I’m writing up a list of misconceptions that people (particularly high schoolers) have about classifying animals. I would love to hear what animals you think people often confuse or misplace (e.g., “A dolphin is a fish!”). Give me your best confusing organisms! (Plants are good too). Here is my lis…

Apes are in Catarrhini, which are monkeys, all monkeys are primates of course.

This depends on whether you’re using a cladistic approach to common names or a traditional one. Monkeys comprise two groups, one in Africa & Asia, the other in the Americas. Apes are indeed in their own family, but they’re more closely related to the Old World Monkey group than either are to the Ne…

To most native English speakers (I speak from the UK), the colloquial use of ‘bug’ more or less means ‘non-marine arthropod’, or ‘general creepy-crawly’. I mean spiders, beetles, woodlice, flies, centipedes, the lot. I have encountered perfectly well educated, technically minded people who are sur…

“Daddy Long Legs” can refer either to harvestmen, cellar spiders, or crane flies. I honestly like “bug” as a colloquialism. It’s a good word to get the general idea across. If I need to refer to actual bugs, “true bug” seems to be a generally accepted way to specify those. A lot of people seem to …

[image] this cladogram is correct, but try showing this to somebody who is unfamiliar with vertebrate taxonomy

GASTROPODS A very basic mistake that a lot of people (including many otherwise well-educated adults) make, is to believe that a snail can exit its shell and wander around without one, like a slug. I think that misapprehension originates in the fact that in children’s stories the shell is referred …

Cuttlefish and octopus are molluscs not fishes. ants and termites are 2 different things bhraminy blind snake is often confused with earthworms but it’s not a earthworm. Silverfish is not a fish, sea cucumber is not a cucumber.

I guess in primates lemurs and bushbabies also come, it is still interesting to know that we are connected

Yup, there’re two big groups: moist-nosed primates with lemurs, lorises and galagos, and dry-nosed primates, with all the monkeys and tarsiers. They have really interesting history of evolution, probably we could add tarsiers being in a “lemur group” as common mistake as it was a science view of thi…

Confusing animals/Taxonomy Misconceptions

Educators

upupa-epops January 20, 2022, 5:15pm 26

Birds are dinosaurs and whales are hoofed animals and also fish! Lots of fun haha.

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Confusing animals/Taxonomy Misconceptions

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