On 7/3/06, Justin Cormack <justin(a)specialbusservice.com> wrote:
Its pointless trying to classify animals based on the
political
boundaries they happen to inhabit. It shows a deep misunderstanding
of classification. Delete them.
It's not at all pointless. "Australian native mammals" is a perfectly
natural, meaningful, valuable, navigable category.
Animals are not "Australian" or "English" or "French". But
they can be
"native to Australia", "native to England" etc.
Political boundaries may not matter to animals, but they matter to us,
and there's no inherent reason not to use them to categorise animals.
Whether it's actually practical due to the sheer number of entries is
another question...
Steve