Tags used - animal vs mythological creature

Morphidae had an interesting Site Talk Tagging topic here
A-Z of Animals

She's done the A's and B's so there's no cats (10,114) or dogs (8921) counts yet.

Extending the investigation:

mythological creatures - number of tags - most tagged book

Dragons - 8776 - most tagged book is Eragon by Christopher Paolini (302)
(However Anne McCaffrey has many books in the top 10)

Threadjack :-) and tongue in cheek questions:

-Are LT members as keen to tag the fantastic as well as the commonplace? I find it interesting that dragons is up there with Cats and Dogs.
-Do fantasy readers tag more than readers of other genres?
- What emotional resonance is required for an animal to make it 'tag-worthy'?

I'm still doing broad overview tags rather than specific creatures, so I use fantastical creatures for any book that has anything non-standard in it.

I have a few books on Sasquatch, which may or may not exist in the Pacific Northwest. I have tagged them Sasquatch, Bigfoot, cryptozoology. Other LT users are using the tag "fortean".

I'd say that fantastic creatures are more interesting to tag in that the interpretation is more distinctive. In most cases, a cat or a dog is just a normal cat or dog, but if an interpretation of a dragon is always interesting in what ways it's unique, and what properties it shares with other fictional dragons.

If a book is about the creature, it will usually get tagged that way: Bats: Biology, Behavior and Folklore gets tagged bats. Otherwise, just the interesting creatures get tagged; cats won't get tagged unless they're the narrator or the like, raccoons or bats are likely to get tagged if they're more than background setting, and chimpanzees will almost certainly get tagged. Part of it is the dragon thing; chimpanzees in fiction offer a variety of views of humanity's closest living relative, whereas dogs and cats are more stereotyped and mundane.

I have a fantasy-skewed library. I tag for dragons, mythological creatures, and animal companions, but not pets or cats/dogs or the like unless it's non-fiction. Although many of my books have dragons, only the ones where the dragons are forefront get tagged. Mythical creatures (incl. unicorns) also are only tagged if more prominent. I use animal companions for real or mythical - the focus there is on the bond.

I tag for critters when they are the main focus of the book, not just if they make an appearance. Most of my tags are on non-fiction, though.

I tag for subject matter, not characters. So I have a couple of books tagged "cats" for pet-care type stuff. I collect a lot of non-fiction books on mythology (are non-narrative books about a fictional topic still non-fiction?), so I have a tag "creatures of myth" for anything that focuses on mythological beasts, whether it be dragons or vampires, etc. I don't apply this same tag to fantasy novels, though, no matter how prominent the critters are.

Mostly as branadain (#7), but I do occasionally make exceptions. For example I did tag Dracula as "vampires|werewolves" (I lump those) because that book had such a huge influence on vampire mythology.