CryptoZoology is a fringe science in today’s culture. While it is commonly viewed as a scientific attempt to prove the existence of cryptids, in actuality it serves a very important function for our scientific community. CryptoZoologists actively go out and search for evidence of new species. In addition to this scientific function they also have an important function for the supernatural community. CryptoZoologists classify, categorize and identify creatures of myth and legend to determine viability of their existence.
We here at D.E.C.I.D.E. often do not have the resources to actively go out on expeditions and do the search and testing ourselves. We are often limited to the stories, writings, and findings of others. While we will certainly be willing to share those findings, our work will be quite different, at least until we have received enough donations to mount an expedition of our own. First, understand that we use the term “CryptoZoology” as an umbrella term to cover many sub-fields. We here at D.E.C.I.D.E. will be using the following terms and definitions for these sub-fields:
MythoZoology- The specific study of creatures from myth, legend, and folklore.
XenoZoology- The specific study of entities believed to be not of this world.
FataZoology- The specific study of entities believed to be types of fairies
SpirituZoology- The specific study of entities believed to be remnants of past lives
KaijZoology- The specific study of "Kaiju" and creatures akin to them.
NeoGenuZoology- The search for, study and examination of potential new species and genus' on our world.
Of these fields only NeoGenuZoology continually and actively meets our above declared scientific function. While each of the other fields certainly uses the scientific method in their work, and the findings of other sub-fields can certainly have historical and anthropological value, for the purposes of D.E.C.I.D.E. they will all be strictly considered fringe sciences.
Each of these sub-fields’ terms come from greek and/or latin. Mythos = Greek for myth; Xeno = Greek for foreigner; Fata = latin for fairy; Spiritu- Latin for spirit; and then at the end there’s the Japanese term Kaij(u). Kaiju is commonly defined in American culture as meaning “Giant Monster”, though the original Japanese meaning is closer to “Strange Creature”. For our purposes Kaiju will simply mean creatures of unusual or abnormal size. At the end is the scientific term Zoology, meaning study of animals.
Seeing as how we at D.E.C.I.D.E. cannot go out and search for evidence ourselves, we will not be doing work in the sub-field of NeoGenuZoology. Our work will mostly deal with the dissection of information of certain species from tales, myth, and legend. For each entity we look at we will: 1.) determine if there are variants and how many variants there are.
2.) specify which sub-field of study each variant of the entity falls under
3.) give a full taxonomical classification of the species and their variants
4.) rate the likelihood of them existing in our world
5.) discuss what would be necessary to be true in our world for the entity (or it’s variants) to exist
For the purpose of our works here at D.E.C.I.D.E. all entities will be considered to be of the Domain - Eukarya; Kingdom - Animalia; and the Phylum - Chordata; unless otherwise noted. We also recognize one additional classification after the Species classification, which we term Breed. The Breed classification denotes different evolutionary lines that are still capable of interbreeding with those of the same Species (and occasionally Genus).
Dog breeds such as the German Shepard and Rottweiler would be listed here, as well as cat breeds such as the Siamese and Maine Coon. Because of this we recognize Human breeds as well, what we term as “heritage” or “race” is the human breed. We have Oriental, African, Russian, Mongol, Irish, Russian, and many many more…
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