Over at Myrmecos, Alex Wild has documented yet another terrible taxonomy fail:
(From here)
This illustrates one of the many reasons why science education is important. There are many traits which separate Solenopsis (fire ants), in the subfamily Myrmicinae, from Camponotus (carpenter ants), in the subfamily Formicinae and pictured above. The most obvious of these, from a taxonomic perspective, is the presence of a postpetiole, or second waist segment, in Solenopsis (and all Myrmicines) that is lacking in Camponotus (and all Formicines). Although this trait is not present in this photo, the differences between these two genera are many and obvious (compare 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.
