AVA scenario guide

[Life]

When you present an Animal versus Animal scenario, please provide some details about chosen combatants.

For example:

ANIMAL A (Name linked to its profile in forum, if available)

- Photo (if available);
- Known biological characteristics;
- Sources of information provided;

vs.

ANIMAL B (Name linked to its profile in forum, if available)

- Photo (if available);
- Known biological characteristics;
- Sources of information provided;

---

In addition, a poll can be useful in these discussions because it gives a chance to a reader to vote for an animal.

NOTE: Use as much helping material as you can to support your arguments. For tips, please check the Reliability of information thread (in Members Introduction section).

[creature386]

Life has posted extra guidelines in the staff section, so I'd like to share them here. This can be considered an exemplary matchup OP ("original post"):
theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/3031/mosasaurus-hoffmanni-kronosaurus-queenslandicus
An OP should help even people with little knowledge of the combatants in question to form an opinion. Thus, here are the essentials of a good OP:
-Information on the size. Whether it is durability or striking strength, size influences so many parameters that it is unsurprising how many posters decide the winner based on that factor alone.
-The taxonomy of the combatants. Again an important factor. Many posters have strong opinions on the fighting capacities of certain animal classes (e.g. "cats beat bears at parity"), making it the most important factor after size.
-Weaponry. This is very straightforward: How do the combatants fight? What you count as weaponry is up to you, but you shouldn't list one combatant's weapons in far more detail than the others. That makes you look biased.
-Citations. No OP is infallible, so your claims should be verifiable in case someone tries to argue against them. Life has already linked a good thread on the reliability of information.
These elements can be produced in a list or in a coherent text. The text can be copied and pasted from someone else, provided its the copyright license allows it (same applies to images). Texts that are not your own must be attributed. Free text is available on our profiles or on Wikipedia, though I recommend against the latter. Wikipedia tends to change a lot (see "Reliability of information") and we recently had difficulties with Wikipedia-based OPs. This doesn't change the fact that it is a great picture source.

While these are not necessary, the following elements are very helpful:
-Terrain. Where do you envision the fight to take place? In the open plains or in a forest? In shallow or in deep water? In cold or temperate regions. This is especially important if the combatants don't naturally coexist, so don't take the setting for granted.
-Starting positions. How do your combatants encounter each other? Do they begin close to each other or far away. If one of your combatants is airborne, is it already in the air at the start of the fight?

Have fun!

[dinosauria101]

rock , here are simplified OP instructions (you can use this as a rubric):

Names: For animals with common & scientific names, put the common name first, a dash, and then the scientific name.
Example: Asian Straight-tusked Elephant - Palaeoloxodon namadicus
For animals with no common name, put the scientific name
Example: Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum
Put the name directly on top of the image.

Images: Once you insert the image of choice, link to where the image came from to credit it.

Information: There's a rubric for information you can copy paste and use for any matchup. It goes like this:

Order:
Family: 
Length or height:
Mass:
Diet:
Killing apparatus:
Any more information you think would help members decide who would win
For extinct animals, include the age and location as well.

A good example of the above as follows is this thread: theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/3051/naumanns-elephant-utahraptor-ostrommaysi-pack

[Infinity Blade]

Below are instructions for what goes into 'hypothetical' and what goes into 'sympatric'.

- It goes without saying that if the two species never met and do not naturally meet, it goes into 'hypothetical'. If it is established that the two species exist/existed in the same geographic area in the same time, and therefore frequently encounter(ed) one another, it goes into 'sympatric'.

- What if both species formerly coexisted? Or what if both species only came to coexist recently (e.g. invasive species)?

• If both species are naturally not supposed to be sympatric, but are now sympatric through means of human introduction, the matchup should go to 'sympatric'. Although the two species may have never met each other prior, they do in the present day, which is the latest point in time in which both species were still extant.
• If both species are extant, but are no longer sympatric (even if they once were), the matchup should go to 'hypothetical' (exceptions listed down below). By the same logic as above, the present day is the latest point in time in which both species were still extant. So if a) they no longer live with each other, and b) we lack plenty of recorded interactions between the two, then the fact that the two extant species were sympatric in the past loses its meaning.
• If criterion b above is not true in the particular case, and we do, in fact, have plentiful recorded interactions from when the two extant species used to be sympatric, then it is okay to put it in 'sympatric'.
• Some species were formerly sympatric with extinct subspecies of still extant species. If you want to pit two such combatants against each other, then put it in 'sympatric', but please specify the extinct subspecies. Ex: it is okay to put a matchup between a wild boar against a pack of Eurasian cave hyenas (C. crocuta spelaea) in 'sympatric'. It is not okay to put a matchup between a wild boar and a pack of spotted hyenas (i.e. C. crocuta as a whole species) in 'sympatric'; that will cause confusion and probably make people believe you think that African spotted hyenas and wild boar are sympatric.
• Do not put matchups with wild animals and domestic animals into 'sympatric' simply because the domestic animal species or subspecies as a whole has a range overlapping with that of the wild animal (e.g. we do not want "Spanish fighting bull vs gaur" in 'sympatric'). Certain breeds of domestic animals do not necessarily come into contact with wild animals on a regular basis. The only exceptions to this rule may be where a specific breed of domestic animal currently comes into regular contact with the wild animal in question, or, if they no longer do, we have plentiful recorded interactions between the two from when they did.