• Agent641@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Octoria are scientifically impossible, the grazing territory requirements alone for a sustainable breeding colony would be immense. Any reports of them in the wild are either misidentified pairs of quadferrets copulating, or hoaxes perpetuating the psuedoscience.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      quadferrets copulating

      That’s where you’re messing up. Those are pentacoyotes, not quadferrets. The contact side between two polygonimals mating is actually obscured, so the actual number of sides in a copulation configuration is the sum of the sides of all involved polygonimals - 2. Therefore the octorca could not be two mating quadferrets, but could be two pentacoyotes, or a chain of duodugongs.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Youre quite right, rookie mistake by me. You would think a Polyphylogenonomist would know better.

        However, wouldnt it be more accurate to say that the actual number of sides in any given copulation configuration containing n polygonimals would be n*(sides per polygonimal)-(n-1)? Assuming we exclude tricopulations of hexbears where any given individual may be contacting two other individuals’ sides at the same time in a tessalation layout? I must admit im not certain though, my field is polyphylogenomics, not polyphylogenomatics. Im sure there are some edge cases Ive missed, pardon the pun.

        • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          My bad, I was thinking in terms of simple intraspecies pairing like they taught us as undergrads. Once you get into polypolys and tessellations the math is frankly beyond me. Well spotted though.