[-> Part 1 <-] [ Part 2A ] [ Part 2B ] [ Part 3 - coming soon ]
The Neopian Biology Project has identified >90 items with the word "Apple" in the name that are worth considering as species candidates.
Previously, I tried to categorize these items in roughly alphabetical order, but this time I've tried a new approach. Essentially, I made a few "buckets" that a candidate could fall into, and hoped that by correlating candidates to buckets, the trickier determinations could be made easier.
Because there are 90+ "apple" candidates, I won't be posting every single apple's information. However I will be linking their Jellyneo pages, and you can always find information relevant to the project on our spreadsheet.
First up:
Part 1: Apples that aren't apples
These are candidates that may qualify as distinct species, but are only referred to as "apple" colloquially, and are not actually apples.
These are:
Blue Ice Apple - From space; alien.
Imposter Apple [sic] - "That's no apple!" Possibly a common orange.
Flat Apple Fruit - Neither apple nor Flatfruit
Grapple - Not to be confused for the Grapple Apple.
Pearapple - Species of pear.
Triapple
Arnapple
Blackapple - See below.
Dewy Apple
Pineapple
Pyrapple - Possibly a pineapple. See below.
Many of these species make reference to tasting like an apple, which in these cases I have chosen to take as unironic comparisons rather than some joking "it tastes like an apple because it is an apple!" These specimens also all have un-apple-like (unapfellich) features that make them easy to consider them non-apples, at least morphologically.
The two exceptions/uncertainties are the Pyrapple and Blackapple.
The Pyrapple is not an apple, for certain, but may be a Pineapple. We'll either explore it in another post about Neopian Pineapples, or in its own post, but not here.
The Blackapple requires a closer look:
I hope the inside is not as black as the outside.
There isn't much to go off of here. This specimen is from Apple Bobbing, but if you take all the Apple Bobbing specimens together, this isn't a good indicator of apfellichkeit ("apple-ness"). Both non-apple and apple species are mixed up in Apple Bobbing, and some of the apple species are qualifying candidates while some are variants of other apples (we'll discuss this more in the next part).
The description is also very typical of Apple Bobbing and specimens from the Haunted Woods in general — that specific brand of Neopets humor that hints at something that should concern you, but won't tell you the full extent of the problem or how it occurred. This kind of description has influenced me greatly as a writer and is also the bane of my existence as a scientist.
The deciding factor for me here is that the Blackapple isn't a Black Apple, or a Blackened Apple as we'll see some of later. Blackapple is a new word, akin to the made-up "Triapple," "Arnapple," and "Pineapple" above. Because of this, I have been swayed to consider the Blackapple a unique, non-apple species.
