Yeah. Terms like "fish" and "tree" are more like "quadruped" than they are like "rodent".

ndsipa_pomu 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Except that you can come up with a decent definition of "fish" and "quadruped", whereas there's no definition of "tree" that covers all the cases.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/how-do-y...

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IAmBroom 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Except that "quadruped" is (AFAIK) phylogenetic: Tetrapoda.

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pavel_lishin 6 days ago | parent [-]

> * tetrapod (/ˈtɛtrəˌpɒd/;[4] from Ancient Greek τετρα- (tetra-) 'four' and πούς (poús) 'foot') is any four-limbed vertebrate animal of the clade Tetrapoda (/tɛˈtræpədə/).*

Huh. I always thought it was a more generic term for any four-limbed animal. TIL, I guess!

	▲	IAmBroom 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Honestly, I can't think of a non-tetrapod animal that is four-limbed. I mean, unless you cut one leg off a starfish.