Just for silly, the biology student in me has been thinking about which taxa does each stylesti species can we place in. Feel free to correct me.

Shade, what on earth is a taxon?

Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxon

taxon, (pl. taxa), noun
> A taxonomic unit, whether named or not: i.e. a population, or group of populations of organisms which are usually inferred to be phylogenetically related and which have characters in common which differentiate (q.v.) the unit (e.g. a geographic population, a genus, a family, an order) from other such units. A taxon encompasses all included taxa of lower rank (q.v.) and individual organisms. The Code fully regulates the names of taxa only between and including the ranks of superfamily and subspecies.

Source: Archived glossary page of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999)

So I was thinking of placing the stylesties under a taxonomic rank

The taxanomic rank goes like this, from highest to lowest:

Domain > Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species
_{Note: This does not include the ranks in between the mentioned ranks}

I will place each currently available stylesti species that we currently have in a taxanomic rank, mostly educated guesses. I will not include the genus and the species for now, as I think it will be unnecessary. Without further ado...

Let's begin the ranking!

As far as what I'm looking at the domain of our stylesties are under eukaryota. It's highly likely that stylesties are multi-cellular organisms and therefore, their cells contain a nucleus, encased in it's own nuclear membrane, which contains our stylesties' DNA.

Our next taxonomic rank is kingdom. Stylesties are virtual animals, so they'll be under animalia.

Now, here is where it gets interesting. Only one stylesti species are in a different phylum from the rest. A majority of vertebrate stylesties, from my observations are under chordata, but our outlier, Lunemara, is in the phylum arthropoda.

With that out of the way, we'll have to keep that in mind as we get to class. Some of the stylesties like Griffi, Aeridini, Ryori, Nephini and Nytekrie are tougher to figure out, either because of mixed features or ambiguous morphology. I may edit this when I get some assistance with this.
Amphibia: Sylvorpa
Reptilia: Ny'vene, Draeyl, Aurleon (Aves) _{What? Birds are reptiles?}
Mammalia: Bulbori, Faelora, Ferrikki, Kelpari, Lighira, Luffox, Lupora, Morkko, Puffadore, Qitari, Vulnyx, Zolnixi
Insecta: Lunemara

Now we get order. With the sylesties that are in the orders of amphibia, aves and reptilia, this bit is easy to "explain", but it was a pain in the [REDACTED] to look for the order that fit them the most, especially the reptiles:
Urodela: Sylvorpa
Galliformes: Aurleon _{(this one was tough, ngl... I've been staring at the infraclass of neognanths for ages during my class)}

I got a little frustrated with looking for an order for Draeyl and Ny'vene, so I will take a break and come back to this.

For mammalian stylesties, this bit gets curious. They lay eggs, and that makes them monotremes.

_{*gasp dramatique*}

And it is curious because they have the appearance and characteristics of placental mammals, and yet lay eggs like platypus and echidna. Even more curious is that the egglings' shells aren't lethery... They're calcified.

_{*gasp plus dramatique*}

Anyway, if we ignore that conundrum and pretend that they are eutherians within the extant placentalia, these would be their orders:
Lagomorpha: Bulbori
Rodentia: Luffox _{Honestly looks and has the vibes of a rodent to me...}
Artiodactyla: Faelora
Perissodactyla: Qitari, Kelpari
Carnivora: Zolnixi, Vulnyx, Ferrikki, Lighira, Lupora, Puffadore, Morkko

And for our currently only insect stylesti, Lunemara is Lepidoptera, based on looks and vibes

Finally, we get to Family. For now, Lunemara wouldn't have an identified family because there's so many lepidoptera families and it's exhausting to find which one it fits into, though it's definitely not in Papilionoidea, which is in the family Hedylidae, so I may or may not get back to it. Here's what I've gathered so far to the remaining stylesties, judging by appearance and vibes:
Ambystomatidae: Sylvorpa
Phasianidae: Aurleon
Sciuridae: Luffox
Leporidae: Bulbori
Cervidae: Faelora
Equidae: Qitari, Kelpari
Ursidae: Morkko
Mustelidae: Ferrikki
Canidae: Lupora, Puffadore, Zolnixi
Felidae: Vulnyx, Lighera

And, that's all for now :3
_{Wow, this took me a day, I thought it's gonna be a few minutes
Edit: Oops, forgot lighera}
Edit 2: Per Scathreoite's commentary, kelpari now has a place in the taxanomic rankings

Amazing!!!! I would put Lunes into the Saturniidae family or similar due to them being giant silken-looking moths :3

List has left out Kelpari (canonly share a distant ancestor with quitari) and Nytekrie (would presumably be early-type aves or some aves-adjacent theropod sort, given beak+able to fly / long bony tail+full fingers)

On Qitari and Kelps, interesting really; qits have cloven hooves, while kelps have single hoof on the front and, assuming the pair of fins that are about where you'd expect hind legs to be are the hind feet (with the rest of the leg bones inside the body like with a seal) four toes on the back



You know, I can see luffox having chinchilla vibes, I will give a theorectical rodentia classification a pass (though rodents with tusks stands as unusual, but hey)

Ferrikki can be a herbivore Mustelid, sure, it'd hardly be the first time a carnivore line ended up making a herbivore

(I'm still going to be obnoxious gremlin about bulbori toebeans and throw in a 'these are the beans of a predator' for giggles even though we know that probably the reason they have beans is because the artist didn't know rabbits don't have beans or made an art decision to give them anyway for aesthetics)

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=108522&page=1#2 Author: Starlight8 Time Posted: 5/10/2024 at 6:47 PM Amazing!!!! I would put Lunes into the Saturniidae family or similar due to them being giant silken-looking moths :3

Ooooh, interesting theory

I really see the silk moth-like appearance, lemme check the family real quick

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=108522&page=1#3 Author: Scathreoite Time Posted: 5/10/2024 at 7:21 PM List has left out Kelpari (canonly share a distant ancestor with quitari) and Nytekrie (would presumably be early-type aves or some aves-adjacent theropod sort, given beak+able to fly / long bony tail+full fingers) On Qitari and Kelps, interesting really; qits have cloven hooves, while kelps have single hoof on the front and, assuming the pair of fins that are about where you'd expect hind legs to be are the hind feet (with the rest of the leg bones inside the body like with a seal) four toes on the back You know, I can see luffox having chinchilla vibes, I will give a theorectical rodentia classification a pass (though rodents with tusks stands as unusual, but hey) Ferrikki can be a herbivore Mustelid, sure, it'd hardly be the first time a carnivore line ended up making a herbivore (I'm still going to be obnoxious gremlin about bulbori toebeans and throw in a 'these are the beans of a predator' for giggles even though we know that probably the reason they have beans is because the artist didn't know rabbits don't have beans or made an art decision to give them anyway for aesthetics)

I was told before the revamp that kelparis used to have hind legs _{(honestly if I signed up way back then, this thread probably wouldn't be a thing because, I'm not in college yet in the 2010s)} and it is plausible that it could also be an equestrian, I left them out initially due to having mixed features of actinopterygii (ray finned fish) and because I was more considering the current designs.

I see your comment on qitari hoooves and yeah, they're cloven despite the mostly equine appearance and I didn't notice it at first. It could either be a stylistic choice or a curious quirk of qitari, but it's undeniably an ungulate.

I may reconsider the classification with luffox if I look into it once more. The vibes I initially got from luffox was some sort of squirrel (fluffy fluffy tail)

from Kelpari description:
"Kelpari are a rare and powerful species of Sylesti that share a distant ancestor with the Qitari."

since they were mentioned, here's pre-revamp kelp:


But I was specifically talking about their current form, where their smaller hind-pair of fins could reasonably be analogous to a seal/sea lion situation, with all the hid leg bones present, just contained to the ankle within the torso






Qits having cloven hooves could be based on either of their apparent inspirations- unicorns (possibly based off of second hand descriptions of antelope or the like) or kirin/quilin

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=108522&page=1#6 Author: Scathreoite Time Posted: 5/10/2024 at 11:20 PM from Kelpari description: "Kelpari are a rare and powerful species of Sylesti that share a distant ancestor with the Qitari." since they were mentioned, here's pre-revamp kelp: But I was specifically talking about their current form, where their smaller hind-pair of fins could reasonably be analogous to a seal/sea lion situation, with all the hid leg bones present, just contained to the ankle within the torso Qits having cloven hooves could be based on either of their apparent inspirations- unicorns (possibly based off of second hand descriptions of antelope or the like) or kirin/quilin

I'll consider kelpari's placement

In the meantime, could you point out to me where the smaller hind leg fins are? I'm either dense or my eyes and brain are struggling to see them

Also, considerin qitari has a horn mutation, I can definitely see that

kelp toesies (theoretical)

OHHHHHHHH

They're less like toes to me *cri*

Cursed theory, but it's likely that those are webbed toes and the rest of the leg bones are inside

yes, hence our seal comparison earlier.
Seeing a seal skeleton for the first time is. an emotional journey of realisation, that I remember taking many years ago.