Real or mythological...doesn't matter. My question is, simply, are vampires mammals?

Mammals are loosely defined as being "man" or animals who nourish their young with milk, and generally have hair on their bodies.

SO would this apply to a Vampire?

Good question.

Well lets see, whats a mammal?

Warm blooded. Being dead probably means we're talking room temperature. (Of course with no blood pumpin round the old veins they
probably decompose anyway......) Cold blooded is generally associated with reptiles, but reptiles still have a cardio vascular system.

Reproduce by birthing (mostly). As opposed to eggs, or division. Well vamps reproduce, essentially by infection, being basically parasitical.

This is based on literary examples. Obviously. But this is looking less and less mammalian. In fact it looks more and more viral. However the 'host' body in an infected creature doesn't cease to be the creature they are before infection. In other words, once one (hypothetically speaking) becomes a vampire, one does not cease to be human. A person who contracts, say HIV does not cease to be human. A dog with rabies is still a dog. A cat with the flu.....I'll stop there.

So while a vampire begins to defy mammalian characteristics, remaining human means it would still be classified as mammal. Vampire is therefore not a sub or 'evolved' species, merely an illness one suffers.

Kinda blows the romance no? I'm not to keen on such a literal view of vampires. But its logical. But then how can one apply logic to myth? Is a mermaid mammal or fish? Bogarts? Grendels? Hell even Ghosts?

mmmm digression.

Don't think so... A vampire's body dies making it impossible for them to nourish babies with milk or even have them. If a vampire wants a kid, the kid himself will have to become a vampire. It would just be a cruelty to the poor child because he will never grow up anyways.

Human living vampires are obviously mammals cause they are still human. A classic vampire would be nothing. He's dead!

Hehe, good answers! Thanks

:)

I never really liked the idea of vampires sexually reproducing, and unless they layed eggs, cold blooded or not, that would make them mammals.

Taiwo's explanation is fantastic! ^_^ It's more like an infection, vampires are parasites...man, that's just sick. But it's logical, and that's why I like it.



Well except for this..I totally understand your post is based on feasible examples, meaning that as you stated, might not quite totally be your opinion. But like, wouldn't what I quoted kind of harbour different opinions? What if like, after being infected, yes you still have your human body, but then the infection takes over? Maybe you no longer think as a human, but obtain the mind of a vampire? Weather that means being a mindless blood seeking sadist monster, or some super intellectual brain ninja, the fact would remain that you're no longer human. The spirit (primary infection, whatever.) of the vampire takes over, and you slowly become one, therefore ceasing to be human altogether.

Unless I missed something..?

Anyways, that was a great post!

any real vamps here that took a blood analysis?

as far as the mammal thing concerns... the classical vamps that are dead are still human, just as a dead human is still human, or in the sense that the last thing it was was human, so its more human than a lizard or cow etc..

the virus thing would mean that u get infected with virus 'v' making u a vamp just like if someone gets infected with mycobacterium leprae, u would call them a leper. or like prion infection makes mad cows...

but don't quote me i don't really have anything but ideas

anyone visited these pages?
http://www.choronzon.com/vamp/k17.html
http://www.geocities.com/vampiricstudies/medical.html

i don't know if they are legit or hoaxes

interesting... I know few information on V5 virus and have not the medical basis to express an opinion. True or false, the site is useful at least in the section real predators.

*Sings.*

More human then human!!

that's a quote from blade runner... tyrell says it near the start, after deckard does the voight-kampf test on rachel... it's my fav movie... im excited!

It's...also a song from White Zombie... :ph34r:

oh really? i don't know anything about that, i'm really a j-rock guy myself...

staying on topic, mammals, vampires, humans

that's all

Yeah. Vampyres are human, just tweaked a bit (talking about real ones) and thus are mammals

Me well I think there would have to be a whole new section of Classifications. Why? Well lol, Vampires like said are Parasitic they take on the human form but they use only a portion of the organs or none at all I don't know much about the anamoty of a vampire so you'll have to excuse me. Just because Kingdoms and Classifications have been around so long doesn't mean the vampire has to fit in them especially when a vampire at theory is so different. With things the world has never seen before so I believe it would have to fit under a new category that revolved are Parasitic Creatures that infect like viruses in order to reproduce.

not a bad theory, needs a bit of tweaking in the biology department

since this is a real vampires topic, it is favourable at least in my opinion to classify them within the framework of what we accept scientifically, and not make up new phylogenic branches to account for new things... basically let's apply occam's razor here

that is to accept that real vampires are not supernatural and can be explained without introducing new/multiple hypothesis

firstly because nothing is beyond nature
and secondly since supernatural things cannot be disproven, science cannot by definition deal with them



im not trying to argue here, i actually want to know what u mean. when u say vampires here, do u mean the 'person' or the supposed 'infective agent'. i think u mean the 'person', as u said they take on human form. in that case, a vampire is not scientifically a parasite

when one says parasite, u gotta remember the key points
a PARASITE is an ORGANISM that ABSORBS NUTRIENTS from the BODY FLUIDS of a LIVING HOST

in this case the distinction is that the vampire doesn't have a host, it has a victim, which is therefore prey rather than host

also parasites don't infect a host only to reproduce, many parasites only feed on the human host, or use it as a part of the life cycle separate from the reproductive stage

viruses are parasites, more concisely viruses are obligate intracellular parasites



so here u are talking about the infectious agent itself... i think from this assertion, it is plausible that the infectious agent, whether parasite or virus uses humans as a vector, however infection is not in order to reproduce vampires, but only to reproduce the infection itself... and by natural selection, infections that cause the host to become a vampire are ideal

So wait what kind of vampires are we trying to classify, classical or like human-vampyres? If it is classical I think that, it goes against any of the ideas of how one classifies under our existing kingdoms and sub-cats, because it was structured around the basis of the living organisms that they we were aware of. They didn't think about vampires, I can understand why, but the most of the ideas on vampires go against our scientific tables. A little change in previous science to make it upto date won't hurt anything, it may even help us to understand more. But just because some smart fucker created the Classications doesn't mean hundreds of years later we still have to go by it. And as for human-vampyres I believe they are just humans with great differences.

yeah i know what u mean...

in this thread we are talking real vampires, so they need to fit within that framework we mentioned

as for classical, they are classical cos they appear only in literature, so u can make up any number ways to categorize them, but if u wanna place them in anyway a classification to go into science books or whatnot, first we need a living breathing flying blood sucking specimen, or if not at least some remains of someone like this.



they don't think about them cos they don't have any testable evidence, testable proof, only heresay and legend
thus science cannot assess the plausibility of classicals
anthropology however can assess the origins of vampire lore, which is most likely based in reality, but NOT the reality of flying blood sucking burn in the sun romanian princes

since u believe human vamps are just humans with differences, we can easily place them with other humans on the tree of life

theory wont change to fit a fact, theory is a set of ideas formulated to explain are large number of natural observations

it will never acknowledge classical vampires until there are sufficient natural observations

I was speaking in forms that if there were a "living breathing flying blood sucking specimen".

"theory wont change to fit a fact, theory is a set of ideas formulated to explain are large number of natural observations"

Was that in reference to something I said?

"it will never acknowledge classical vampires until there are sufficient natural observations"

... again my statement was if we had a specimen for the observations.

yeah
i guess we both agree then on one thing
t'would be marvelous to have such a creature



yeah it was in response to this: "A little change in previous science to make it upto date won't hurt anything, it may even help us to understand more. But just because some smart fucker created the Classications doesn't mean hundreds of years later we still have to go by it."

but wasn't trying to argue with u
just throwing in my two cents
not at u, but into the well thats stands between us, wishing for a fantastical creature that we can dissect the bejeezus out of :)

I didn't read all the responses so I wouldn't be surprised if a few already said this as it really is common sense.

A regular human being is a mammal and warm blooded yes, so when they die does that no longer make them a mammal? Is a vampire in context to folklore simply not just a dead/undead human body with it's own inheritance of abilities and obviously the vampire is derived (evolutionized to some) of the basic human mammal? Yes is the answer.

I guess it just depends on how you look at it. Because in everyone's mind when they think of classifiying living organisms and diversifying them, different things stand out to them.

huh? lets not forget this is a real vampires thread, and lets not mix classical with real again (as always seems to happen), its fine to bring a tad of science into a story about classical vampires to make the story more believable, but to take classical vampires and throw it into the realm of science is nonsensical



no. that makes a dead mammal.



here u mix folklore with evolution
what can i say?

I think that something needs to be remembered here.... In order to classify a vampire in a mammal catagory, one actually needs to be able to study a vampire, habits, biogenetics, dna, abilities, functionality etc etc....
Anyone got a link that can point me in the right direction so that I can see the results of tests like these? If not, then I would have to say that vampires in the "Real" sense, have never actually been scientifically studied, and therefor can not be placed into a scientific catagory of evolution and species.

true

but real vampires don't say that they aren't human
unless u wanna get mourning and cut her up to be sure