History Main / TaxonomicTermConfusion

* The female scientist near the beginning of the series ''{{Surface}}'' described the creature she'd seen as [[WallBanger "An entirely new phylum of mammal!"]]

* An episode of [[Fringe]] features what looks like a cucumber-sized slug that crawls out of its victim's mouth, which the cast later identifies as an [[MegaMicrobes enlarged]] single-cell cold virus. I repeat, a single-cell ''virus''.

** The "dominants" are basically humans with no emotions driven to try to beat humans in the survival game. They are also extremely smart.

* Using "rodent" to refer to any small mammal. Forgivable when applied to rabbits, which are in order Lagomorpha, closely related to Rodentia (together they form the clade Glires[[hottip:*:Which forms the clade Euarchontoglires with the Euarchonta, which includes humans. TheMoreYouKnow!]]), and have gnawing teeth of their own...not so forgivable when applied to, say, weasels (which are Carnivorans).

* Using "rodent" to refer to any small mammal. Forgivable when applied to rabbits, which are in order Lagomorpha, closely related to Rodentia, and have gnawing teeth of their own...not so forgivable when applied to, say, weasels.

The scientific Latin name for a species consists of the genus name (capitalized), followed by the species name (in all lower case), both italicised. ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' is genus ''Tyrannosaurus'', species ''rex''; ''Homo sapiens'' is genus ''Homo'', species ''sapiens''. If the species is well known, or has already been mentioned earlier in the same work, the genus name will frequently be abbreviated to a single letter, e.g. ''T. rex'' or ''H. sapiens''.

(If you're having trouble remembering, remember this simple mnemonic: Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Gay Sex. For a more SFW version, go with "Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Good Strawberries" or "Dear King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup".)

Compound variations on these terms such as "subspecies" and "superfamily" are in common use. Some taxonomists also make use of the term "tribe" for a rank intermediate between subfamily and genus. This is not just limited to fiction; in a strictly factual sense birds are technically reptiles, and the whole animal, plant, fungus distinction is being [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-domain_system rewritten]] of late so more often then not, it's hard to know the correct terminology because it always is changing. It doesn't help matters that the current system was invented before evolution was understood, and that the ranks are pretty arbitrary. One "genus" might be older and more diverse than another "family." Some scientists even want to [[http://www.ohio.edu/phylocode/index.html abolish taxonomic ranks]], though that's not likely to happen soon.

* The female scientist near the beginning of the series ''{{Surface}}'' described the creature she'd seen as "An entirely new phylum of mammal!"
* Anyone else want to punch the screen when Dr Who gave the (reptilian) cylureans the name "Homo reptilia"?

<<|HollywoodEvolution|>>)

(If you're having trouble remembering, remember this simple mnemonic: Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Gay Sex. For a more SFW version, go with "Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Good Strawberries")

(If you're having trouble remembering, remember this simple mnemonic: Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Gay Sex. For a more SFW version, go with "Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Good Strawberries)

(If you're having trouble remembering, remember this simple mnemonic: Danny Kaye, Please Come Over For Gay Sex.)

** On an episode of ''SaleOfTheCentury'' someone got points for saying that a Baboon was an ape.