  The variety of observed protoplanetary disks in polarimetric light motivates
a taxonomical study to constrain their evolution and establish the current
framework of this type of observations. We classified 58 disks with available
polarimetric observations into six major categories (Ring, Spiral, Giant, Rim,
Faint, and Small disks) based on their appearance in scattered light. We
re-calculated the stellar and disk properties from the newly available GAIA DR2
and related these properties with the disk categories. More than a half of our
sample shows disk sub-structures. For the remaining sources, the absence of
detected features is due to their faintness, to their small size, or to the
disk geometry. Faint disks are typically found around young stars and typically
host no cavity. There is a possible dichotomy in the near-IR excess of sources
with spiral-disks (high) and ring-disks (low). Like spirals, shadows are
associated with a high near-IR excess. If we account for the pre-main sequence
evolutionary timescale of stars with different mass, spiral arms are likely
associated to old disks. We also found a loose, shallow declining trend for the
disk dust mass with time. Protoplanetary disks may form sub-structures like
rings very early in their evolution but their detectability in scattered light
is limited to relatively old sources (more than 5 Myr) where the recurrently
detected disk cavities allow to illuminate the outer disk. The shallow decrease
of disk mass with time might be due to a selection effect, where disks observed
thus far in scattered light are typically massive, bright transition disks with
longer lifetime than most disks. Our study points toward spirals and shadows
being generated by planets of fraction-to-few Jupiter masses that leave their
(observed) imprint on both the inner disk near the star and the outer disk
cavity.
