Parade of Extant Chordates

[RiverNotch]

The sea squirts are chordates immobile
who, when old, don't look like they're chordates!
Their class name is sadly iambic.

The next class, the cephalochordates, 
have heads that are all underdeveloped
and notochords ever-existing.

The fishes who're part of Agnatha
are fishes that witches find lovely
because they are jawless and slimy!

But Agnatha's not monophyletic:
there's one group, and then there's Myxini
(the former are vertebrate cuties!)

Now fishes, real fishes, they're bony
or cartilage-skeletoned creatures:
they're all cool, so you just stay with us!

Now, sharks, rays, and skates are not bony,
and they're all much older than humans!
They also have skin like sandpaper.

Next up, you've got fishes with ray-fins
(that's fins with them lepidotrichia).
One species is yummy Tilapia!

And then there's the Sarcopterygians:
the Coelacanths and the mudfishes!
Their fins are from where limbs succeeded!

"Anura", "Caudata", "Apoda":
the only ones left of Amphibia!
They're cool but they're creepy and slimy.

Anurans are frogs, toads, and tadpoles,
though tadpoles are just froggy babies.
Caudatans are all salamanders.

Apodans, meanwhile, are Caecillians:
they look like worms but they're amphibians!
And that's it, I think, for amphibians.

The reptiles called Rhyncocephalians
are Lepidosaurians in subclass!
They've snouts that are shaped like a bird's beak.

The reptiles whose abdomens live in
thick shells made of bone and not chitin
belong to the order Chelonia.

The reptiles whose scales are all squamate
(which means they are shaped like odd rhombi)
belong to the order Squamata!

The snakes and the geckos are squamates,
as squamates are Lepidosaurians!
And crocs are all just Crocodilians.

Remember, though, group Crocodilia's
an order, and not its own subclass!
It's subclass, it is Archosauria.

Next come all the birds and the mammals:
of birds, there is only one subclass,
the subclass that's called Neornithes!

And mammals, well, this group's much larger,
with two subclasses which are still extant,
and many more orders and whatnot!

I'll skim over all of their orders,
so that this'll quickly be over.
There's Theria and then Yinotheria.

The Therians, they give birth to babies
that come out of their moms all shell-less,
while the other subclass still lays eggs.

[tectak]

The sea squirts are chordates immobile
who, when old, don't look like they're chordates!
Their class name is sadly iambic.

The next class, the cephalochordates, 
have heads that are all underdeveloped
and notochords ever-existing.

The fishes who're part of Agnatha
are fishes that witches find lovely
because they are jawless and slimy!

But Agnatha's not monophyletic:
there's one group, and then there's Myxini
(the former are vertebrate cuties!)

Now fishes, real fishes, they're bony
or cartilage-skeletoned creatures:
they're all cool, so you just stay with us!

Now, sharks, rays, and skates are not bony,
and they're all much older than humans!
They also have skin like sandpaper.

Next up, you've got fishes with ray-fins
(that's fins with them lepidotrichia).
One species is yummy Tilapia!

And then there's the Sarcopterygians:
the Coelacanths and the mudfishes!
Their fins are from where limbs succeeded!

"Anura", "Caudata", "Apoda":
the only ones left of Amphibia!
They're cool but they're creepy and slimy.

Anurans are frogs, toads, and tadpoles,
though tadpoles are just froggy babies.
Caudatans are all salamanders.

Apodans, meanwhile, are Caecillians:
they look like worms but they're amphibians!
And that's it, I think, for amphibians.

The reptiles called Rhyncocephalians
are Lepidosaurians in subclass!
They've snouts that are shaped like a bird's beak.

The reptiles whose abdomens live in
thick shells made of bone and not chitin
belong to the order Chelonia.

The reptiles whose scales are all squamate
(which means they are shaped like odd rhombi)
belong to the order Squamata!

The snakes and the geckos are squamates,
as squamates are Lepidosaurians!
And crocs are all just Crocodilians.

Remember, though, group Crocodilia's
an order, and not its own subclass!
It's subclass, it is Archosauria.

Next come all the birds and the mammals:
of birds, there is only one subclass,
the subclass that's called Neornithes!

And mammals, well, this group's much larger,
with two subclasses which are still extant,
and many more orders and whatnot!

I'll skim over all of their orders,
so that this'll quickly be over.
There's Theria and then Yinotheria.

The Therians, they give birth to babies
that come out of their moms all shell-less,
while the other subclass still lays eggs.

Welk, it would be just fin...but it ain't finny and it ain't poetry...wiki might like it , wee'l sea
Best,
tectak
Can you write a poem?

---

The sea squirts are chordates immobile
who, when old, don't look like they're chordates!
Their class name is sadly iambic.

The next class, the cephalochordates, 
have heads that are all underdeveloped
and notochords ever-existing.

The fishes who're part of Agnatha
are fishes that witches find lovely
because they are jawless and slimy!

But Agnatha's not monophyletic:
there's one group, and then there's Myxini
(the former are vertebrate cuties!)

Now fishes, real fishes, they're bony
or cartilage-skeletoned creatures:
they're all cool, so you just stay with us!

Now, sharks, rays, and skates are not bony,
and they're all much older than humans!
They also have skin like sandpaper.

Next up, you've got fishes with ray-fins
(that's fins with them lepidotrichia).
One species is yummy Tilapia!

And then there's the Sarcopterygians:
the Coelacanths and the mudfishes!
Their fins are from where limbs succeeded!

"Anura", "Caudata", "Apoda":
the only ones left of Amphibia!
They're cool but they're creepy and slimy.

Anurans are frogs, toads, and tadpoles,
though tadpoles are just froggy babies.
Caudatans are all salamanders.

Apodans, meanwhile, are Caecillians:
they look like worms but they're amphibians!
And that's it, I think, for amphibians.

The reptiles called Rhyncocephalians
are Lepidosaurians in subclass!
They've snouts that are shaped like a bird's beak.

The reptiles whose abdomens live in
thick shells made of bone and not chitin
belong to the order Chelonia.

The reptiles whose scales are all squamate
(which means they are shaped like odd rhombi)
belong to the order Squamata!

The snakes and the geckos are squamates,
as squamates are Lepidosaurians!
And crocs are all just Crocodilians.

Remember, though, group Crocodilia's
an order, and not its own subclass!
It's subclass, it is Archosauria.

Next come all the birds and the mammals:
of birds, there is only one subclass,
the subclass that's called Neornithes!

And mammals, well, this group's much larger,
with two subclasses which are still extant,
and many more orders and whatnot!

I'll skim over all of their orders,
so that this'll quickly be over.
There's Theria and then Yinotheria.

The Therians, they give birth to babies
that come out of their moms all shell-less,
while the other subclass still lays eggs.

Welk, it would be just fin...but it ain't finny and it ain't poetry...wiki might like it , wee'l sea
Best,
tectak
You can you write a good poem but this wasn't it.

[RiverNotch]

Yeah, this definitely isn't a good poem. Just my hand at writing doggerel (but, you know, scientific doggerel.
But aww, I was hoping the whole fact that I wrote about such an obtuse subject would be funny enough. Perhaps I should tighten it?

[Grace]

Yeah, this definitely isn't a good poem. Just my hand at writing doggerel (but, you know, scientific doggerel.
But aww, I was hoping the whole fact that I wrote about such an obtuse subject would be funny enough. Perhaps I should tighten it?

Well, I did find it funny. Maybe it's just me, but 3 stanzas down, it started to sound like Monty Python. It's informative, with hilarity thrown in.

[tectak]

Yeah, this definitely isn't a good poem. Just my hand at writing doggerel (but, you know, scientific doggerel.
But aww, I was hoping the whole fact that I wrote about such an obtuse subject would be funny enough. Perhaps I should tighten it?

Well, I did find it funny. Maybe it's just me, but 3 stanzas down, it started to sound like Monty Python.  It's informative, with hilarity thrown in.

Funny, that.
tectak

[ChristopherSea]

RiverNotch, At least you only strived to record the extant Chordata and exclude the extinct genera!  
I found this piece amusing for multiple reasons, the first being implied in my opening comment, i.e.,
that you carry out a theme that 'you may not have realized the scope of your piece until it was too late.'
You admit that you set yourself up for skimming much of the higher chordates due to the mountain that
you mistook as a molehill.

Also, there are a heap of funny observations and odd juxtapositions that evoked big grins from me, including…

‘Their class name is sadly iambic.’

‘(the former are vertebrate cuties!)’

‘One species is yummy Tilapia!’

'I'll skim over all of their orders,
so that this'll quickly be over.'


…and so forth. Science and poetry are good bedfellows. I would keep working on this.
You need a closing/concluding stanza for certain.

Good luck editing this monstrosity!/Chris

[RiverNotch]

Oh Beelzebub editing this monstrosity....
challenge accepted!
And maybe I'll even go deeper into the mammals, and include the hemichordates and extinct orders!

Heck, I could maybe even expand this to include even Echinoderms! That would be one hell of an epic....I even envision one of its stanzas being:

"A Deuterostome is a creature
who starts out in life as an asshole
and sometimes is stuck there forever!"

[Leah S.]

It reminded of this poem I wrote a while ago while I was discovering meter and rhyme.

Sorry, I deleted it and posted it as a new thread, which is what I meant to do in the first place......