Skippers (Hesperiidae) are often confused with moths as they have round eyes, small wings and dull colors but they’re butterflies. same goes to American moth-butterflies (Hedylidae)
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Many people here do not know that harvestmen (Opiliones) are not spiders.
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Lots of people think spiders are insects, it’s literally crazy and annoying sometimes how many people think that.
And some people think that humans are not in the animal kingdom! Like what else kingdom would they be in?
Some people think that mushrooms are plants even though they’re fungi and their cells are more similar to animal cells.
Coral too, but corals are actually animals.
People also think most arthropods aren’t animals a lot too which is crazy because they very obviously are animals? Some of them think that shrimps, crabs, lobsters are animals but not other arthropods.
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We have to realize that virtually every person who lacks an interest in organisms also lacks even a basic taxonomic framework in their mind. If they rely on common-use names for organisms, then animal and human are two different things. And animal typically refers to a vertebrate, so an insect is not an animal. Fungi look like weird plants so they must be some sort of plant. It’s understandable if the person has little to no interest in the subject.
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Not long ago my health care provider gave me one of those cognitive tests in which one of the tasks is to name as many animals as you can in one minute. Not being content to just rattle off your common “cat! dog! cow! horse!”, I decided I had to list less common animals… in alphabetical order. So I happily listed “aardvark! bonobo! cougar! dingo!” etc. until I got to “S”.
“Spider!” says I. Whereupon, believing she might think that was wrong, I actually felt compelled to explain that “of course, spiders are animals, taxonomically, because they are in the animal Kingdom.”
Naturally I ran out of time to list more animals.
I’m pretty sure that she wrote in my notes, “Too late… already crazy.”
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Would’ve been a more interesting test result if you’d rattled off scientific names instead of common. The doctor would then likely think you were babbling incoherently.
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Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides
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Replying to a very old comment, but South Africa has its own version of a Box Turtle. Hinged Tortoises (genus: Kinixys) can partially close their shell from a hinge on their top side/carapace. They almost look like their shell is broken. I was so excited when I found my first one.
North America also has the Blanding’s Turtle, which can partially close its shell. Some people have called it the Semi-Box Turtle.
Living in Ohio, I find it strange that people call all wasps ‘bees’, and all cicadas ‘locusts’. I have attempted to correct a few people, but it can be futile.
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And both grebes and coots are more related to any neoavian than they are to ducks.
And coots are rails.
And loons, aka divers, are another kind of neoavian that looks like that. They’re related to birds like penguins, tubenoses, storks, cormorants and herons.
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Dolphins look like fish, jellyfish… well, “fish” is literally in the name, and don’t even get me started on turtles vs. tortoises. I think it’s less about memorizing categories and more about helping students see the weird, surprising ways evolution and anatomy actually work. Throw in a few cool pictures and a “wait, what?” moment, and suddenly learning taxonomy is way more fun than just listing names.
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Nothing wrong wit calling tortoises turtles. All of testudines is turtles. There is a subgroup of terrestrial turtles called tortoises
In British English (outside of the scientific community) turtles and tortoises are very different things.
It was only when I studied tortoises that I learned to accept that tortoises (Testudinidae) are a Family of turtles, and so others calling them turtles is fine. However, you will never catch me calling a tortoise a turtle when the word ‘tortoise’ is always available.
I do like how on iNaturalist the Order Testudines lists both Turtles AND Tortoises, not just Turtles. 
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