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Yeah and cucumbers are fruit, birds are dinosaurs, ladybugs are not bugs, peanuts are not nuts, etc. Sometimes I think that scientists should just stick to tax

Yeah and cucumbers are fruit, birds are dinosaurs, ladybugs are not bugs, peanuts are not nuts, etc. Sometimes I think that scientists should just stick to taxonomic categories or other words that don't conflict with their "common usage" meanings. (and while we all seem to agree that whales aren't fish, they are certainly within the "bony fish" clade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes and are a lot closer relatives to a goldfish than are sharks :) )

bustadjustme 7y ago
.... whales certainly aren't bony fish. They're in class Mammalia, which is not within the superclass Osteichthyes. I.e. they're mammals, not fish.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Mammals are tetrapods, which are indeed under Osteichthyes (unless you consider Ostreichtyes to be paraphyletic). If you look at the cladogram on the wikipedia page I linked, you see a picture of a salamander near the top representing the category Tetrapodomorpha. We (and whales) are also on that branch. Sharks are outside of that whole cladogram, as they are cartilaginous fish. ( * ) In other words, any clade which includes all bony fish also includes mammals. [*] which means that the most recent common ancestor of sharks and goldfish lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of whales and goldfish
stjohnswarts 7y ago
No one considers whales to be bony fish. No one.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Well, go to this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bony_fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bony_fish That will redirect from "bony fish" to "Osteichthyes", the name of the scientific category that represents bony fish. And there is a cladogram on that page. And it includes whales, by virtue of including tetrapods (it shows a picture of a salamander). It also says on that page "Osteichthyes can be compared to Euteleostomi. In paleontology, the terms are synonymous." And "Euteleostomi presents a cladistic view which includes the terrestrial tetrapods that evolved from lobe-finned fish". And yes, as mentioned, whales are tetrapods. So, while I didn't say "whales are bony fish", I said "whales are members of the bony fish clade", and I'd say wikipedia agrees with that statement. (to be clear, we humans are also members of the bony fish clade) And if you consider bony fish to be a paraphyletic group, well, then it isn't a clade.

bustadjustme 7y ago

.... whales certainly aren't bony fish. They're in class Mammalia, which is not within the superclass Osteichthyes. I.e. they're mammals, not fish.

robbrown451 7y ago
Mammals are tetrapods, which are indeed under Osteichthyes (unless you consider Ostreichtyes to be paraphyletic). If you look at the cladogram on the wikipedia page I linked, you see a picture of a salamander near the top representing the category Tetrapodomorpha. We (and whales) are also on that branch. Sharks are outside of that whole cladogram, as they are cartilaginous fish. ( * ) In other words, any clade which includes all bony fish also includes mammals. [*] which means that the most recent common ancestor of sharks and goldfish lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of whales and goldfish

stjohnswarts 7y ago

No one considers whales to be bony fish. No one.

robbrown451 7y ago
Well, go to this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bony_fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bony_fish That will redirect from "bony fish" to "Osteichthyes", the name of the scientific category that represents bony fish. And there is a cladogram on that page. And it includes whales, by virtue of including tetrapods (it shows a picture of a salamander). It also says on that page "Osteichthyes can be compared to Euteleostomi. In paleontology, the terms are synonymous." And "Euteleostomi presents a cladistic view which includes the terrestrial tetrapods that evolved from lobe-finned fish". And yes, as mentioned, whales are tetrapods. So, while I didn't say "whales are bony fish", I said "whales are members of the bony fish clade", and I'd say wikipedia agrees with that statement. (to be clear, we humans are also members of the bony fish clade) And if you consider bony fish to be a paraphyletic group, well, then it isn't a clade.