the basic
idea? |
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// cats ... are probably capable of flight with a little assistance. // |
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With nothing more than a gentle throw to provide initial airspeed, even an average cat can fly for 4 nautical miles without further assistance. |
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As in, "The duck, bat and flying squirrel are all
"tribumotal", that is, having the ability to travel on
land, in the air, and in the water." |
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What does the "bu" mean? Trimodal is probably OK. |
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For once I actually agree with [MB]! The words are not
etymologically justified. |
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I had a go at this thought when I was about eight or nine.
The problem is that "amphibian" does not just refer to
animals which are amphibious. There are fully
aquatic amphibians as well as fully terrestrial
amphibians. The "amphi" bit
kind of vaguely refers to their form as aquatic-type
animals at an early stage of their independent life and
terrestrial type animals as adults, which again doesn't
apply to all of them, so it's more about form than
habitat. Hence the terms need to be adjectival rather
than substantive. They also don't really refer to taxa.
There is no single taxon of animals which is both
necessarily and sufficiently aquatic, terrestrial and
aerial. However, there does seem to be a taxon of
animals which are both aquatic and aerial, namely the
exocoetidae, just about, although they glide rather than
fly. |
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That said, no problem with words describing the
behaviour. |
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//What does the "bu" mean?// |
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Sort of punched it up a bit. |
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By the way, I believe I've related the story of how I
most likely am the creator of the widely used slang
name of a particular item of clothing right? I
believe it's now in the dictionary and I was, I'm
pretty sure, the one who created and used it first
on the media of the time, radio and television, to
millions of listeners and viewers. Bottom line, I
believe I did create a word. Or to be more exact,
title of an object that consists of two words. So
I've got some experience in this department. Does
it mean I'm some kind of linguistic expert? Uh...
no. Which would become abundantly clear if you
knew the term I came up with. |
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I forgot if I told that story but if I already did,
never mind. |
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So we're getting close, but still no word for
walk/swim/fly. I really do believe this is needed.
My idea isn't necessarily for a particular word, just
that a word is needed. Totally open to suggestions.
Throw one out Nine. If it gets everybody's thumbs
up, I'll go with it and see if I can get it into the
dictionary. |
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// the widely used slang name of a particular item of
clothing// namely? |
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//exocoetidae// After whom, incidentally, the
Exocet missile was named. |
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naming...... from help file: "naming - specific names to give to people, pets, restaurants....." |
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My guess is the "wife-beater..." |
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//Exocet// the development of which was co-funded by a famous pharmaceutical company's marketing department, almost solely for rights to the "When you want to make a headache really, really go away" slogan. |
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//My guess is the "wife-beater..."// |
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//from help file: "naming - specific names to give to
people, pets, restaurants....."// |
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What about the establishment of new zoological
categories? |
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//new zoological categories?//.... like elephinsects or batocotopi or reptiroccoli (part reptile, part broccoli) Once started this simple process of prefix/suffix becomes and endless succession of names. Is this halfbaked? |
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What about animals that can only walk and fly?
There are millions of those (since almost every
animal that can fly can also walk; the only
exceptions I can think of are flying fish and Douglas
Bader), yet there is no name for that. |
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What about airborne bacteria? Flying and
swimming, simultaneously, sorta. Walking, not so
much. |
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And what about animals that walk on water? |
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// //new zoological categories?//.... like
elephinsects or batocotopi or reptiroccoli (part
reptile, part broccoli) Once started this simple
process of prefix/suffix becomes and endless
succession of names. Is this halfbaked?// |
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You've listed zoological categories for things that
don't exist. Animals that fly, walk and swim do
exist, yet they have no designation. |
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The current way to refer to animals that can fly,
walk an swim is: "They can fly, walk and swim."
That's like, instead of saying "omnivore" saying
"something that can eat plants or animals to
survive." A designation word is helpful. |
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I would assert that there already IS a class of
animals that can walk, swim and fly, but nobody's
named that class of animals yet. |
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//What about animals that can only walk and
fly? There are millions of those (since almost every
animal that can fly can also walk; the only
exceptions I can think of are flying fish and
Douglas Bader), yet there is no name for that.// |
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They've named animals that can walk, bipedal or
quadrupeds. Animals that can fly or glide are
called volant. They've just never gotten around to
naming animals that can to both. Probably because
they, whoever they are, need to get off their butts
and get to work. |
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Let's see how much success I have naming the
flying/swimming/walking thing, then I'll look into
naming the flying walkers. |
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Aquavoluntpeds? Voluntaquapeds? |
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"Hey, don't throw that bat into the pool!" "Don't
worry, it's voluntaquapedal!" Got kind of a
"supercalifragilistic" zing to it. I'm putting that at
the top of the list and going to bed. |
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As the distinguisher of said unclassified cross species endeavour... the choice be yours. |
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How about Terraquaviariuos? I don't know if that's LaGreecian or not but it rolls off the tongue nicely anyway. |
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Ok, I'll put that at the top of the list too and go to
bed. |
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Trimodal. It's simple and sounds nice. Max said it
was ok and he's got that whole smarty pants thing
going
on. Plus he knows like, words n stuff so I'll defer to
him. |
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There's also already a word in Wikipedia meaning
some kind of math thing. I can just add some
bat/duck/squirrel walking/swimming/flying pics
and say it also means animals who can travel on
land water or air. |
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The nice thing is, nobody could argue that these
animals weren't trimodal. They've got three modes
of travel. |
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Let me have my coffee first. |
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//he's got that whole smarty pants thing going on.
Plus he knows like, words n stuff// Aww, gee. To be
honest I just make this stuff up as I go along. It may
be perilysotic but it works for me. |
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Well, speaking of making stuff up, ALL words were
just made up by somebody, and here's mine
(approved by MadMaxB): |
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"Trimodal: adjective / zoology / (of an animal)
being
capable of walking, swimming and flying. "The
duck
can travel trimodally being equipped with feet,
flippers and wings." |
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Oh yea, and Max, your flying swimmers or walking
flyers or swimming walkers? They're... well... I
don't
even need to say it do I? |
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So we'll call it two words created this day. |
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// ALL words were just made up by somebody // |
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No they weren't. They generally gradually emerge through
mishearings and misunderstandings, speech impediments
and laziness. |
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On-topic, are we talking about clades here or is it about
classifying lifestyles? |
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It's my understanding that a clade traces a particular
trait back to a common ancestor so not applicable
here. |
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I don't think it's a taxonomic style category, rather a
simple descriptive category. |
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Making up words is excluded from the halfbakery as has
been pointed out for very good reasons. |
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Yea, well, I'm going to do it anyway. |
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Besides: "Whole naming schemes, tools to help
with
naming or exchange names, and specific names
accompanying actual inventions are okay." |
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The invention is a category of animals that can be
useful in discussion of these animals and their
properties. |
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But mainly I'm going to do it anyway. |
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(Bone from Xen in 3...2...1...) |
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//trimodal// what about arboreal ? subterranean ? seafloor-based ? (clams, lobsters) |
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I call dibs on the trimodal concept for locomotion. |
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Wait, are you saying lobsters are found in trees? |
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By the way, checked Wikipedia, there's no
"trimodal" in it yet. I think this will be my first
Wikipedia article creation. I believe they review it
and say yea or nay to whatever you put in there. If
I do this, about a 20% chance I actually will, I'll put
in the two meanings. The math thing and the
zoological designation. |
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Ok, I'm going to the beach. It's my day off. Time to
get away from this friggin' computer. |
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Many tree-based critters are very ungainly on the ground. As well, there's earthworms - underground. Or were you going purely for the anthropocentric viewpoint. |
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Apparently all snakes can swim, so the flying/gliding variety also fit this classification. |
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There are also slithering animals. I guess flopping like the Sidewinder would be considered a method of walking. Is swimming via fin movement different from swimming via fluid expulsion? Where does a flying squirrel lie? Parachuting baby spiders? Phytoplankton? Mussels? |
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//Apparently all snakes can swim, so the
flying/gliding variety also fit this classification.// |
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I put a video up. This thing's got an amazingly
impressive glide ratio. It actually slithers through
the air. |
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I guess you could say baby spiders being blown
along via their silk thread parachutes would be
bimodal. |
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How come nature never developed an animal that
just falls to get away from predators? Something
comes after it, it just jumps out of the tree. The
bouncing squirrel or something. |
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Ten meters per second squared is a bitch of a law to overcome?... |
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Not if you're the size of a mouse or a shrew. Minimal mass and momentum, low terminal velocity due to mass/area ratio. Very small mammals can fall from any height, land unharmed and run away. |
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The upper size limit for that trick seems to be the hedgehog, which will climb high fences and walls, jump off, and curl into a ball while airborne. Drag is high, and the spines act as shock absorbers on landing. After a second or so, they uncurl and go trundling off in search of more food. |
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Somebody figured out that cats can survive an eight story fall without harm... and you just know that the sick bastard tried a few more floors to make sure. |
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...it's always that ninth life with them. |
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The original work was based on a statistical analysis of vet's reports on cats that had been brought in after high falls. |
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Subsequent work based on intentionally throwing cats off tall buildings (and dropping them from aircraft) simply used said research to provide a flimsy cloak of academic respectability for what is essentially a form of cheap amusement. The fact that the experimentation is carried out under cover of darkness does militate against a rigorous methodology. |
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This judge says it's "naming". |
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//specific names accompanying actual inventions are
okay// |
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The invention is a category of animal. |
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It might be best to start thinking this way if we're going to classify alien critters when we find them. Classification isn't a call for a list or anything, it's just finding words for gaps that haven't been noticed yet.
That's invention too. |
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//It might be best to start thinking this way if
we're going to classify alien critters// Well, yes
and no. When we find life elsewhere, and
assuming it is not related by descent to terrestrial
life, we will want to classify it rationally, as we do
on Earth. |
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So, we would not formally classify all (say) flying
things together, unless they shared common
ancestry; any more than we would classify bats
along with bees. |
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A word for "things that fly, walk and swim" might
be a useful colloquial term, but not a basis for
classification. |
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Truely alien is going to be problematic even if it has DNA. Starting with how something interacts with the enviroment is a good starting point. |
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//You could justifiably (in that case) classify by
how much things weigh; what celebrities they
resemble; how much it costs to feed them; what
sound they make (and if there’s an echo); and
most of all, by what their names sound like.// |
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But these aren't useful or interesting
classifications. They would never be used. |
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This classification is useful, interesting, and would
be used. It would be central to discussions of
evolution and how various animals ended up doing
the same job with different approaches. |
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I see what you're saying, but if a category can be
allowed, you've got to admit, this is pretty useful
one. |
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Forgot to add an insect. Water striders are
trimodal. |
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//Starting with how something interacts with the
enviroment is a good starting point// |
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No it isn't, at least not for formal classification.
Formal classification actually sets out to reflect
evolutionary paths, which is why a whale is
formally classified as a mammal (like a shrew) and
not as a bony fish (like a cod). |
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For informal names, you can of course pick
whatever you like (which is why scallops will
appear on the menu under "Fish"). But don't mess
with formal classification. |
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Probably if we are talking exobiology, given the vastness of unknown, chemical metabolism would be the most useful. The reason being, we don't want holes eaten in our suits and ships. |
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An apt self descriptor? //a bony fish (like a cod)// |
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// By the way, checked Wikipedia, there's no "trimodal"
in it yet. I think this will be my first Wikipedia article
creation. // |
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I recommend calling it "Trimodality", not "Trimodal",
because encyclopedia article titles should generally be
nouns. |
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