Hello! not a dumb question at all, lemme explain things quickly and then you can ask some questions if you like:

Species are divided into three category generally:

-Closed species: these guys you need a myo to make (an myo stands for make your own! there are normally different levels of these, like common, uncommon and rare and different traits for each of them) or very occasionally you will get some species that are only designed by the mods. Different species have different ways of handing out myos, and a lot of them have species currency which you use to buy myos (common ways of earning this currency are drawing a featured species character which is randomly decided each week/month, or participating in events). Starbie's is a closed species!

-Semi-open species: this one can mean a lot of different things, but the most common is that you get so many myos a month per person.

-Open species: No myos and anyone can make em! They sometimes wont have trait rarity's, and are slightly less common from my knowledge?  

A few other common terms are:

-Mods/mod: People who run the species. For example im a starbies mod! a pretty new one but yup thats me, we help out with running the species 

-Owner/co-owner: People who own the species. The big boss/bosses

-Guest artist: these guys get a month or two to make adopts and raffles without myos and help out with events. Its a pretty cool system of giving different people chances to make adopts without having to get myos. I think starbies guest artist have just been announced actually