Watch nobody actually get angry at this. It would be just my luck

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[–] 36 points 1 month ago (23 children)

Rar! Grrr! Snarl! Angry stomping noises!

Whales evolved from fish, but ceased being fish when they could no longer breed with them.

I didn't want to leave you with no angry commenys.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    So salmon is not fish? Salmon can breed with other salmon but not other fish...

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    You can't evolve out of a clade. Humans didn't stop being apes, haplerines, primates, mammals, therapsids, etc. at any point, because a clade includes all descendants of a common ancestor.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    But fish are not a clade. The clade you're thinking of is vertebrates.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Yep, that would be the fish clade. The only way to draw a clade that includes all extant animals we'd consider fish is to include all of vertebrata. You could also consider the fish clade to just be ray-finned fishes if you want, but then sharks, rays, coelacanths, mudskippers, etc would not be fish, which seems absurd to me (but is also cladistically valid).

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    But fish are not a clade. Mice are not fish. Birds are not fish. I don't know how else to explain it to you. Do you understand that there can be terms for groups of living things that are not clades or that have no scientific basis whatsoever? Did you know that there is no difference between frogs and toads except that, broadly speaking, we call the ugly warty ones toads?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    But fish are not a clade.

    Sure they are, smallest clade that includes coelacanths and hagfish, which would be vertebrata.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I can find plenty of places with authority that describe Vertebrata as a clade. I can't find any that describe fish as a clade.

    If fish are a clade, people uninfluenced by internet memery would refer to all vertebrates as fish, yet I'm pretty sure this also doesn't happen. If the guy in the restaurant today had told me that the varying fish on the menu was not sea bream, but a sodding gecko, I'd have been pretty miffed.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    If fish are a clade, people uninfluenced by internet memery would refer to all vertebrates as fish, yet I'm pretty sure this also doesn't happen. If the guy in the restaurant today had told me that the varying fish on the menu was not sea bream, but a sodding gecko, I'd have been pretty miffed.

    I'm confused why you think the common usage of the word fish has any relevance to a discussion about choosing a definition for a fish clade. I'm not making the claim that this is how people use fish in common usage. My claim is that if you want to draw a fish clade, the only consistent way to do that is to include all of vertebrata. Scientists defining clades don't concern themselves with how laymen group animals together, because that would be dumb.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    My point is that scientists do not define a fish clade precisely because to do so would be so far removed from the common understanding of the word fish, and there being a different term for the same thing to hand.

    And this is the point I'm making because I believe further up the thread people were saying stuff based on a false impression that you had to think of "fish" cladistically in some situation or other, and hence that some creatures were fish when in fact they are not.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago

    This is a popular definition of a species*, but you're applying it to a class**. Humans can't breed with other apes, but we are apes. Biological classification (fish vs whales) is based on evolutionary relationships and traits, not whether two animals can interbreed.

    Cladistically, whales are not fish because “fish” isn’t a clade. Fish are an everyday label, not a clean scientific clade or rank.

    * - this is a very limited definition of species
    ** - fish really aren't a class, but that's how it's taught in grade school

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Once a fish, always a fish. Modern cladistics is weird like that. Unironically, humans are fish 🐟

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    There is no formal definition for fish that includes everything that we consider a fish and excludes everything we don't. All human classification systems are based on vibes.

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    [–] 21 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    By that logic humans are fish too.

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  • [+] 10 points 1 month ago
    [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    Extra pendant here, all terrestrial vertebrates are descended from lobe-finned fish. Sharks, lampreys, and ray-finned fish are not descended from lobe-finned fish.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    There is no such thing as fish, nor trees.

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    [–] 9 points 1 month ago

    Counterpoint: there is no such thing as a fish

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago*
    [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    Whales are fish just as much as cucumbers are fruit

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    Always said penguin are fish

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    If lampray and sharks are fish, then everything between coelacanth and clownfish are definitely fish too.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    Man attempts to neatly categorize his complex ancient world based on imperfect knowledge, gets angry when it doesn't work out.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    You can look at my post history on fun fish facts to see people will in fact get riled up over this

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    sacabambaspis

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Taxonomy is applesauce 👍

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  • Actually cetaceans should be taxonomically the only true fish

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