Zoological inaccuracies & mistakes

[BerdNerd]

From DK Animal Book. American crocodile is American alligator

And mushrooms are not animals!

I have this same exact book. This book isn't solely about animals; it's a book about life on Earth so it also features plants, fungi, and micro-organisms. Don't ask me why they named it The Animal Book though.

 

[Dassie rat]

Bactrian camel in the Middle East

 

[Tetzoo Quizzer]

If we are going to get geographically picky, then presumably the Alligator is from the New York sewer population!

 

[Dassie rat]

I'm not sewer about that

 

[Tetzoo Quizzer]

And for accuracy in South America, the designers need another Flaming-go!

 

[lowland anoa]

If we are going to get geographically picky, then presumably the Alligator is from the New York sewer population!

Well I feel a bit flushed away from your statement

 

[Dassie rat]

Thanks for dropping that in, Lowland Anoa

 

[Elephas Maximus]

A book of poems by Boris Zakhoder

Wildebeest

Beakless turkey

Whale with fish flippers

Walrus with whisker tusks and fish flippers

Ferret (and the poem says it cannot be tamed)

Jackal (the poem says it looks like hyena)

 

[Jarne]

Elk and Dall sheep on Russian geography textbooks

You do know that wapiti or elks (Cervus canadensis to avoid confusion) actually live in Russia, Mongolia and China. I suspect that so-called Dall sheep is supposed to be an Ovis ammon that they painted a bit too white on the back.

 

[Dassie rat]

A book of poems by Boris Zakhoder

Wildebeest

Beakless turkey

Whale with fish flippers

Walrus with whisker tusks and fish flippers

Ferret (and the poem says it cannot be tamed)

Jackal (the poem says it looks like hyena)

I don't think the pictures are meant to be zoologically accurate. When I read stories to children at the Junior Library, I avoided pointing out scientific mistakes. I don't think toddlers would have been interested if I said that toads don't really drive cars.

 

[Dassie rat]

You do know that wapiti or elks (Cervus canadensis to avoid confusion) actually live in Russia, Mongolia and China. I suspect that so-called Dall sheep is supposed to be an Ovis ammon that they painted a bit too white on the back.

I must admit that I'd prefer to avoid the word 'elk' as it causes confusion. I prefer to call the deer a moose or a wapiti.

 

[Elephas Maximus]

You do know that wapiti or elks (Cervus canadensis to avoid confusion) actually live in Russia, Mongolia and China. I suspect that so-called Dall sheep is supposed to be an Ovis ammon that they painted a bit too white on the back.

Only Red deer subspecies live there (according to Russian taxonomy)

 

[Elephas Maximus]

I don't think the pictures are meant to be zoologically accurate. When I read stories to children at the Junior Library, I avoided pointing out scientific mistakes. I don't think toddlers would have been interested if I said that toads don't really drive cars.

This book is from my childhood. Even when being a toddler I understood clearly that anthropomorphic animals are something from fairy tales & cartoons, not from real world, but thought that real ferret, jackal and wildebeest should look similarly to those in book until seeing more realistic pictures later.

 

[Elephas Maximus]

Books about Russian nature
Chrysiridia ripheus (and ''stories of animals, birds & insects'')

Some fairywren species?

 

[Jarne]

Only Red deer subspecies live there (according to Russian taxonomy)

The altai wapiti is genetically more closely related with the American populations then with the Chinese populations. And the Altai wapiti looks more like American Elk too then Eurasian red deer, so I still don't see the mistake.

 

[Chlidonias]

The altai wapiti is genetically more closely related with the American populations then with the Chinese populations. And the Altai wapiti looks more like American Elk too then Eurasian red deer, so I still don't see the mistake.

What he is saying boils down to: when the book was published the scientific consensus was that Cervus elaphus was in Eurasia and Cervus canadensis was in North America (although the latter would have been considered a subspecies of elaphus at the time probably - the book looks like it might have been from about twenty years ago).

The illustrator definitely used a picture of the North American Wapiti.

That the genetics have now shown that the east Asian animals are canadensis doesn't change that the illustrator used a North American animal as their picture, although you might say that the genetics has retroactively "corrected" the mistake.

 

[Dassie rat]

Ferret (and the poem says it cannot be tamed)

I must admit that it looks more like a cacomistle

 

[Jarne]

That the genetics have now shown that the east Asian animals are canadensis doesn't change that the illustrator used a North American animal as their picture, although you might say that the genetics has retroactively "corrected" the mistake.

That's the point, the wapiti of Eastern russia look very similar to North-American wapiti. From that picture, I'd even say that it can just well be based on a Altai wapiti as on a North-American wapiti. That light back is present in both populations after all.

 

[CheeseChameleon1945]

When I was younger I could even distinguish mistakes in literature, at age 8......
I remember seeing multiple books with information about Amur leopards at my local library, and this is what I remember. The small short book was called, Amur leopards; the snowy hunters. Yet on the front cover, they showed a picture of an African leopard in a tree on a Savanna?
And, a more vague memory is reading something from an animal encyclopedia about how Shrew opossums are not... Marsupials?? What?????

 

[Elephas Maximus]

"Black rhino is a species of African elephant"