Talk:List of species

On-Topic

Are all of these really considered species? Most of them are just single enemies with nothing to do with anything else. I would think of species as the Pianta, Koopas, and (maybe) Boos, but is everything else really necessary in the "species" section? --Master Gamer 22:16, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

I think technically most enemies are distinct species, there are just some more prevalent than others, just like in the real world. Son of Suns 22:18, 31 May 2006 (EDT)

Squeek/Mouser

I thought we already solved this problem. Mouser is a character in Doki Doki Panic. Squeek's are the small mouse creatures found in Yoshi's Island, both Paper Mario games and Mouser himself. We know this because Goombella called them Squeeks in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and they were named as such in the jap version of the game manual for Yoshi's Island (or so I'm told). -- Ghost Jam 01:19, 21 June 2006 (EDT)

Also, Little Mousers were the name of Squeeks in Yoshi's Island. Additionally, Nomadimice are a special type of Squeek. However, when I went to the page, there was no information so I deleted the page. --Son of Suns 01:38, 21 June 2006 (EDT)

Retrieved from DK Wiki

Krash

But if there a sub-species, dont they go here? If not where DO they go? - User: Ultimatedixie

Probably just the sub-species category, that seems to be whats going on at the MarioWiki. Or a sub-species list could be made. -- Sir Grodus

Actually, I meant, which of the regular CATs. Games Characters Places Items Species Allies Enemies Special Moves Movies and Tv Publications Music

But after I typed that, I realized it went in the, Enemies category. So....nevermind. - User: Ultimatedixie

Species Question

What is the name of the purple hedgehog-like enemy?-- Aipom --

Porcupo. -- Son of Suns

The section...

What is the Species and Sub-Species? I don't actually get it, does it mean a different type of enemy types from the orignal enmey? I'm planning to update this section... RAP... So confused, my brain HURTS!

We use the term Sub-Species to denote a creature that "spun-off" an original creature. For example, Goomba is a species, but Paragoomba is a sub-species. Does this make sense? In this list I was trying to list all species, then under each main species, all sub-species with a two star bullet. -- Son of Suns

Like this?

==G==
*Goomba – Super Mario Bros.
**Mad Goomba – Super Princess Peach
**Paragoomba – Super Mario Bros. 3
**Sad Goomba – Super Princess Peach
**Spiked Goomba – Paper Mario

The main species would be oh say a Goomba. And at the bottom, the spun-off enemies are orginazed alphabetically right? If this is correct... I would start updating it; but it will be tough... RAP... This one is gonna take about a week or two...

Hey, does a Business Bro. (character) are sub-species to Hammer Bro., if so; why the Business Bro is not an enemy? RAP... Confused again as anyways

Wait, how about sub-species of sub-species? Like Hammer Bro. is a sub-specie of Koopa Troopa, but Fire Bros. is a sub-species of Hammer Bros.? Agh, this category is too confusing.
I am Confused 14:01, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

And I updated the code section for you Wa _T^C_@^Y 14:12, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

Any Chance?

we might be able to use DPL to sort this list? Max2 (talk) Maybe by series or game or something. Max2 (talk)

I wish we could, that would make updating this list unnecessary, but, there's no template to include a game as a parameter on any of these pages, signify the shape for the symbols, etc. Also, I'm sure if we could make separate sections for letters. It's not worth the time it would take – go to MarioWiki:Maintenance/Lists once a week and update it manually instead. Wa _T^C_@^Y 15:24, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Well, I don't mean Auto-Updating, I just mean, like, sorting in a table. Max2 (talk) We would still have to update Manually, but you could search by series or title.

That would require a template to be included on every species page out there with a game and/or series parameter – then the contents could be transcluded, and put in a table with class=sortable. Alas, that's 100s of articles to add that to. Wa _T^C_@^Y 15:28, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Oh. ok. Max2 (talk) Just a suggestion.

Meows

All of AirMeow, BigMeow, Meowbomb, MeowMaid, PatrolMeow, SecuriMeow and SurpriseMeow are classified as sub-species. How to sort them in? - Cobold (talk · contribs) 14:51, 22 September 2007 (EDT)

Their categories should be switched to "species", as there is no main form. -- Son of Suns

Cross Species

Should Pidgit Bill be listed as a Pidgit, as a Bullet Bill, or as both? - Cobold (talk · contribs) 15:22, 22 September 2007 (EDT)

Hmm...probably both. -- Son of Suns

Robots?

Shouldn't things like Shroids, Robo Shy Guys, and Meowmaids be removed, since they aren't really living and therefore not really "species?" Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that abiotic machines are not usually considered species. Please respond! Goomb-omb 20:39, 19 June 2008 (EDT) edit:I"m going to make a proposal about this

Around here, "Species" is just a general term used for all types of beings, be they biotic, undead, robotic, or whatever. - Walkazo 11:42, 14 June 2011 (EDT)

Humanoid/sapient

We should put an article only about the civilizated species... actually every species on the Mario world are sapient... so, an article about species that sighly resemble human beings (being biped, for example).

Drmgin 15:52, 9 January 2009 (EST)

Not everything biped resemble humans. For example. Goombas don't resemble humans, and they're bipeds, they resemble walking mushrooms.

Guy Tim

Centurions

Are centurions a specie ™ ???

Yes. -- Son of Suns (talk)

Referring Directly to the Reader

The article refers directly to the reader. Is that intentional, or should we fix it? Yoshario

This should be fixed. Also, the introduction reads very informal und biased. Time Questions 11:13, 1 September 2009 (EDT)

Fixed it. Yoshario

Amiguity of Definition

There was discussion yesterday in #mwikichat about whether Bullet Bills are actual species, since they, as far as we could tell, never spoke in games. Similarly, there are other enemies that may not be living creatures at all, so I thought an established set of requirements to be considered a species would be good. Any thoughts? Garlic Man (talk)

No because than that will ruin all the hard work I did on the bullet Bill section (I added a lot.) And they are still species. KS3 (talk)

Bullet Bills speak in Mario Party Advance, as do Bob-Ombs. Hello, I'm Time Turner.

I don't think it's really worth thinking about which creatures actually live and which ones don't. Just leave it as it is. --Grandy02 18:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Species and Subspecies

Is "Subspecies" a real word? Or are most of the "Species" we're talking about actually Genus and Families, and "Subspecies" actually Species? -Gary Koopa

Super Mario RPG Species

Should the weaker enemies have their stronger variants with them, because enemies like Spring-Oings and Trashures have their stronger variants with them. User:Fiery Spyro

Species Missing

What kind of species should I add?
— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Syncro263892XL (talk).

Drop-down list

Do we have a drop-down list template or something similar on the wiki? The current list is very confusing to navigate on mobile and something of sorts would help:

Shy Guy V

• Animal Trainer Shy Guy
• Bandit V
  • Badge Bandit
  • Big Bandit
  • etc.

The V's represent arrows that can be tapped on to reveal all the "sub-species" of a certain species. Categories on Wikipedia work this way. -- -- KOOPA CON CARNE 13:44, 26 November 2018 (EST)

Tattle Log / Catch Card order in the Paper Mario series

Generally, parent species appear first while variants appear later, with few exceptions. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Tattle Log and Super Paper Mario's Catch Cards are both structured as follows: the basic version of a given enemy is listed first, followed by derivatives (in overall order of appearance in the former and directness in the latter), and bosses like Big Blooper are usually separate at the end (with some exceptions like Gold Fuzzy). According to the lists, however, some parent species were technically introduced in a later game than their derivatives. This includes Dull Bones (which is already implied by the name of Dry Bowser in Japanese and certain languages, and despite the fact that it would look identical to Dry Bones, it was Dull Bones that received a Flopside Pit of 100 Trials counterpart), Dark Puff, Ember, Bald Cleft, and Dark Wizzerd. It also implies that "Pale Piranha" should be the basic form of Piranha Plant (considered a mere color variant in some languages), with the game's "Piranha Plant" as a derivative (as the name and guidance in certain languages would suggest). Should we adhere to this order? Note that this doesn't always match internal order, and some like Ember would probably have been reversed if it appeared at a later point in The Thousand-Year Door (like it did in the original Paper Mario). I do think that we should consider at least going by the order further supported by Super Paper Mario, which only includes Dull Bones and Bald Cleft. Or is it safer to continue to consider these weaker versions as derivatives that happen to appear earlier in those games, which mostly aligns with their filenames (with notable exceptions like Pale Piranha and Moon Cleft)? LinkTheLefty (talk) 10:25, March 15, 2020 (EDT)

Wonder Update

Will this page be updated with the Mario Wonder enemy species? 192.75.63.174 10:49, September 6, 2024 (EDT)

Phasing out the concept of "species" on here

This talk page or section has a conflict or question that needs to be answered. Please try to help and resolve the issue by leaving a comment.

On the Discord server, it has been discussed with general favor that we begin phasing out this deeply ingrained "species" split from "characters" on this wiki. It is a relic of the early days of the wiki that tried to put "lore" where it wasn't and is out-of-line with how the games are actually designed, leading to this weird inconsistency where some subjects usually appear in multiple but can appear in singular or vice-versa have to be fit into these two narrow boxes. Then there's the issue of when a bio says something like "Galoomba is not the same species as Goomba," we try to adapt it to our already inconsistent system and drag the mess out even further.

For a bit of background, our templates didn't always use "variants"/"variant of"/"relatives"/"comparable". It was originally "sub-species"/"parent species", then changed to "derived species"/"parent species"/"related species," before I advocated to change it to how it is now since playing dress-up does not change your species. In fact, there was originally a category for "sub-species" that covered every instance of an enemy being derived from another one. This conflation of an actual taxonomic term with a goofy cartoonish video game's tendency to base subjects on previous recognizable subjects both directly and indirectly has only led to pointless bickering as to whether something should qualify as a "character" or "species," has led to times when certain appearances of Koopa Troopas and other such standard enemies get split for being in singular in them, and the entire debacle regarding things like Boom Boom and Birdo, where the developers clearly don't care to commit either way because it simply does not matter.

The main issue in phasing this out is how to replace it in places like navigation templates. Personally, I'm fine with just using "subject" as a catch-all term, though I don't believe that Paragoomba and Goombario should be treated as the same sort of derivation of Goomba. I suppose we can also simply use "variants" there and keep it separate from "characters," though in some ways that simply sidesteps the issue rather than solving it - namely the fact that subjects can be both at once depending on how the developers feel, and "species" can be derived from supposedly individual "characters" - such as how Potted Ghost is a combination of Boo Blah and Roger the Potted Ghost, not to mention Burt the Bashful, Salvo the Slime, Naval Piranha, Hookbill the Koopa, and Tap-Tap the Red Nose all have their own slew of derivatives, to keep on the SMW2:YI theming. I'd honestly also support phasing out these massive multi-franchise-spanning list pages as well (aside from the game-based ones) since they're a pain to upkeep, are overly massive to begin with and awkwardly organized, and I really doubt they're used by that many people anyway. But that's a separate issue. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 10:17, August 25, 2025 (EDT)

As long as we can find the appropriate method and terms to distinguish "characters" and "species", I can agree to this idea. Besides the Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island examples you brought up, classifying subjects like Astro-Lanceurs as a variant of Mollusque-Lanceur or the "X" boss rematches in the Mario & Luigi series as variants of their original counterparts would be perfect for this new system. That said, I have a couple of questions about the hypothetical "subject infobox" and how its parameters would be used that I'd like to have answered.

• Should we classify forms as variants? (e.g. Fire Mario as a variant of Mario.) If so, what about when certain forms are portrayed as separate characters in some games, like with Metal Mario or Dry Bowser? Or what about alter egos with distinct personalities like Rookie or Mr. L?
• What should we do with the relatives parameter? If the subject is a character (or, well, generally depicted as one), it could easily be misused for familial relatives (e.g. Luigi as a "relative" of Mario, ha-ha-ha). Do note that a few bosses are both familial to and could be considered variants of other bosses (e.g. Gloomtail and Bonetail to Hooktail, or Thugly to Mugly). Bringing back the term "related species" might work, but it seems a little long and clunky next to "variants" and "comparable".

— SolemnStormcloud (talk) 14:53, August 26, 2025 (EDT)

About the first one... for power-ups, which generally apply to multiple characters, probably not? The ones that sometimes appear separately do need some more thought, perhaps, but then again we don't have a dedicated article for Cat Peach despite all of her appearances independent of Cat Mario (oddly, we do have an article for Pink Gold Peach despite her being all but stated to be the Peach version of Gold Mario/Silver Luigi). On Triforce Wiki, we have an "alternate forms" parameter, though that might be getting a bit out-there for this given the aforementioned character-neutral power-ups. As for the second one... I don't know, perhaps "relations" might work? Still comes off as a tad clunky. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 15:34, August 26, 2025 (EDT)

We don't argue over forms vs not forms, and it is a major element of the brand. We can give "forms" its own parameter in character infobox without any kind of trouble. (Remember, infobox sections are collapsible if they are too long.) I think "alter-egos" is its own parameter too, since they usually don't have mechanics of forms. I guess we would also rename "relatives" to be more reflective of its "who's on first" bit. Maybe "Closely Similar" and comparable becomes "Broadly Similar"? Salmancer (talk) 22:34, August 26, 2025 (EDT)

(Responding to both Doc von Schmeltwick and Salmancer) — If we were to add a forms parameter, I would probably go with Doc's stance on not including power-up forms to avoid clunkiness and repetition across multiple characters. I don't think a separate parameter for alter egos would be worth adding, however—there simply aren't enough subjects we could feasibly apply it to. From the top of my head, I can think of Mario (Dr. Mario, Mr. Pipe), Pauline (Odd Rock), Luigi (Mr. L, Waluigi (KC Mario)), Princess Peach (Warupīchi), Bowser (Rookie, all the ones from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and KC Mario), Daisy (Warudeijī), Wario (Wario Deluxe, Wario-Man), Bluster Kong (Leo Luster), Bowser Jr. (Shadow Mario), and Cozette (Zokket). (That's more than I initially estimated, but still not enough to be worth considering.) Not to mention that some of these alter egos do have unique powers from their normal counterparts. All in all, it'd be better to include alter egos in the umbrella category of forms. That said, there's also the matter of enemy variants that are explicitly portrayed as the base enemy under the effects of a power-up, like Tail Goombas or the Mega Koopa. Would we classify these as variants or forms?
I don't like either of the suggested renames for the relatives parameters. "Relations" doesn't seem like it'd solve my concerns—in fact, it might make potential misuse worse, as then a subject's friends, enemies, and other affiliates could theoretically fit that word in addition to their family members. "Closely Similar" would just run into the same clunkiness as "related species". I thought about combining variants and relatives into a single, broader "derivatives" parameter (e.g. both Thwimp and Whomp could be considered derivatives of Thwomp), but there's an obvious problem: What would we do when two or more enemies are obviously related, but neither can be considered the base variant? (e.g. Spoing and Spangler, or Magmad and Icead.) That was the original purpose of the relatives parameter, and we'd have no good substitute if we were to combine it with variants. It wouldn't be right to call such examples "comparable". — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 12:31, August 27, 2025 (EDT)

Cat Mario's infobox says we consider Cat Goomba, Cat Bullet Bill, Meowser, and so on to be the Cat Mario versions of their source enemy. I'm okay with saying Cat Goomba is to Goomba as Cat Mario is to Mario. Salmancer (talk) 12:46, August 27, 2025 (EDT)

Point is, the potential of overlap like this does raise the possibility of forgoing a parameter for forms and just classifying them as variants in the hypothetical infobox. — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 13:11, August 27, 2025 (EDT)

I think Goombario has to take this one for the team and be sorted the same way we sort Paragoomba, because separating the two things inadvertently creates organization based on species vs character and puts us right back where we started. when I think the premise to to phase out categorization by species. Salmancer (talk) 22:34, August 26, 2025 (EDT)

At best, "enemy" for Paragoomba to "non-enemy" for Goombario but that's as far as we can go. (Yes we can get away with this by making the Super Mario series definition the primary definer of what is and is not an enemy.) Salmancer (talk) 22:53, August 26, 2025 (EDT)

Actually, given it's mainly just RPG series that have any hard-distinguished "character" versions, we could have a section dedicated to "RPG characters" akin to what {{Toads}} does. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 14:09, August 28, 2025 (EDT)

I agree with that. Salmancer (talk) 14:51, August 29, 2025 (EDT)

I don't think that's a good idea, there's plenty of other characters in Mario Party, the sports games, other media, and even the main series that would be unnecessarily excluded. I mean, if you look at Toad, there's Captain Toad, Shroomlock, Obi-Wan Toadi, Kinopio-kun, just to select a handful - plus Toadette and Toadsworth who debuted outside of the RPGs and are franchise-wide characters, so they could technically be listed there but I think it would be pretty misrepresentative. Even the Goomba page has Dr. Sporis von Fungenstein. Having characters specifically from one arbitrarily chosen genre in their own section, while the others are treated on the same level as something like Paragoomba, doesn't feel right and I would argue is a poor representation of what the developers intended when creating these characters. Overall, this whole thing is starting to feel like a disproportionate reaction to what's in the grand scheme of things a relatively small number of edge cases, IMO. -- Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 15:58, August 29, 2025 (EDT)

The search for the beginnings of the problem regarding "character/species/variant"

This talk page or section has a conflict or question that needs to be answered. Please try to help and resolve the issue by leaving a comment.

I want to get to the root of this problem, and I also want to find solutions that work for every page, not just some. To do that, we need to know what the problem is, what it's generating, and, more importantly, what a character is, what a species is, and what a variant is. Once we know that, the solution will be simpler than one might think. So, let's start. What's the current problem with characters and species? Sorbetti (talk) 13:57, October 18, 2025 (EDT)