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The answer is: neither
Posted By: scarab	Date: 8/11/11 5:06 p.m.
: something i read that was reasonably canonical made them seem pretty : reptilian, but i can't remember what that something was now. i am pretty : sure they're supposed to be warm-blooded, though - so maybe they're : actually along the same evolutionary tree as dinosaurs (which aren't : really all that reptilian, at least that's what the latest research seemed : to point out) Its a meaningless question to ask if they are mammals or reptiles. They aren't descended from any species on earth so they don't fall into any earth clade. We categorize animals into groups based on shared derived features but we also know that they inherit those features from a common ancestor. But if we wanted to pretend that they were some long lost relative... They look like vertebrates. If we ignore the face and lack of external openings between the legs or in that area in general... Then we could say that they are some form of tetrapod. They seem to have ribs but have a ribless gap around the abdomen and look like they may breath using a diaphragm. That would suggest that they were mammals. They look like artiodactyls. If you look at the naked Arbiter walking in the Mausoleum of the Arbiters you will notice that he has odd heels. those could be the two outer digits, shrunken like the equivalent digits in pigs, only now put to use as strange heels. The Elite thumbs could have evolved from the two reduced outer digits. Giving them two "thumbs" and two fingers. The face is strange but the jaws could be unfused branchial arches which would be consistent with them being vertebrates. Though with no living relatives on earth or any fossil record of their group. But they can't be mammals unless they split from a mammal ancestor and it seems unlikely that their jaws would be so radically different if they had. If you watch the h2 video were the Arbiter is dragged past some Jackals in prison you will see a stain around his ass area. He either sat on something or he may have a cloaca. This is a common vent for feces, urine, and sperm or eggs. Fish and reptiles/birds have them as do the monotremes.

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