867: Herpetology

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Herpetology

Title text: Birds are Aves, which is part of the clade Theropoda, which is in Saurischia, which is in Dinosauria. Those birds outside our windows are dinosaurs. We can clear out the rest of our brains because we now have the best fact.

Explanation

Ornithology is the branch of zoology that studies birds. In the ornithology conference, they think that reptiles should be folded in under the ornithology umbrella as well.

Herpetology is the branch of zoology that studies reptiles and amphibians. Rather than strike back with their own reptiles chart, they strike back with an "Assholes" chart to insult Ornithologists.

In the image text, birds are class Aves which is a subset of the suborder Theropoda which is a subset of the order Saurischia and the superorder Dinosauria. This is obviously an oversimplification, but interesting fact none the less.

Transcript

Ornithology conference:

[Graph showing a large tree split between amphibians and reptiles]

Ponytail: As you can see, herpetology is a silly field; reptiles are actually more closely related to birds and mammals than to amphibians.It should really be broken up, with lizards folded into ornithology.

Herpetology conference:

[Graph showing a large tree split between nice people and ornithologists]

Megan: As you can see, ornithologists are actually assholes.

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Discussion

At their own conference, they retaliate with a chart that purports to demonstrate that douchebags and ornithologists are more closely related to each other than either are to "nice people", and they can therefore be grouped into an encompassing "asshole" classification. Since the intent of the earlier presentation was presumably to rile herpetologists rather than achieve any particular scientific goal, this response seems appropriate.

Such a response is more likely to place you into the hands of someone who is planning to set you up. When you are attacked the first, reaction is to close-up. Next you check for damage and alert damage control if you have damage to report. Next you post watches and keep on the alert. Once you have information on the source of the attack, the likely intent and how well it was accomplished you draw up a guarded response. You are still not going to be sure that an attack from you will be successful. If it is going to be successful an attack will be the last thing you need to do. If it isn't going to be successful an attack is the last thing you ought to do. (Unless you want to join the dinosaurs in a game of how high can you jump from a tree (with enough rope.)) I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 10:53, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The funny part is that Ponytail's clade diagram isn't right, either. Reptiles are not a sister clade to birds; they don't form a clade at all. Crocodilians are more closely related to birds than they are to, say, turtles, or snakes & lizards. 162.158.78.196 00:37, 7 March 2018 (UTC)