(This is the 12/21 post. Editing the table required a reposting.)

Snoopy frequently transforms himself into other animals. This structure, “Snoopy in Subphylum Vertebrata” shows the taxonomic categories of many of the vertebrate species in Snoopy’s imagination. (1, 2)

The previous posting contained a table with homogenous categories, such as all dog breeds in the immediate parent category of the AKC hound group. The new structure is more heterogeneous. Snoopy has imagined himself to be fish, birds, mammals and reptiles. They are all contained in each category column.

The new table will be used in multiple postings to demonstrate several techniques. First, however, we will start with a tour of Snoopy’s imagination. Each animal is categorized to the species level, but Snoopy himself does not always think in terms of species. His characters appear at all levels of the vertebrate taxonomy.

When Snoopy imagines himself to be a shark, he does not specify what kind. The shark subclass Elasmobranchii contains only one superorder, Euselachii, which has four orders of guitarfish, rays and skates with ten orders of sharks. It is clear to me, however, that when Snoopy imagines himself a shark, he can only be a porbeagle shark. Porbeagles, which grow to 12 feet, are in the same family as the great white shark.

Because Snoopy is a beagle, he would be the ace species in any classification. His vulture would be the largest bird in North America, the California condor. His anteater could only be the giant anteater. Snoopy would also be the emperor penguin, the royal python, and Macropus giganteus or the eastern grey kangaroo.

I once lived near Snoopy. Charles Schulz and I were both in the Sonoma County Wine Country, so I know the animals in the neighborhood. When Snoopy imagines himself a pelican, he must be thinking of the brown pelican that inhabits the San Francisco Bay shoreline. As an owl, he would be a spotted owl, the cause of major environmental controversy in the Redwood Empire. The South Bay is part of the greater Bay Area, so the Easter Beagle is obviously a San Jose brush rabbit. Of course, Snoopy would be a western rattlesnake, the rattler of Northern California, a snake I have encountered on several occasions.

Snoopy’s imaginings sometimes do reach the species level: bald eagle, moose, giraffe, polar bear, cougar, lion, and tiger. Certain other selections are only logical. Surely Snoopy was thinking of a domesticated cow and goat. He’s an American dog, so he must also be an American beaver (Castor canadensis) and an American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

The others I selected for my own reasons. Gunnison’s prairie dog is native to my new home in Arizona. The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is just too fun to pass up. The black spot piranha was chosen because there aren’t many species of piranha and I like black better than red. Snoopy is a grey wolf because that’s who howls in my own imagination.

Here’s the structure, followed by footnotes, and a comment on comments.

(1) Snoopy: The Little Dog with the Big Imagination. (n.d.). Retrieved December 20, 2005, from http://petcaretips.net/snoopy.html. This page has an extensive list of Snoopy’s imaginary characters.

(2) For this structure, I followed the categories of the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) as displayed in the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility at http://www.cbif.gc.ca/. While building the structure, I also researched the Animal Diversity Web of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu. Both were retrieved December 20, 2005.

COMMENTS: If you would like to comment on IsisInBlog postings, please send an email to katherine@isisinform.com.

Follow