Stars and Clowns and Anemones, Oh My.

"Wayne Sallee" wrote in message
nk.net...
And why and how do you think things are classified? Were the creatures
created for the classification, or were the classifications created for
the creatures?

Should we say "It's already been classified, no sense reclassifying it"?

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets


The point, Wayne, is that britte stars are considered to be in the class
Ophiuroidea, while starfish are in the class Asteroidea. They are
different classes of echinoderms that likely shared a common ancestry in
the Ordovician. As such, declaring a brittle star and/or a serpent star to
be a type of starfish is like declaring an echinoid to be a sea cucumber,
which, of course, is absurd. Even worse, brittle stars and serpent stars
are in the exact same class. They are simply different genera (akin to the
difference between a chimpanzee and an Orangutan). That said, you are, of
course, free to classify them any way you choose. However, good luck
getting your new classification past peer review.

George