The Taxonomy of A Centaur’s Life

Before I dive into all of the different monster girl variations in A Centaur’s Life there is one last topic I wanted to address, and that is what is a species and how they are classified, taxonomy. A species is a group of organisms that can mate and produce viable offspring. In layman’s terms this means the organisms can have kids together without using science to make it work, and those kids can have kids again without using science to force things to work. Also, this is applied across the group as a whole, as there can be some individuals who might have issues that prevent them from having kids, and this does not make them a separate species. In A Centaur’s Life there are at least 6 species of “human” described in the anime.

4 limbed humans– Catfolk, Satyrs, Fauns

Winged humans– Angelfolk, Imps

6 limbed humans– Centaurs, Weretigers (extinct)

Mermaids

Antarticans

Amphibianfolk

You might be asking why some groups have multiple types, and that is due to something called subspecies. Subspecies are distinct groups of organisms within a species and perhaps the best example of subspecies are all of the different dog and cat breeds. A German shepherd looks nothing like a cocker spaniel, yet they are both dogs and they can produce fertile offspring. The same is true for the different breeds of cats.

If you are thinking what I think you are thinking, AnimeScience101 is going to go into details about each of the different species/subspecies in A Centaur’s Life, then you are correct. However, that is for another post or posts; what I want to finish off with is how related or unrelated the different species and subspecies are by using taxonomy.

Taxonomy of 4 Legged Humans

The four-legged humans are grouped together in A Centaur’s Life due to the fact that they have 4 limbs instead of 6. But I thought that everyone in A Centaur’s Life had 6 limbs? Yes, but the 5th and 6th limbs are vestigial. A vestigial structure is a structure that an organism has, but that it no longer uses, like the hips of a whale.

The 5th and 6th limbs of the 4 limbed humans in A Centuar’s Life are vestigial and only exist as skeletal remnants in Catfolk, Satyrs, and Fauns. The next question is does it make sense to group Catfolk, Satyrs, Fauns together as the same species? I would say no, because in the real-world cats are members of the grandorder Carnivora, while goats are members of grandorder ungulates. So while they are both mammals I don’t think they should count as the same species.

Mammal Taxonomy

Class Mammalia

Subclass Theriiformes

Infraclass Holotheria

Supercohort Theria

Cohort Placentalia

Magnorder Epitheria

Superorder Preptotheria

Grandorder Ferae: carnivorans

Catfolk

Grandorder Ungulata: ungulates

Suborder Ruminantia

Infraorder Pecora

Satyrs

Fauns

As for the Satyrs and Fauns, they are both mythical creatures based on goats, so I can consider them subspecies. Of course, I have no explanation as to why one group has human legs and the other has goat legs, which have drastically different developmental pathways.

Taxonomy of 6 Limbed Humans

There is only one living group of 6 limbed humans in A Centaur’s Life and that is the Centaurs. However, there is an extinct group of 6 limbed humans, the Weretigers, but I would call this grouping busted for the same reason as the 4 limbed humans, horses are ungulates, and tigers are carnivorans, and not all that related. In fact, the Satyrs and Fauns are probably closer to Centaurs than the Catfolk, are despite sharing the same number of limbs.

Mammal Taxonomy

Class Mammalia

Subclass Theriiformes

Infraclass Holotheria

Supercohort Theria

Cohort Placentalia

Magnorder Epitheria

Superorder Preptotheria

Grandorder Ferae: carnivorans

Catfolk

Weretiger

Grandorder Ungulata: ungulates

Suborder Ruminantia

Infraorder Pecora

Satyrs

Fauns

Order: Perissodactyla

Suborder: Hippomorpha

Centuar

Taxonomy of Winged Humans

The winged humans include the Angelfolk and Imps, grouped together due to their both having wings. This makes sense from a narrative standpoint, and also a scientific one. Now some of you might be saying, but reptiles and birds are not completely separate groups. If this was 10-15 years ago you would be right, but now birds are considered as a subgroup of reptiles, specifically Archosauria, which is subdivided into crocodiles and birds. Its not a stretch to think that if dragons were real, they would be included in this group. While I would not make Angelfolk and Imps the same species, they would be closely related species.

Reptile Taxonomy

Class Reptilia

Subclass Eureptilia

Infraclass Diapsida

Infraclass Lepidosauromorpha

Superorder Lepidosauriformes

Order Squamata (lizards & snakes)

Infraclass Archosauromorpha

Division Archosauriformes

Infradivision Avemetatarsalia

Infrasubdivision Ornithodira

Superorder Dinosauria

Imps

Order Saurischia (includes birds)

Angelfolk

Taxonomy of Antarticans

The Antarticans, or snake people, are an interesting group of half human half snake human-like creatures living in Antarctica. What makes them a bit trickier to group is that they are said to be warm blooded in the anime. This separates them from the rest of the reptiles and puts them closer to birds, which are warm blooded.

Reptile Taxonomy

Class Reptilia

Subclass Eureptilia

Infraclass Diapsida

Infraclass Lepidosauromorpha

Superorder Lepidosauriformes

Order Squamata (lizards & snakes)

Infraclass Archosauromorpha

Division Archosauriformes

Infradivision Avemetatarsalia

Infrasubdivision Ornithodira

Superorder Dinosauria

Antarticans

Imps

Order Saurischia (includes birds)

Angelfolk

Taxonomy of Mermaids

Mermaids are an easy one to classify as they are most likely a group of humans who ventured onto land and then moved back into the ocean, much in the same way that the aquatic mammals evolved. The question is picking which aquatic mammal mermaids are the most related to and I went with dolphins, given the high level of intelligence dolphins have over the other aquatic mammals.

Mammal Taxonomy

Class Mammalia

Subclass Theriiformes

Infraclass Holotheria

Supercohort Theria

Cohort Placentalia

Magnorder Epitheria

Superorder Preptotheria

Grandorder Ferae: carnivorans

Catfolk

Weretiger

Grandorder Ungulata: ungulates

Suborder Whippomorpha

Superfamily Delphinoidea

Mermaids

Suborder Ruminantia

Infraorder Pecora

Satyrs

Fauns

Order: Perissodactyla

Suborder: Hippomorpha

Centaur

Taxonomy of Amphibianfolk

The amphibian people are the easiest ones to group, as it will be somewhere in the class amphibia. It also doesn’t matter as much for this post as the Amphibian people are shown to be more like native people and do not interact much with the rest of the world.

Why does all this matter?

The reason I went through all of the classifications of the different species was leading up to a discussion about Sue Mitama and the other hybrids (mix of two species) that show up from time to time in A Centaur’s Life. There are a variety of hybrids that appear in A Centaur’s Life, when in reality there shouldn’t be that many at all.

As I have shown previously, the only two living 6 limbed human groups in A Centaur’s Life that could be considered the same species are Satyrs, and Fauns. The rest would be considered different species. Some of you might ask what about donkeys and ligers, which are hybrids of two different species, couldn’t that happen in A Centaur’s Life? And you would be correct and additionally these hybrids would be infertile like their real-world counterparts. Most of the real world cross species hybrids come from species that are part of the same genus. This means that in the mammal-based species of A Centaur’s Life the only viable cross species hybrids are the Satyrs and Fauns.

Birds are a bit more flexible in terms of cross species breeding and hybrids from completely different orders can occur. This means that the Antarticans, Imps, and Angelfolk could potentially have hybrid offspring. Just in case you are wondering hybrid offspring between mammal, reptile, or amphibian species is impossible.

Sue Mitama

Despite what I just said making Sue Mitama a Catfolk/Angelfolk hybrid impossible, let’s assume that such drastic cross species hybrids are possible in the world of A Centaur’s Life. In this case Sue gives us an example of what can happen from cross species hybrids, and that is health problems. Sue is shown to be a bit weak and it is implied that she has some sort of medical issue. How serious it is, is left for debate, as is if it is possible to treat said condition. What ever her condition is, it is most likely due to her being a hybrid, because many real-world hybrids can also have various medical problems.

Conclusion

I hope you were able to follow everything and enjoyed my breakdown of the different species in A Centuar’s Life and Sue Mitama’s weak condition. Lastly, I will leave it up to you to determine the realism of multiple intelligent species evolving at the same time. While humans are currently the only intelligent species currently on Earth, human evolution was a messy affair with multiple branches evolving at the same time, with varying degrees of intelligence with Neanderthals being the most well-known example. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below.

Bonus

Given what you have just learned about species in A Centaur’s Life I am sure some of you are wondering about the Mitama family, given that the Chi-chans are straight Catfolk, not hybrids, and Manami is straight Angelfolk and not a hybrid. Yes, this of course means that the Mitama family is one big old mess, and one that I am not going to even attempt to explain.

Sources

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21100/