this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Its a 6 sided bear, the peak of the polygonal phylogeny.
Monomouse
Duodugong
Traye-aye
Quadferret
Pentacoyote
Hexbear
Heptaherpeton - this is the furthest we've discovered in the polygonal phylogeny but research indicates the likely existence of an octorca as well
Octoria are scientifically impossible, the grazing territory requirements alone for a sustainable breeding colony would be immense. Any reports of them in the wild are either misidentified pairs of quadferrets copulating, or hoaxes perpetuating the psuedoscience.
That's where you're messing up. Those are pentacoyotes, not quadferrets. The contact side between two polygonimals mating is actually obscured, so the actual number of sides in a copulation configuration is the sum of the sides of all involved polygonimals - 2. Therefore the octorca could not be two mating quadferrets, but could be two pentacoyotes, or a chain of duodugongs.
Youre quite right, rookie mistake by me. You would think a Polyphylogenonomist would know better.
However, wouldnt it be more accurate to say that the actual number of sides in any given copulation configuration containing n polygonimals would be n*(sides per polygonimal)-(n-1)? Assuming we exclude tricopulations of hexbears where any given individual may be contacting two other individuals' sides at the same time in a tessalation layout? I must admit im not certain though, my field is polyphylogenomics, not polyphylogenomatics. Im sure there are some edge cases Ive missed, pardon the pun.
My bad, I was thinking in terms of simple intraspecies pairing like they taught us as undergrads. Once you get into polypolys and tessellations the math is frankly beyond me. Well spotted though.
Wtf are you guys talking about
Polygonal phylogeny
Yes, googling offers nothing, but I'm probably just being goofed on
Try the Polygoogle. The regular non-euclidian google has a history of censorship when it comes to polygonal phylogeny
I didn't even think to recommend Poogle. Thank you!
I still think about this thread on a near daily basis 👍
Polygonal phylogeny
Phylogeny is the "study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms."
Polygons are shapes made of non-intersecting straight lines and named for the number of corners they have (either in Latin or in Greek, or some mix between the two for whatever reason). Three corners is a tri-angle (lit.: three angles), four a quadri-lateral (lit.: four sides), five is penta-gon (lit.: five corners), six a hexa-gon, seven hepta-gon, eight octagon and ao on.
The joke is that they're treating "hex-bear" as an animal in a line of polygonal creatures, and extending that line in both directions with pent- and hept- animals, such as herpetis (presumably some form of reptile or amphibian, given that herpetology concerns itself with the study of those creatures (though ornithology is traditionally considered a separate field despite birds being related to reptiles (which means that chickens are really just the modern descendants of dinosaurs and I think that's awesome))).