Category talk:Crustaceans

This page is all wrong, insects aren't crustaceans...

This is a big mistake.

Rendumguy (talk) 06:59, December 11, 2025 (EST)

Historically and in popular memory, crustaceans and insects have been recognized as discrete groups. However, over the past two decades, there has been considerable amount of research in evolutionary biology that indicate Insecta evolved within Crustacea (Rota-Stabelli et al. 2010). This means there are traditional crustaceans more closely related to insects than they are to other crustaceans, and, the traditional arrangement of Crustacea is paraphyletic. Scientists have rules that discourage paraphyletic taxonomic groups because they want the names we attribute to living things to be as reflective of reality as possible. Some researchers have taken the information I relayed to split the traditional crustacean clade into multiple smaller ones in order to keep Insecta a discrete class. Others have chosen to simply move Insecta to within Crustacea properly, and while there is still disagreement among evolutionary biologists that work with invertebrates, I think the latter is the most straightforward thing to do, and the simplest for Super Mario Wiki. - Nintendo101 (talk) 09:23, December 11, 2025 (EST)

I think comparing the Super Mario Wiki to biology and science is inappropriate, regardless of the most recent studies or anything else. This is Super Mario, the same logic isn't applied here as in real life. Therefore, this discussion seems odd to me. Most people, based on what they've been taught and understand, consider insects to be arthropods. The change seems unnecessary here, as it only creates confusion. Or is the next step to remove the "Fish" category from the Super Mario Wiki because, biologically, the category of fish doesn't exist? Sorbetti (talk) 10:03, December 11, 2025 (EST)

I am not interested in misrepresenting reality because we conceptually disagree with it, as that is how false information gets spread. Nintendo choses to create characters based on insects - they do not get to chose what an insect is. - Nintendo101 (talk) 19:18, December 11, 2025 (EST)

I think that keeping insects in crustaceans based solely on science isn't entirely beneficial in this case (just like the fish category). Although, if you really want to keep insects in crustaceans, then I believe insects can belong to both the crustacean and arthropod categories at the same time; that would be fair enough. Sorbetti (talk) 19:25, December 11, 2025 (EST)

Crustaceans are arthropods. In the same way all articles in Category:Tanukis are nestled with Category:Mammals, insects are already within the Arthropod category by virtue of being in the crustaceans category. — Nintendo101 (talk) 19:44, December 11, 2025 (EST)

Okay, let 's revisit this a bit. "and while there is still disagreement among evolutionary biologists that work with invertebrates", so this change isn't something completely clean and universally approved that can be implemented immediately without prior discussion. "I think the latter is the most straightforward thing to do, and the simplest for Super Mario Wiki", and since then, two users (including me) have already interpreted this change as a mistake due to confusion. Furthermore, as you said, "in popular memory", people already distinguish these two categories as discrete different. Therefore, this change doesn't seem beneficial or simple to me, but rather like a niche biological change. As I keep mentioning, this is Super Mario, you don't have to be so attached to reality or science, especially when that hinders the function of a category and generates confusion. Again, returning to the topic of the fish category. Scientifically, there isn't a real general category or group for "fishes", but that's how it's popularly know and how it's organized on the wiki. That shouldn't be changed, however, it's indicated in the entry for the "fish" category from a biologically perspective without affecting the organization. This is how simply this should be implemented. Sorbetti (talk) 21:32, December 11, 2025 (EST)

My comment about evolutionary biologist discourse is on the basis on whether Crustacea should be divided up into smaller groups to keep Insecta discretely separate (which sees the loss of crustaceans as a group) or if Insecta should just be included within Crustacea (which preserves crustaceans and insects as recognizable groups, just with the latter within the former). There is broad consensus that insects evolved deep within Crustacea — that is not in dispute. How one reflects this reality varies a bit.

"Fish" is not in the same situation. Contrary to online memes, fish are real — it is just not an evolutionarily discrete term. It refers to the non-tetrapod vertebrates. "Insect" and "crustacean" are evolutionarily discrete terms. We have no objective basis to treat them otherwise.

I am not comfortable with lying to readers about what an insect is just because they do not personally know. On principle, I think one is doing a great disservice to their readerbase if they think ignoring or obfuscating truth makes information more "accessible". All this amounts to is making one's readers misinformed on purpose. And for as silly it may seem to take this stance for a reference on a video game franchise, I know how spongy people's minds are, especially those of young people. I know how seeing one source — even one for fun media they like — playing fast and loose with facts can obfuscate or make it harder to have those facts corrected later on in life, because it passively seems like every source does it's own thing. I found things like that very frustrating growing up. If people have any difficulty understanding what an insect is or its relationship to other living things, I do not want it to be because of how those categories are setup on this site. - Nintendo101 (talk) 22:04, December 11, 2025 (EST)

I think the simplest solution is to create a category for arthropods, and put crustaceans and insects in there put the insects category in the arthropods category. That is, if we have enough articles on athropods that are neither insect nor crustacean. rend (talk) (edits) 01:31, December 12, 2025 (EST)