June 12th, 2017: Classifying Critters

[xoxoxoBruce]

When you wander around the great outdoors, no matter if it’s woods, swamp, plains, you’ll see all kinds of critters, living
or dead. Academics being what they are, have a desire to bag and tag them all into neat cubby holes. Make order out of the
chaos nature is. They start with kingdom, critters being animalia, then proceed through phyla, classes, orders, families, genera
and species. Of course it has to be done in Latin or something they contrive to be hard to spell or remember.

In her delightful series of animal illustrations, artist Kelsey Oseid explores and presents the amazing diversity of the earth's living things. Arranged by group and drawn by hand, Oseid's illustrated critters double as scientific studies and whimsical works of art.

Hey look, a bluebird. Oh no, it’s a Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Aves, Order Passeriformes, Family Turdidae,
Genus Sialia (Sialia sialis, Sialia mexicana, or Sialia currucoides).
It's a little confusing when they all look like birds.



She uses groups below Kingdom or Phylum, but still has a shitload of critters to choose from in putting her posters together.
Here she uses class, infraclass, and Infraorder. Google says Infraorder ranks below suborder, and Infraclass ranks below
subclass. Oh great, as if it wasn't confusing enough.



Fuck it, they're all critters, and I'll call them anything I want.
Hey look, a Bluebird.

link