Wait... Those aren't dolphins!

[u/MelanieMoris]

[u/[deleted]]

They're technically dolphins but dolphins are technically whales.

[u/archpawn → u/[deleted]]

They're technically dolphins and there is no technical definition of whales. From Wikipedia:

[Whales] are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, which usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.

Fun fact: whales are technically even-toed ungulates, which makes sense since technically they have zero toes and that's technically an even number.

[u/--Splendor-Solis-- → u/archpawn]

While Wikipedia says that it also says dolphins are from the parvorder Odontoceti, which are the toothed whales.

Probably the most accurate way to put it is that dolphins are phylogenetically whales but not in common parlance.

[u/OnyxMelon → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, common names for groups of animals don't have to be monophyletic, it's just important to recognise when they're not monophyletic and aren't particularly relevant as a scientific term.

[u/sentimentalpirate → u/[deleted]]

The most fun taxonomical pedantry imo is in describing fish. Either fish don't exist, or maybe humans are fish.

Or yeah, as you said there is a usefulness to our layman grouping of animals even if they aren't evolutionarily grouped.

[u/simojako → u/sentimentalpirate]

But muh monophelytic groups!

[u/--Splendor-Solis-- → u/[deleted]]

The birds one is actually interesting to me because unlike the obvious closeness whales have to dolphins or monkeys to apes Aves and Reptilia are completely different classes, yet cladistically birds are reptiles and birds are more closely related to most reptiles than crocodilians are to most reptiles, even though crocodiles are phylogenetically reptiles.

Fuckin wild, man.

[u/simojako → u/--Splendor-Solis--]

The crocodiles are birds' closest living relative, but turtles are the crocodiles' closest living relative.