It occurs to me that an objective measure of the amount of Fail in a given misidentification could be useful.
I propose the following:
A = the actual taxon of the pictured organism
B = the taxon as misidentified
T = the number of million years since A and B shared a common ancestor*
H = the number of million years since humans and our closest relatives, the chimps, shared a common ancestor.
Taxonomy Fail Index (TFI) = T/H
In other words, the Taxonomy Fail Index scales the amount of error in absolute time against the error of misidentifying a human with a chimp.
If I were to run a story about Sarah Palin, but accidentally illustrate it with a photo of a bonobo, that would be a taxonomy fail of magnitude 1.
The classic Taxonomy Fail of possum/cat has a TFI of 24.6.
The yellow jacket/honey bee fail in the last post has a TFI of 25.2, or slightly stupider than mistaking an opossum for a cat.
Snope’s insistence that scale insects are “beetles” (via Bug Girl) is even stupider, TFI = 58. In fact, now that we can quantify the Fail, we see that Snopes fails more than twice as hard as the possum cat.
See? Science can be fun.
* A quick and easy way to get ancestry dates is the timetree of life
A personal blog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
Fake, the same picture is on the wikipedia page for the Virginia opossum.
Don’t you know, Lasius? — All (o-)possum pictures look alike.
Came across this version of the same: http://www.snootypaws.com.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/lost-cat-poster1.jpg
Well, whether the cat/possum poster is a hoax or not, I still think it’s amusing to finally have a way to quantify just how much somebody screwed up their taxonomy. Thanks, Alex!
I think Myrmecos needs to be more specific on his divergence estimates: timetree of life produces estimates for different gene sets, weighted and simple averages, and even a Time Tree Expert number for some. For example, if I put up a posting on how great a blog Myrmecos is and posted a picture of a two-spotted spider mite for Alex I could generate a TFI of 36.8-146.4, just using the Weighted and Simple averages for Pan paniscus-Homo sapiens and Tetranychus urticae. I think this is lacking in precision.
While that may be true, this is the sort of issue I probably won’t worry about until the time comes to submit this highly rigorous method to a peer-reviewed journal.
feh !
Dave, you are just SUCH a wet blanket !
What’s the problem with plus/minus a few hundred million years of dating precision anyway ?
After all, all the BEST scientists pull WAGs from their posteriors !!
“After all, all the BEST scientists pull WAGs from their posteriors !!”
What’s brilliant about that is the rest of us can then cite those WAGs as authoritative.
Consensus gentium !!
Well done, Alex
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/snacktrain24/Brilliant.png
Fantastic! Now I finally have a topic for my dissertation…
“If I were to run a story about Sarah Palin, but accidentally illustrate it with a photo of a bonobo, that would be a taxonomy fail of magnitude 1.”
The consensus seems to be that bonobos, while they are native to Asia, are in fact part of a major radiation of the Magnipedidae that took place about 1 mya in Alaska, which incidentally also gave rise to the yeti, Bigfoot, and John McCain (Johannia maccainii).
But at least she wouldn’t be identified as H. sapiens… that would warrant at least a 5 on the TFI.
Bwah ha ha ha! Whether it’s real or not, this poster is hilarious. Let’s face it: at least one person out there can’t tell the difference between a possum and a cat. Imaging this person makes the poster even better.
[...] The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
thank you! the “OMG giant spiders in the antarctic!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaHma-AJ_bM always annoyed me, but now i know just how much: 163 TFI. (using the 981 mya difference between Crinoidea and Pantopoda). Though i’m unsure if i’m using the correct number: “all” or “mixed”? http://www.timetree.org/time_query.php?taxon_a=35069&taxon_b=373319
LOL – thought something was wrong with that 2nd link –indeed Time Tree = EPIC Taxonomy FAIL !
entered Query Taxa: Pantopoda/Crinoidea
Result Comparison Protostomia/Deuterostomia
——- or ——————-
Query Taxa: Pycnogonida/Antedonidae
Result Comparison Protostomia/Deuterostomia
the data is a little sparse !
Can’t stop laughing ….
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Taxonomy FAIL: A) Trilobite. B) Trilobite. C) Trilobite [...]
[...] at least, make an attempt to accurately target our … re-education attempts. He calls it the Taxonomy Fail Index, or [...]
[...] some of these misidentifications fail harder and more epically than others! Now that we know how to quantify the amount of Fail, I’ll give out two more points to the first person who can correctly rank-order the fails [...]
[...] at Myrmecos has established a much needed Taxonomy Fail Index(TFI). This simple equation harnesses the TimeTree of Life project in order to quantify exactly how [...]
[...] The Taxonomy Fail Index – how to get it really wrong taxonomically. [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] from the extant arthropod line around 600 million years ago. That’s a whopping 98.36 on the Myrmecos Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] mollusks) over 988 million years ago. That it is a stupefying, record breaking 162 on the on the Taxonomy Fail Index. I think this record can only be broken if someone misidentifies a rhinoceros as a sea [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] Myrmecos: The Taxonomy Fail Index [...]
[...] That, my friends, is an earwig. 10 points and a cookie to anyone who uses Alex Wild’s formula to calculate the Taxonomy Fail Index. [...]
[...] Under threat of taxonomy FAIL! It’s one of the most mild taxonomy fails I have posted here (TFI=39.1), but a FAIL [...]
Here’s a Boing Boing entry that one commenter claims comes in at a TFI=444.5 and links to this page!
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/08/aphids-peeking-boing.html
[...] related. In fact, they are so distantly related that they have a taxonomy fail index value (as defined by Myrmecos) of 67.02. That means that this misidentification is almost 3 times as bad as mistaking an [...]
[...] I found these ‘Real Bugs’ lucite-encased specimens for sale a local grocery store. They’re pretty nice display items, and I’m actually kind of in love with the included collector’s cards which include trivia along the lines of “millipedes can have thousands of legs.” Above you can see the polyphaga cockroach, whose trading card inexplicably showcases a photo of a darkling beetle. Quick, someone calculate the taxonomy fail index. [...]
[...] ant, genus Oecophylla, not a fire ant, genus Solenopsis. I’m not sure where this is on the Myrmecos Taxonomy Fail Index, but’s it’s obviously a silly mistake! Do you see a postpetiole? I didn’t think [...]
[...] confuse the situation, and perhaps cause undue alarm. [as an aside, this blog post about 'the taxonomy fail index' is worth a [...]
[...] beetle larvae, and tadpole shrimp are all trilobites, therefore: Jesus! – or something. Taxonomy FAIL: A) Trilobite. B) Trilobite. C) [...]
[...] Wild uses this comparison as the baseline for his calculation of the excellent Taxonomy Fail Index: A = the actual taxon of the pictured organism B = the taxon as misidentified T = the number of [...]
Since I assume that H is a constant, how many Ma ago is the LCA of chimps and us?
in order to illustrate the example, can you demonstrate for us what is the TF index for a DNA barcode that identifies a moth as a parasitic wasp? thank you.
[...] this to this). Despite the egregiousness of this error, it only scores a 19.2 according to Wild’s Taxonomy Fail Index. For a comparison, confusing a possum and a cat receives a 24.6. So it could be worse. Like [...]
[...] a slightly more serious note: correct taxonomy is critically important. Other posts (e.g., see here or here) have pointed out serious taxonomic failures. One letter difference in Miridae (a family of [...]