• some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    15 days ago

    I see what you did there. I’m not taking the bait. I know that bats and birds are the same clade. I don’t buy into the fake-news media trying to tell us they’re distinct creatures. If they were, why would they both have wings, huh? HUH SMARTASS?!

    /s

    • Klear@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Here’s the thing. You said a “bats and birds are the same clade.”

      Are they in the same phylum? Yes. No one’s arguing that.

      As someone who is a scientist who studies bats, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls bats birds. If you want to be “specific” like you said, then you shouldn’t either. They’re not the same thing.

      If you’re saying “the same clade” you’re referring to the taxonomic grouping of Scrotifera, which includes things from tigers to rhinos to pangolins.

      So your reasoning for calling bats and birds the same is because random people “call the flying ones birds?” Let’s get dragonflies and flying fish in there, then, too.

      Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It’s not one or the other, that’s not how taxonomy works. They’re both. A bat is a bat and a member of the Chordata phylum. But that’s not what you said. You said bats and birds are the same clade, which is not true unless you’re okay with calling all members of the Chordata phylum birds, which means you’d call elephants, lions, and other mammals birds too. Which you said you don’t.

      It’s okay to just admit you’re wrong, you know?

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      Oh, I wasn’t trying to bait anything. I suppose I just read the OP as if it was painting bats as special in this particular way, and I was questioning that.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        14 days ago

        I figured this:

        I thought all birds used the magnetic field to navigate.

        Was looking for a “bats aren’t birds” response, to which there would be a clever reply. Guess I read into it.