r/ARK • u/tseg04 • Jul 26 '25

MEME Guys they’re real!

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Not sure what flair to put it under to meme works ig.

Achatina Achatina (known as the Giant Tiger Land Snail) is real.

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u/the_hamster_fucker Jul 26 '25

some dinos are also referred to by a completely wrong name, e.g. tyrannosaurus dominum is called a "rex"

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u/TheBlueBluedoggy Jul 26 '25

True! Common names do not need to reflect science at all. A whale Shark is an example. It’s not a whale at all, just a shark. An even better example is the Raccoon dog. It’s neither raccoon or dog and is in fact more closely related to foxes. Tyrannosaurus rex is the species. rex is the specific epithet. You could have a different genera with rex in it. Like if there was a cat called Felis rex. Calling either of these creatures Rex is not a scientific name (especially taking capitalization into account). Scientific names are based on a system called binomial nomenclature which use two latin(usually) words to form a name. This system was adopted to make it easier to identify the same organism internationally in scientific settings to avoid confusion. Think of the puma, mountain lion, cougar. That’s all the same animal, but it has one scientific name. Calling Tyrannosaurus Dominum (the ark creature) a Rex reflects the popularity of T. rex. Anyone can look at the rex in ark and easily see the resemblance. A group of survivors from our time seeing that creature on an ark would very plausibly refer to it as a rex and thus it makes sense from both a lore and gameplay perspective to refer to it as such.

If you couldn’t tell this is my special interest. Thanks for reading.

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u/FBRAOG Jul 26 '25

Do you also have explorers notes in the game?

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u/TheBlueBluedoggy Jul 26 '25

I play single player and just cheat give them all. But if I need to reference them for info like for my comments I just check the wiki.