Talk:List of piscine and amphibian humanoids

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I recently added the following line to this In fiction list:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, including Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael

This edit was reverted in good faith by Serendipodous, who wrote:

Reverted good faith edits by Allixpeeke (talk): Those are reptiles. (TW)

After reading this, I checked out the turtle page. The first three words are, "Turtles are reptiles," which would appear to corroborate Serendipodous's rational.

But, I also scrolled down, and found the following paragraph:

Amphibious turtles [emphasis added] normally have limbs similar to those of tortoises, except the feet are webbed and often have long claws. These turtles swim using all four feet in a way similar to the dog paddle, with the feet on the left and right side of the body alternately providing thrust. Large turtles tend to swim less than smaller ones, and the very big species, such as alligator snapping turtles, hardly swim at all, preferring to walk along the bottom of the river or lake. As well as webbed feet, turtles have very long claws, used to help them clamber onto riverbanks and floating logs upon which they bask. Male turtles tend to have particularly long claws, and these appear to be used to stimulate the female while mating. While most turtles have webbed feet, some, such as the pig-nosed turtle, have true flippers, with the digits being fused into paddles and the claws being relatively small. These species swim in the same way as sea turtles do (see below).

So, this would seem to indicate (assuming it is correct) that there are such things as amphibious turtles, which would merit the inclusion of the TMNTs on this list.

Moreover, and most importantly, I seem to remember the TMNTs being described in the original cartoon (the one that started in the '80s) as amphibious, which would explain their good swimming ability.

On the other hand, the description of amphibious turtles provided in this paragraph above does not seem to match the TMNTs. I do not think the fingers or toes of the TMNTs appeared particularly webbed, and they possessed regular humanoid nails as opposed to claws. And that would seem to lend credence, again, to Serendipodous's rational.

Now, I haven't watched TMNT in quite a long time, and as such, I recognise that my memory may be imperfect. While I seem to recall the TMNTs being described as amphibious, perhaps I am misremembering, and Serendipodous was right to revert my edit. Or, perhaps my memory does serve me well, and we should re-add the TMNTs to the list.

Do any of you reading this remember the show well enough to say definitively one way or another? Please weigh in below.

(And, in weighing in, please keep in mind that there have been multiple incarnations of the TMNTs, including comics, at least three animated T.V. series, one live-action T.V. series, and a semi-live action semi-animated film series; it may be the case that the turtles are amphibious in one incarnation and reptilian in another, so please be clear below which incarnation you are referencing. (I've even read recently that Michael Bay is planning a TMNT film series where the turtles aren't even Earthlings, but are instead aliens, as utterly stupid as that sounds—but I digress.))

Thanks,
allixpeeke (talk) 01:00, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Either way, methinks the TMNT should be included on either the List of piscine and amphibian humanoids or the List of reptilian humanoids (or both lists, if it turns out that they are indeed amphibious in one incarnation and reptilian in another).

You appear to be confusing the words "amphibian" and "amphibious". "Amphibious" means "capable of existing in both land and water," as turtles are. An amphibian is a creature possessing both lungs and gills, which turtles certainly do not. Millitaries around the world possess amphibious vehicles, but they are not amphibians. The TMNT are already listed as reptilian humanoids. Serendi^podous 17:05, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Serendi^podous, for your further comment.  That indeed does help clarify the matter.  I don’t know why I seem to remember the TMNTs being able to breathe underwater, but I guess we can likely chuck that up to either (A) faulty memory on my part or (B) a misunderstanding of the animal class of turtles on the part of the writers of the original cartoon.

Suffice it to say, I see you are correct that the TMNTs are included List of reptilian humanoids, and I feel satisfied for now.  Until such a point as someone can solve the mystery of why I am remembering (or misremembering, as the case probably is) the TMNTs breathing underwater, I'm comfortable with leaving the TMNTs on only the reptilian list, as opposed to both lists.

Best,

allixpeeke (talk) 20:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Might as well leave this here. Serendi^podous 22:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

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Change page title to List of aquatic humanoids

It was requested in last month's RfD for this page that the title be moved to List of aquatic humanoids. This seems like a more appropriate title per WP:CONCISE & WP:PRECISE. Users are also probably more likely to search for the term aquatic over the terms piscine or amphibian. Enix150 (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not concise. "Aquatic humanoid" includes things like sea gods, undines, beings made of water, water fairies, water bogies, the list goes on and on. Not to mention non-piscine hybrids like selkies or cecaelias. Serendi^podous 20:43, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Support change. My tendency, as expressed in the deletion discussion, is to have a List of aquatic humanoids. If this is so broad that it warrants splitting due to size we will see; I don't expect it yet. Why do I want that? Coming from Lists of humanoids, I think it would be a good thing to have a place for selkies, cacealias, undines, etc. The fact that it is broad should not deter us (Lists of humanoids is significantly broader and does exist). Things which are too unwieldy, like Water deities can be linked but not listed - they do have their own list already, so not really a problem. The other reason is Wikipedia-internal. There was no consensus if "piscine and amphibian humanoids" is now a notable topic or not, and if they should be put together in one group or not, depending on how you read the found secondary sources. Which can always lead to more problems in the future, new deletion nominations and the like. I don't think the notability is doubtful for the broader category of "aquatic humanoids", solving this specific concern. As discussed below, if we were to change the title and therefore scope, the psicine and amphibian humanoids should in my view be still recognzible as a distinct subgroup, which can easily be done by giving them their own section or sections. Daranios (talk) 10:19, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

And I forgot: I agree with Enix150 that "aquatic humanoids" should be the more common search term. Now that's already partly resolved by establishing the redirect guiding interested readers here, which is the next best we have to a list of aquatic humanoids, but then the article content now does somewhat fall short. Daranios (talk) 15:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Sectioning

Making this a sub-section. Daranios (talk) 15:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Before diving deeper into this, @Serendipodous: do you think it is possible to separate what we have now into sections of piscine and amphibian (not amphibious) humanoids, as I think Rtkat3 once attempted? And possibly why or why not? Thanks! Daranios (talk) 10:56, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes I once attempted this sorting by sorting the piscine humanoids from the amphibian humanoids @Daranios: until @Serendipodous: had his actual reason on why they shouldn't be sorted. --Rtkat3 (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Daranios:@Rtkat3: What is Gill-Man, a fish man, or anamphibian? What are the Deep Ones? Or Abe Sapien? When you take a man, who breathes air, and combine him with a fish, that breathes water, you are, by definition, creating an amphibian. So the dividing line is hard to draw. Serendi^podous 15:13, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

@Serendipodous: Why I've brought this up is because I think it might be interesting information for the readers, but more importantly if we were to expand to "aquatic humanoids", this could give such a list structure and prevent the broader scope from becoming confusing: We could partition into amphibian, piscine, elemental, Water deities as a special case, and others (and see what we get there, and look if other subgroups present themselves).

Content-wise, it is fiction so things will always be a bit fuzzy. But in general, if we don't try to do this deeply biologically (which would be iffy for fiction?) and stick to definition in the lede, "people with the characteristics of fish or amphibians", I think it is quite doable and the old version by Rtkat3 looks like a promising start. First, isn't using the definition "you take a man, who breathes air, and combine him with a fish, that breathes water" more amphibious than amphibian? Wouldn't a lung fish get to be an amphibian by this approach, while it is actually classified as a fish? Even if not deeply in biology, I believe most people have quite a good grasp on distinguishing fish and amphibia. Our list's definition does not look towards the function, but rather, does it have characteristics of a fish as compared to a frog or other amphibian? Whenever there is doubt, we can look what primary and secondary sources say. So the Gill-Man article says "Type: Devonian "Fish-Man"" -> piscine. Abe Sapien has "Species: Ichthyo sapien", not "amphibio sapien" -> piscine. On Deep Ones The Shadow Over Innsmouth is quoted as "They were the blasphemous fish-frogs". So, as already identified in Rtkat3's separation, they are both. So I would list them in both sections and make a footnote. Probably a few unclear cases will remain, which we can mark as such. Daranios (talk) 10:19, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be a good suggestion to sort each of those classifications @Daranios:. Do you understand now @Serendipodous:? --Rtkat3 (talk) 17:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Daranios:@Rtkat3: I don't know if I can find all the new necessary inclusions. Plus I need to decide if all the gods on this list will be deleted or not. Serendi^podous 18:18, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Serendipodous: The good thing is, it is noone's specific responsibility to do anything here, and Wikipedia is work in progress. So if we decide here that expanding the scope to aquatic humanoids is the way to go, any additions (and you've already mentioned easily recognizable ones) are a step forward. If we think the additions are probably incomplete, we can just a incomplete tags. Hopefully things will get more complete through the efforts of future contributors. Checking out the parent categories of Category:Piscine and amphibian humanoids might also be helpful, as might the secondary sources listed on top of the talk page.

For the gods I am also having a hard time deciding what would be best. It is however quite common in such lists to refer to a sub-topic list via link but to still include some (ideally more prominent) examples. So that would also be a possibility, to keep (promising) entries we have now while also linking to Water deities. Daranios (talk) 11:14, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

So are we doing this then? Serendi^podous 18:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)