I recently heard from family of a new salamander species, Thorius appalachianus, being discovered in the Appalachians, that was the world’s smallest known tetrapod. Looking up the name yielded many articles that appeared to be AI generated (including one in Latin weirdly enough) describing exactly that, but no official information existing to show that such a species exists. Thorius is a genus of salamanders found in Mexico, with no known species in the US. This article is the top result when searching the name, notice how all its photos are of various known salamander species:
https://animalko.com/the-smallest-salamander-in-the-world-was-discovered-in-a-us-forest/
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Seems fake. I googled tye “Dr”'s name and nothing but this article came up.
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The images seem real, just stolen from elsewhere. Who can say about the text. Either way yes the information is all made up and it all exists just as clickbait to get attention from people who are curious but not well informed.
Compare the spider and plant websites here:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/a-i-generated-spider-identification-web-page/60552
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/are-my-concerns-about-ai-generated-plant-crud-overblown/60904
I’ve seen a couple fake bird information websites like these since then as well. Every day is April Fool’s Day on the internet…
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Definitely fake. How can you tell?
- Is it from a reputable source? Have you heard of animalko.com before? Look at their “About” page, which says they focus on entertaining stories about awe-shucks cuddly creatures. Not a scientific source.
- Do they cite any scientific sources? No citations anywhere on the page, just the reference to “Dr. Eleanor Chambers” from University of Georgia. A quick search on Google Scholar (which is generally reputable) finds nothing by E. Chambers even vaguely related to salamanders. A search on University of Georgia’s site finds no researchers named Eleanor Chambers.
- As this discovery was supposedly made in 2018, there should be references to the species in scientific literature. Searching again on Google Scholar for “Thorius appalachianus” finds nothing.
- If you are still in doubt, ask a (real human) librarian - they will know how to find an answer.
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Why do all the salamanders look different? I see a red-backed salamander and a four-toed salamander in there at least if my meager salamander ID skills are correct.
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Strangely, the article is also found on MSN, written by the same author. It has exactly the same text and photos (of multiple different species). Again, no source. At least MSN allows users to report articles. I am submitting a report to remove this nonsense.
It seems that the author is a frequent contributor to Animalko, writing many listicles. https://animalko.com/author/hana-franklin/
The article has also been rewritten on News Break, basically just using ‘information’ from the above article.
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It’s difficult for us nerds who care a lot about getting our facts straight to understand, but there are people out there who do not care, at all, about accuracy or consistency or making sense, as long as it gets attention and clicks and money. The nice thing for them is that it means they can skip the whole research part of the writing process, which means they can publish a lot more articles a lot faster! Fact-checking slows you down too much… :P
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I’m so tired of all of this attention-farming. It was bad enough before we automated the whole process.
In any case. 7.7mm is a very interesting number. Probably entire coincidental that that is what wikipedia states as the size for the world’s smallest known frog. Lol
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Reminds me of the Venezulan Poodle Moth hoax stuff.
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From what I know, the smallest known vertebrate is a frog, but definitely not in the U.S
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Generative AI in certain hands has the power to create an information apocalypse.
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Yep, all the photos are of random unrelated salamanders. Saw several Plethodons, a Eurycea, a pygmy salamander (Desmognathus), four-toed, red salamander, eastern newt, and some others I didn’t recognize
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“This flashlight is extremely powerful…” an ad that shows literally like 5 different flashlights highlighting the many functions of the obviously single tool. Not even a joke.
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Yes, Brazilian flea toad:
https://www.snexplores.org/article/brazilian-frog-worlds-smallest-amphibian-vertebrate
I visited the Newsbreak link and received a 404 error, looks like they took it down
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I have spent much of my career studying Thorius, the genus of miniature salamanders that the supposed new species belongs to. I’ve also described about a third of the 30 or so named species in the genus. Thorius is found exclusively in southern Mexico in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Veracruz and Puebla, and while there are several additional unnamed species under current study, all are from those states. There is no taxonomic publication that describes a species of Thorius from the southern Appalachians. Thorius appalachianus is a hoax.
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That’s a good sign. I guess it pays to report things sometimes!
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