 What is NOT a similarity between Taphetta and the rest of the crew?
In repose, Taphetta the Ribboneer resembled a fancy giant bow on a package. Taphetta rattled the head fronds together in a surprisingly good imitation of speech. Obviously there was no contact throughout the ages before space travel— and yet each planetary race can interbreed with a minimum of ten others ! "It is impressive," admitted Taphetta. "Outside of your own world, there's nothing like your species, except superficially, and that's true of all other creatures, intelligent or not, with the sole exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human development. It's reasonable to assume that, if men were set down on a hundred such worlds, they'd seem to fit in with native life-forms on a few of them. "And so, to account for the unique race that can interbreed across thousands of light-years, you've brought in the big ancestor," commented Taphetta dryly. Man was the most numerous though not always the most advanced—Ribboneers had a civilization as high as anything in the known section of the Milky Way, and there were others—and humans were more than a little feared. Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be very useful. The theory is that humans who can mate with each other were once physically close. When we project back into time those star systems on which humans existed prior to space travel, we get a certain pattern.
 All of them have a comparably good reputation
 All of them are critical to the success of the mission  All of them are respected in their fields  All of them have a comparably good reputation  All of them are smart