History Main / TaxonomicTermConfusion

** In-universe example: Many people in Ankh-Morpork used to be confused about the difference between apes and monkeys. Since this is the BeserkButton of the Unseen University Librarian, an orang-utan, they have since learned that the main difference is that a monkey can't hold you by your ankles and bang your head on the floor.

Of course, things are also more complicated than even this. Cladistics, dendrograms, phylogenetics... We'll just leave it at this lest YourHeadAsplode.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'', Ponder Stibbons states that bananas are actually a kind of fish in a deliberately exaggerated in-universe example.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': One episode descries rabbits as rodents. Rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents, though Rodentia and Lagomorpha are sister orders in the clade Glires. However, in the Elmer Fudd case at least, the mistake is perhaps forgivable. Indeed, taxon Lagomorpha ''was'' placed within Rodentia until at least the early 1900s, making then-Rodentia equivalent to now-Glires, and Fudd was already depicted as a middle-aged man in 1940.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': Elmer Fudd class WesternAnimation/BugsBunny a rodent. Bugs himself, in "WesternAnimation/GorillaMyDreams", claims his scientific name is ''Rodentus rabbitus''.

The scientific Latin name for a species consists of the genus name (capitalized), followed by the species name (in all lower case), both italicised. ''TyrannosaurusRex'' 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 more hairsplitting is needed, the subspecies or variety name can be appended as a third word, e.g. ''Homo sapiens sapiens''.

* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': The FunnyAnimal characters are considered one species called "Mobian" despite being UpliftedAnimal versions of various animals, ranging from hedgehogs to crocodiles.

* ''Comicbook/XMen'':

'''Blastoise:''' Just because you're a lizard with wings doesn't mean you're a dragon. My cousin is a dragon and he doesn't even have wings.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'': One episode descries rabbits as rodents. Rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents, though Rodentia and Lagomorpha are sister orders in the clade Glires. However, in the Elmer Fudd case at least, the mistake is perhaps forgivable. Indeed, taxon Lagomorpha ''was'' placed within Rodentia until at least early 1900's, making then-Rodentia equivalent to now-Glires, and Fudd was already depicted as a middle-aged man in 1940.

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 more hairsplitting is needed, the subspecies or variety name can be appended as a third word, e.g. ''Homo sapiens sapiens''.

Frankly, it's not surprising that writers are sometimes ignorant or confused. Though this can also turn into a case of FanWank as many of these words also have different less precise meanings in regular English as in family and class are both used to refer to groups of similar things, a class of ships, the t-series family of trucks so a lot of these errors are just people using the words with their regular meanings. But there's really no excuse for such errors when they're committed by '''scientists''' who work in zoology and other fields that explicitly require them to be well-versed in how the nomenclature works.

Of course, things are also more complicated than even this. Cladistics, dendrograms, phylogenetics… We'll just leave it at this lest YourHeadAsplode.

* Subverted in a ''ComicBook/StarWarsMarvel1977'' comic in which Jaxxon, a rabbit character, says "I ain't no rodent!" He's an {{alien|Tropes}} BeastMan, so he's hardly a rabbit either.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' continuum, zoology generally follows the same Linolean nomenclature as on Roundworld with its eight disparate Kingdoms. However, in Creator/AAPessimal's ''Fanfic/WhyandWere'', it is revealed (in the context of a biology lesson at the Assassins' Guild School) that there are at least two additional Kingdoms: the ''silicarae'' covers all silicon-based life ([[AllTrollsAreDifferent trolls, gargoyles and others]]) and there is also the ''Sanguinae Mysterii'' (Bloody Strange) which covers all creatures of magic and living myth. Elves, Orcs, Goblins and Dwarfs are viewed as branches of the human family.
** An extra complication is presented when Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes finds herself on Earth, teaching zoology at [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Caltech, Pasadena, California]]. She has to tailor her standard lecture to students on the Literature/{{Discworld}} to local conditions on a new planet. This means censoring out all references to silicon-based life, as Trolls do not exist on the Roundworld, and omitting all mention of things like basilisks, unicorns, {{Pegas|us}}i, and werecreatures. She gets to talk about Trolls, but in the context of a thought-experiment in which her students are invited to speculate on what silicon-based life might look like and how it could thrive.
[[/folder]]

* ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'': "Let's name the species of the open seaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" The "species" mentioned in Mr. Ray's song are actually ''phyla''.
* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'', for Merlin and Mad Madame Mim's WizardDuel, the two spellcasters are only allowed to turn into animals, and not vegetables, minerals, or "nonexistent creatures like pink dragons and such." However, when the duel is over, Mim breaks one of her own rules by turning into a dragon (specifically a '''[[ExactWords purple]]''' dragon), and Merlin defeats her by turning into a ''germ'', which is not even an animal at all!
* At a few points in ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'', characters refer to the "predator family." Even going by the in-universe definition of "predator" (that is, a sapient mammal species that eats other sapient mammals), that's still wildly biologically inaccurate (one could say that they were thinking of Carnivora, but that's an ''order'', it contains several types of animals that don't eat mammals (and some don't even normally eat animals, period), and there are mammals outside of Carnivora that eat other mammals).

* ''Film/BatmanForever'':

* In ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters'', Titans are all classified under the genus ''Titanus''. Besides the fact that this name is already used for a beetle (and hence cannot be reused), Titans represent everything from Godzilla (a reptile) to King Kong (a mammal) to Mothra (an insect).

* In ''Franchise/JurassicPark'', Alan Grant says that humans and dinosaurs are "two species separated by 65 million years." Granted, that line probably sounded great in the trailers, but you'd think a paleontologist would know better than to call dinosaurs a species.
** More generally, the ''Jurassic Park'' series--and many other works, for that matter--often uses "species" when they mean "genus", such as in the first film when Grant is handling a newborn baby dinosaur and asks what species it is, to which Wu answers with ''Velociraptor'', it's genus name.
* Only three of the members of ''Film/KillBill'''s Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are actually named for vipers.

* The Literature/{{Childcraft}} book ''About Animals'' identifies arthropods as a "class" of animals, when it really is a phylum. It could be argued that ''phylum'' is too advanced a word for a book aimed at 6-year-olds, but that could also be argued of ''arthropod'', and that didn't stop the publishers. (Probably they figured that anything was better than risking spiders getting classed as "insects".) Even more JustForFun/{{egregious}} as there are more arthropods in existence than every other phylum of animals combined.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': InUniverse example of taxonomic confusion, PlayedForLaughs, of course: In ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'', Ponder Stibbons states that:
-->"''Although, funnily enough banana is not actually a fruit, sir.'' [...] ''Botanically, it’s a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it’s cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals.''”
* In ''Cachalot'', a marine biologist refers to a newly-discovered undersea race as "the first intelligent invertebrates we've ever encountered". Granted, this wouldn't be an issue in some scifi series ... but ''Cachalot'' is one of the Literature/HumanxCommonwealth novels, where humans and thranx have been virtually joined at the hip for centuries. Did Creator/AlanDeanFoster forget that his insect-based thranx also lack an internal skeleton?
** Perhaps they meant the first such species encountered in an aquatic environment?
** He also repeatedly refers to shrews as "rodents" in his ''Literature/{{Spellsinger}}'' series.
* Melville spends a chapter of ''Literature/MobyDick'' committing an extended crime against taxonomy. He starts by classifying whales as "spouting fish" and proceeds from there.
** ''Moby-Dick'' was written in first person perspective from the POV of a not especially well educated man in the early 19th century, when it's likely that someone actually would think that a whale was a fish.
*** There was a court case in 1818 in New York City in which a businessman tried to argue that his whale oil was not subject to government inspection because the law specified "fish oil" needed to be checked for adulteration and whales were not fish. He brought in several scientists to testify to that effect. He lost. The law was changed shortly after, however, to exempt whale oil.
** Actually, Creator/HermanMelville had pretty much [[ShownTheirWork shown his work]], enumerating physiological differences between whales and "other fish", and even referring to the ''Systema Naturae'' by Carl Linnaeus, and Ishmael's[[note]]Who is a former country schoolmaster[[/note]] subsequent "classification" can be read more as TakeThat from a more down-to-earth (or rather down-to-sea) point of view of working class protagonists of the novel, using word "fish" in a looser sense of "any exclusively marine vertebrate" rather than as "a strictly defined taxon".

** And the actual Ishmael's taxonomic "system" consists of simply grouping of cetaceans roughly according to their respective sizes (and thus their economic value), with terminology based upon [[RuleOfSymbolism book sizes]] - i.e. Folio, Octavo and Duodecimo. The best acceptable explanation for all this is just [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools regarding]] chapter 32 "Cetology" as a [[OverlyLongGag prolonged]] StealthParody of both the common whalers' sea-lore and [[ScienceMarchesOn then-current scientific]] cetological classification.

* Occasionally a host of a Creator/FoodNetwork show will try to emulate Alton Brown's use of scientific terminology, and wind up sounding like a KnowNothingKnowItAll. The host of ''Series/FoodFeuds'', for one, has openly referred to clams as crustaceans, apparently on the assumption that all seafood without fins is in the same taxon.
** Adam Growe made a similar mistake on the Canadian edition of ''Series/CashCab''.

* In the ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' episode "Dead Clade Walking", Holmes incorrectly says a "clade" is any group of organisms that have survived a major extinction event, which is actually part of the definition of the "dead clade walking" paleontological concept. (A clade is simply any named group consisting of an ancestral species and it descendents. As it happens the question of whether taxonomy should be "cladistic" is one of the core wrenches in the field.) To be fair, he's exhausted after late hours talking to a geologist, and the extinction part is what's important to him.
* An episode of ''Series/{{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 (which don't ''have'' cells, even a single one).
* In-universe example: Mr/s. Kipling the water monitor of ''Series/{{Jessie}}'' was called a dinosaur (namely a ''Velociraptor'') as an insult. Another episode goes with the "koala bear" term (although Ravi notes that koalas are marsupials).
* The narrator on ''Series/{{Monsterquest}}'' seems to have confused "species" with ''individuals'', inverting the usual pattern where higher-than-species clades are mixed up. The voiceover claims that "millions of species" of fishes are found off the coast of Florida, which is [[WritersCannotDoMath a couple of orders of magnitude]] more than the actual number of fish species on the planet (~32 thousand).
%%* The main character in ''Series/{{Prey}}'' claims in the pilot to have discovered a new species after analyzing a [=DNA=] sample with a 1.2% difference from a regular human. They later proceed to name the new "species" ''Homo dominants'', apparently unaware that you're supposed to use Latin for this. Actually, a 1.2% difference might actually enough difference to classify as a new species- ''if'' that group consisted of a reproductively isolated population. The "new species" from Prey freely intermingled with the rest of humanity.
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' likewise seems to have repurposed "Homo" to mean "intelligent humanoid": Vulcans were ''Homo vulcan'', etc.
** In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', Burnham once refers to the tardigrade "species" as if there's only one. Tardigrada is actually a phylum with over 1,150 species. As a scientist, she should ''really'' know better.
* The female scientist near the beginning of the series ''Series/{{Surface}}'' described the creature she'd seen as "An entirely new phylum of mammal!" This is especially mind-boggling when we later learn that the creatures are created from the DNA of liopleurodons(a prehistoric sea reptile)... which she describes as "A type of prehistoric eel"... You know, just stop trying. If they just wanted to incorrectly refer to something as a "prehistoric eel", they could have at least used a mosasaur, which are far more eel-like in shape than pliosaurs such as Liopleurodon, which were generally shaped more like sea turtles with crocodile heads.

* In an aversion, ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' seems to get the race/species thing right. The book mentions that Metahumanity (Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orks, and Trolls) are all different races within the same species. They can even interbreed (at least, they can this early on in the Sixth World), though they don't create [[HalfHumanHybrid Half-Human Hybrids]] when they do. If, for example, an elf and a human mate, the child will most likely be either an elf or a human. Or maybe a dwarf. Things are weird in the Sixth World.
* Meta example: The Wizards of the Coast forums for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3.5 had a lot of fun early on trying to determine the exact taxonomic classification of dragons, due to a mention in the ''Draconimicon'' that despite their reptilian appearance, dragons are actually endothermic mammals.

* Zig-zagged in ''Franchise/MassEffect'', in which the names of the various alien species are very carefully non-capitalised, thus avoiding the common assumption that an alien planet is [[PlanetVille just another country but a bit further away]], and aliens are referred to as "mammal-analogues" or the like when it's needed, rather than making the mistake of simply calling them "mammals," but they still refer to aliens as ''animals'' and ''plants'' and ''bacteria'' and ''insects'' without the "-analogue" modifier.
* {{Averted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/StarCraftII''. Whereas the previous game (and early ExpandedUniverse materials) capitalized species name as is often done in science fiction ([[PlanetVille erroneously]]), ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' promotional materials and the new books ''all'' spell "protoss" and "zerg" with non-capitals. [[RealityIsUnrealistic The fandom hasn't quite caught on yet]].
* Hidden object casual games regularly succumb to this trope, as when clicking on a "seahorse" isn't registered as finding a "fish".
* Averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' franchise, where across all media species names are almost always left uncapitalized. However, many, many fans do so anyway.
* In the Mii Plaza game Flower Town/[=StreetPass=] Garden, the plants are classified as being different "breeds"; [[ArtisticLicenseBiology pollination methods aside]], different varieties of a given plant species are referred to as cultivars, and cross-species hybrids are called... [[ShapedLikeItself er, hybrids]].
* According to ''Videogame/DiscworldNoir'', cladistics on the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' was formalised by Linoleum, who came up with a system not a million miles away from that proposed on Earth by Carl Linneaus. However, Linoleum's sense of humour was unfortunate: he named werewolves as ''Bonuus Canii'' (good doggies), trolls as ''Stultus Sternum'' (stupid rocks), vampires as ''Nosferatu Sanguinae'' (bloody undead) and dwarfs as ''Hortus Decorensii'' (Garden Ornaments). The Watch called his subsequent death "suicide".

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic admitted in his third "F*** Up" countdown that in his earlier review of ''Film/DunstonChecksIn'' where he repeatedly called the eponymous orangutan (and other films staring ape actors) monkeys, he didn't know there was a difference between apes and monkeys until he was corrected by his watchers.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': LittleBitBeastly characters called "Faunus" are implied to be one species separate from humans. This includes reptile Faunus, fish Faunus, and mammalian Faunus.

* WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes
** Elmer Fudd calling WesternAnimation/BugsBunny a rodent. Bugs himself, in "WesternAnimation/GorillaMyDreams", claims his scientific name is ''Rodentus rabbitus''.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBeavers'' does this, as well. Rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents, though Rodentia and Lagomorpha are sister orders in the clade Glires. However, in the Elmer Fudd case at least, the mistake is perhaps forgivable. Indeed, taxon Lagomorpha ''was'' placed within Rodentia until at least early 1900's, making then-Rodentia equivalent to now-Glires, and Fudd was already depicted as a middle-aged man in 1940.

** In one episode, ''Darwinius massilae'' is presented as a transitional form between apes and humans, when in fact it is a lemur-like form that has little to do with humans. Also, a transitional form between apes and ''Darwinius'' is referred to as ''Homo farnsworth'', but it would be far too primitive to be ''Homo'' if it went that far back.
** Done in-universe in ''Bender's Game''. When a character refers to an enormous spider he was riding as a "giant bug", the Professor angrily corrects him by calling it a "giant arachnid".
** "Moebius Dick" makes a {{running gag}} out of Leela calling people out on the "whales are fish" thing. Though it's [[CallASmeerpARabbit a rather arbitrary line to draw]] insisting that a fourth-dimensional, vacuum-inhaling, fractal-exhaling SpaceWhale was a mammal/whale, instead of an AnimalisticAbomination.

* Done in-universe in ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' where they make a bet by taking on the others personality quirks and behaviors, with Eddy trying to unsuccessfully imitate Edd's SesquipedalianLoquaciousness by claiming chickens to be mammals.
* Done in-universe in one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTarzan'' where after capturing a magical white gorilla with HealingHands, the villain goes on an rant on his mooks because they repeatedly [[IAmNotWeasel refer to it as a monkey]].
* ''WesternAnimation/DinosaurTrain'' uses "species" when "genus" would be more appropriate.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''
** Subverted and also done in-universe in the episode "The Return of the Rogue Rabbit", where characters would object to [[ShownTheirWork rabbits being called rodents and correct that they are lagomorphs]].
** An early episode "Toy to the World" had a platypus referred to as a marsupial. Later episodes corrected this and have platypodes properly identified as monotremes.
** "What a Croc!" refers to crocodiles as lizards. Crocodilians are more closely related to dinosaurs and thus birds, and they are actually far away from lizards on the evolutionary branch.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaucers}}'', even if it's a show about intelligent dinosaurs, includes in the cast an ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur, a dimetrodon, and a pterosaur. None of the four are actually dinosaurs.
%%* The Penguin referring to Batman as a rodent.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "Worst Episode Ever", there's a radioactive ape briefly mentioned in a police VHS Bart and Milhouse found in Comic Book Guy's illegal VHS stash. [[BrickJoke The ape appears on-screen]] in Flanders's car, and it's very clearly a baboon, which are not apes; baboons and apes are both members of parvorder Catarrhini, but that's as far as their biological relations stand.
** "Lisa's Substitute" makes a similar mistake after Lisa calls Homer a baboon (though somewhat {{Justified|Trope}}, since this ''is'' [[TheDitz Homer]]):
--->'''Homer (offended):''' Did you hear that, Marge? She called me a baboon. The stupidest, ugliest, smelliest ape of them all!

* Subverted in a ''ComicBook/MarvelStarWars'' comic in which Jaxxon, a rabbit character, says "I ain't no rodent!" He's an {{alien|Tropes}} BeastMan, so he's hardly a rabbit either.

--->'''Homer (offended):''' Did you hear that, Marge? She called me a baboon. The stupidest, ugliest, smelliest ape of them all!"

%%* Sonic the Hedgehog is often called a rodent.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': InUniverse example of taxonomic confusion, PlayedForLaughs, of course: In Discworld/{{Hogfather}}, Ponder Stibbons states that:

* In Disney's ''Disney/TheSwordInTheStone'', for Merlin and Mad Madame Mim's WizardDuel, the two spellcasters are only allowed to turn into animals, and not vegetables, minerals, or "nonexistent creatures like pink dragons and such." However, when the duel is over, Mim breaks one of her own rules by turning into a dragon (specifically a '''[[ExactWords purple]]''' dragon), and Merlin defeats her by turning into a ''germ'', which is not even an animal at all!

** The mutants are referred to as a species separate from humans, even though they can produce fertile offspring with humans. It would be more accurate to call them a new [[HumanSubspecies subspecies]] ("subspecies" being a fairly arbitrary and flexible term). This is partially solved in later comics where ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, and several others, refer to Mutants as "Homo sapiens superior" (compared to Homo sapiens sapiens). Although some writers forget this, ''Homo sapiens superior'' specifically refers to a human subspecies with a single, quantifiable characteristic that ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' lacks — the emission of a certain type of brainwave (this is how Cerebro distinguishes mutants from baseline humans). Superhuman powers or anatomical quirks are very common among mutants, but they are not a requirement.

For the record, any group of related organisms, regardless of the degree of relatedness, is called a ''taxon.'' The major recognized taxonomic ranks are:

Another important distinction is whether a named group is monophyletic ('one tree') or not. A monophyletic group is exactly all descendants of some ancestor species. One way to think of phylogenetics and cladistics is they are the determination of which groups are monophyletic. All groups with a taxonomic rank (e.g. a genus) should be monophyletic[[note]]hence these groupings are constantly under revision as new evidence about monophyly is discovered[[/note]], but commonly used group names may not be - e.g. 'monkey' is not monophyletic unless you consider humans and other apes to also be monkeys, as Old World monkeys are more closely related to apes than New World monkeys are. How to deal with this is debatable, and indeed debated in the examples on this very page. Some would argue that 'monkey' must include humans, others that 'monkeys' are not a legitimate group, others that 'monkey' is useful and legitimate, but you just need to be aware it is not monophyletic.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

** The mutants are referred to as a species separate from humans, even though they can produce fertile offspring with humans. It would be more accurate to call them a new [[HumanSubspecies subspecies]] ("subspecies" being a fairly arbitrary and flexible term). This is partially solved in later comics where ComicBook/{{Magneto}}, and several others, refer to Mutants as "Homo sapiens superior" (compared to Homo sapiens sapiens). Although some writers forget this, ''Homo sapiens superior'' specifically refers to a human subspecies with a single, quantifiable characteristic that ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' lacks--the emission of a certain type of brainwave (this is how Cerebro distinguishes mutants from baseline humans). Superhuman powers or anatomical quirks are very common among mutants, but they are not a requirement.

* Subverted in a [[Comicbook/MarvelStarWars Star Wars]] comic in which Jaxxon, a rabbit character, says "I ain't no rodent!" He's an {{alien|Tropes}} BeastMan so he's hardly a rabbit either.
* ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': The FunnyAnimal characters are considered one species called "Mobian" despite being UpliftedAnimal versions of various animals, ranging from hedgehogs to crocodiles.

[[folder: Fanfiction ]]

[[folder: Films -- Animated ]]

[[folder: Films -- Live-Action ]]
* In ''Film/TheHorrorOfPartyBeach'', a doctor explains that the monster is actually a dead human whose organs were invaded by aquatic plants before they had the chance to decompose, and calls the result "a giant protozoa." Protozoa are single-celled lifeforms, being neither plants nor animals. "Protozoan" is the word for describing one in the singular.
* ''Film/TheFaculty'' contains this line: "We discovered a new phylum in biology class today; maybe even a new species." This makes no sense, because something in a new phylum would have to be in a new species. Probably the actor accidentally switched "species" and "phylum" around from the scripted line, and nobody caught the mistake.
* In ''Franchise/JurassicPark'', Alan Grant says that humans and dinosaurs are "two species separated by 65 million years." Granted, that line probably sounded great in the trailers, but you'd think a paleontologist would know better than to call dinosaurs a species.
** More generally, the ''Jurassic Park'' series--and many other works, for that matter--often uses "species" when they mean "genus," such as in the first film when Grant is handling a newborn baby dinosaur and asks what species it is, to which Wu answers with ''Velociraptor'', it's genus name.

* Only three of the members of ''Film/KillBill'''s Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are actually named for vipers.
* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', calling Rocket a "rodent" is one of his [[BerserkButton Berserk Buttons]]. He's a raccoon, order Carnivora; rodents are order Rodentia.

[[folder: Literature ]]
* The Literature/{{Childcraft}} book ''About Animals'' identifies arthropods as a "class" of animals, when it really is a phylum. It could be argued that ''phylum'' is too advanced a word for a book aimed at 6-year-olds, but that could also be argued of ''arthropod'', and that didn't stop the publishers. (Probably they figured that anything was better than risking spiders getting classed as "insects".) Even more JustForFun/{{egregious}} as there are more arthropods in existence than every other phylum of animals combined.

* In ''Cachalot'', a marine biologist refers to a newly-discovered undersea race as "the first intelligent invertebrates we've ever encountered". Granted, this wouldn't be an issue in some scifi series ... but ''Cachalot'' is one of the Literature/HumanxCommonwealth novels, where humans and thranx have been virtually joined at the hip for centuries. Did Creator/AlanDeanFoster forget that his insect-based thranx also lack an internal skeleton?
** Perhaps they meant the first such species encountered in an aquatic environment?
** He also repeatedly refers to shrews as "rodents" in his ''Literature/{{Spellsinger}}'' series.

-->"''I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.''"

* InUniverse example of taxonomic confusion, PlayedForLaughs, of course: In Discworld/{{Hogfather}}, Ponder Stibbons states that:
-->"''Although, funnily enough banana is not actually a fruit, sir.'' [...] ''Botanically, it’s a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it’s cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals.''”

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The female scientist near the beginning of the series ''Series/{{Surface}}'' described the creature she'd seen as "An entirely new phylum of mammal!" This is especially mind-boggling when we later learn that the creatures are created from the DNA of liopleurodons(a prehistoric sea reptile)... which she describes as "A type of prehistoric eel"... You know, just stop trying. If they just wanted to incorrectly refer to something as a "prehistoric eel", they could have at least used a mosasaur, which are far more eel-like in shape than pliosaurs such as Liopleurodon, which were generally shaped more like sea turtles with crocodile heads.

%%* The main character in ''Series/{{Prey}}'' claims in the pilot to have discovered a new species after analyzing a [=DNA=] sample with a 1.2% difference from a regular human. They later proceed to name the new "species" ''Homo dominants'', apparently unaware that you're supposed to use Latin for this. Actually, a 1.2% difference might actually enough difference to classify as a new species- ''if'' that group consisted of a reproductively isolated population. The "new species" from Prey freely intermingled with the rest of humanity.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a species of reptilian humanoids, the Silurians, that are referred to sometimes as ''Homo reptilia''. The ''Homo'' genus is mammalian. Furthermore, reptiles hadn't even evolved by the Silurian era, making that part of the name rather baffling as well. (The Doctor once suggested that they should have been called "Eocenes" after another geological period they didn't come from). ''Franchise/StarTrek'' likewise seems to have repurposed "Homo" to mean "intelligent humanoid": Vulcans were ''Homo vulcan'', etc.
* In the ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' episode "Dead Clade Walking", Holmes incorrectly says a "clade" is any group of organisms that have survived a major extinction event, which is actually part of the definition of the "dead clade walking" paleontological concept. (A clade is simply any named group consisting of an ancestral species and it descendents. As it happens the question of whether taxonomy should be "cladistic" is one of the core wrenches in the field.) To be fair, he's exhausted after late hours talking to a geologist, and the extinction part is what's important to him.
* In-universe example: Mr/s. Kipling the water monitor of ''Series/{{Jessie}}'' was called a dinosaur (namely a ''Velociraptor'') as an insult. Another episode goes with the "koala bear" term (although Ravi notes that koalas are marsupials).
* In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', Burnham once refers to the tardigrade "species" as if there's only one. Tardigrada is actually a phylum with over 1,150 species. As a scientist, she should ''really'' know better.

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** And the actual Ishmael's taxonomic "system" consists of simply grouping of cetaceans roughly according to their respective sizes (and thus their economic value), with terminology based upon [[RuleOfSymbolism book sizes]] - i.e. Folio, Octavo and Duodecimo. The best acceptable explanation for all this is just [[TropesAreTools regarding]] chapter 32 "Cetology" as a [[OverlyLongGag prolonged]] StealthParody of both the common whalers' sea-lore and [[ScienceMarchesOn then-current scientific]] cetological classification.

* An extremely stupid example: There was a video by a certain "Angry MGTOW" (now gone, but you can watch an, err, review by TL DR [[here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLPotlh2y7U&t=1s]]) where he claims that [[StrawMisogynist women suck and even cockroaches are better]]. At one point he claims "animals tend to be more compassionate than the female ''species'' of our '''group'''!

* In Disney's ''Disney/TheSwordInTheStone'', for Merlin and Mad Madame Mim's WizardDuel, the two spellcasters are only allowed to turn into animals, and not vegetables, minerals, or "nonexistent creatures like pink dragons and such." However, when the duel is over, Mim breaks one of her own rules by [[LoopholeAbuse turning into a dragon]], and Merlin defeats her by turning into a ''germ'', which is not even an animal at all!

** Elmer Fudd calling WesternAnimation/BugsBunny a rodent.
** Wile E. Coyote classifies the western rabbit as "Rabbitus Idioticus Delicious".
*** Let's not even get into the [[CanisLatinicus fake latinate names]] that introduce Wile E. and the Roadrunner in their own series.
*** To be fair, those ones are [[RuleOfFunny intentionally just supposed to be silly.]]
*** Considering Roadrunner looks nothing like a real roadrunner, he probably is an entirely different species.
** Bugs himself is no better. In "WesternAnimation/GorillaMyDreams" he claims his scientific name is ''Rodentus rabbitus''.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has a species of reptilian humanoids, the Silurians, that are referred to sometimes as ''Homo reptilia''. The ''Homo'' genus is mammalian. Furthermore, reptiles hadn't even evolved by the Silurian era, making that part of the name rather baffling as well. (The Doctor once suggested that they should have been called "Eocenes" after another geological period they didn't come from). ''Series/StarTrek'' likewise seems to have repurposed "Homo" to mean "intelligent humanoid": Vulcans were ''Homo vulcan'', etc.

* An extremely stupid example: There was a video by a certain "Angry MGTOW" (now gone, but you can watch an,err, review by TL DR here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLPotlh2y7U&t=1s) where he claims that [[StrawMisogynist women suck and even cockroaches are better]]. At one point he claims "animals tend to be more compassionate than the female ''species'' of our '''group'''!

* Sonic the Hedgehog is often called a rodent.
* The Penguin referring to Batman as a rodent.

* In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', Burnham once refers to the tardigrade "species" as if there's only one. ''Tardigrada'' is actually a phylum with over 1,150 species. As a scientist, she should ''really'' know better.

* In ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters'', Titans are all classified under the genus Titanus, despite them being everything from Godzilla (a reptile) to King Kong (a mammal), to Mothra (an insect).

* Subverted in a [[Comicbook/MarvelStarWars Star Wars]] comic in which Jaxxon, a rabbit character, says "I ain't no rodent!" He's an {{alien|Tropes}} [[PettingZooPeople Petting Zoo Petting person]] so he's hardly a rabbit either.

** An extra complication is presented when Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes finds herself on Earth, teaching zoology at [[Series/TheBigBangTheory Caltech, Pasadena, California]]. She has to tailor her standard lecture to students on the Literature/{{Discworld}} to local conditions on a new planet. This means censoring out all references to silicon-based life, as Trolls do not exist on the Roundworld, and omitting all mention of things like basilisks, unicorns, {{Pegasi}}, and werecreatures. She gets to talk about Trolls, but in the context of a thought-experiment in which her students are invited to speculate on what silicon-based life might look like and how it could thrive.