I have always been fascinated with mythical animals, and have tried to imagine ways for sometimes ludicrous-sounding anatomies to work and how mythical animals would be classified if they were real. How would iNat integrate mythical animals into the taxonomic backbone if they suddenly appeared? Ho…

Je pense que iNat les classeraient comme des animaux comme les autres car leur existence étant prouvées, ils n’auraient plus rien de fabuleux. La taxonomie saurait la même car ces espèces resteraient dans le règne animalia, n’en créant pas de nouveau. Faisons un récap de des espèces que vous avez ci…

Well, I imagine fire breathing would be similar to the bombardier beetle. Highly volatile chemicals would be stored in a special gland located somewhere in the dragon’s anatomy. When these chemicals react, they cause a combustion reaction and hence cause a large amount of fire/heated air to be expe…

Griffin is the one i’ve thought about the most (also happens to be my favorite, if I could put griffin as a favorite taxon on my home page I would). I think class-wise Aves would be best. It would be in its own order, family etc. Maybe something like Falcoleo equivoros (horse-eating falcon-lion) fo…

My daughter classified Rhinoceros as Battle Unicorns…

[image] reclassifier: How would you classify them? I wouldn’t, because I’m not a taxonomist and I would be in the closet hiding.

[image] austin_ajit: Well, I imagine fire breathing would be similar to the bombardier beetle. Ooh, that’s a cool thought! I always imagined they would just have a gland for butane or whatever.

but how would they produce Butane? A annual raid on natural gas reserves? Lol

I dunno, refills? That’s why my theory is flawed.

As a science nerd , I’m better at more science-y cryptids. Like yetis or sea monsters, which are basically just animals. Stuff like manticores… err, evolution would probably not make something like that.

Mythical Animal Anatomy and Taxonomy

Nature Talk

ItsMeLucy May 10, 2025, 3:48am 3

still open: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/what-cryptids-do-you-believe-are-most-likely-to-exist/46888

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Mythical Animal Anatomy and Taxonomy

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