"Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?"

[Jake]

Tonight on this show one of the questions was "Salamanders are not reptiles, what class of animal do they belong to?". The contestant's reply was "Well salamanders are lizards so that really just throws me off." He got a hint and figured out that they are amphibians. The best part was at the end, Jeff Foxworthy said, "That's correct salamanders are amphibians! And here's a picture of a salamander"(...but it was actually a picture of a leopard gecko!). I tried to find an email address to contact Fox and let them know about it, but it's been an empty search.

 

[Azhael]

xDDDDD
Sadly this is classic...

 

[SludgeMunkey]

What!?!?! Salamanders are amphibians?

And all this time I have been billing myself as the Creepy Fungi Guy...

However on that note...my daughter, a 9th grader, and I are at odds as she failed her biology test...on amphibians...while living in this house...

Upon reviewing her study materials, lo and behold the Textbook has a leopard gecko picture labeled as "The elusive salamander Mesotriton Tigrinum."

I wonder if the folks at Fox are using the same textbook?

 

[Otterwoman]

"The elusive salamander Mesotriton Tigrinum."

Well, they certainly would be right that that is an elusive animal.

 

[blueberlin]

If you think that's ignorant.. My daughter's first boyfriend came home to meet me last year. I asked her if she wanted to show him the axolotls - you know, that is sure to be great mojo for any budding romance, right? So she asked him, "Do you want to see my Mama's newts?" (She insists on calling them newts.) And the poor befuddled lad asked - are y'all ready for this? - the famous last question, "What's a newt?"



-Eva

 

[John]

Well, they certainly would be right that that is an elusive animal.

Awesome!

 

[Otterwoman]

Actually, I believe they're called "Ichthyosaura Tigrinum" now.

 

[Azhael]

"The elusive salamander Mesotriton Tigrinum."

If you all excuse me i´ve got to kill myself....
How can a textbook be so surreally wrong? For christ shake they have even capitalized the specific name, god forbid they would actually do something right in that sentence.

I sometimes can´t believe how little people know about animals(then again a mechanic would be appauled to see how little i know about cars). I suposse you can´t expect everyday normal people to know all animal groups, but i´ve seen biology students make mistakes that i didn´t make when i was 5 (yes, i´m a freak, but still....).
I will never forget when some of my brother´s friends called me to my mobile only to ask me if sharks were fish or mammals. I went taxonomically bersherk on them and told them they were neither only to see what they could come up with. It was a laugh... for me, of course xD

 

[Otterwoman]

One of Grumpet's biologist colleagues asked him one day if birds were warm-blooded.

 

[freves]

I remember getting yelled at in my 7th grade biology class for correcting the teacher when he was telling us that seahorses are echinoderms. To his credit he looked it up that night and apologized to me in front of the class the next day.
Chip

 

[Jake]

the famous last question, "What's a newt?"



-Eva

I've heard that too many times! People at animal expos give me the craziest looks when I try to describe a salamander! "Well, you mean it isn't a lizard!?" The best part is when people correct me because they "know" newts are lizards, and axolotls are of course fish!

 

[dane_zu]

wow.....some people.....

 

[Alejandro]

When I was in 6th grade the stupid teacher told us that carrion was "some type of insect, maybe a beetle". When I corrected her I was asked to leave the classroom...

 

[bewilderbeast]

I was reading a field guide to california wildlife where next to the blurb on Dicamptodon and Giant salamanders they showed a picture of an eastern tiger salamander... In an Audubon book! at least they knew it was an amphibian.

but even supposedly scientific publications don't seem to do their fact checking. We shouldn't be surprised that some intern working for Jeff Foxworthy doesn't know a gecko from a salamander.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

In some cases the misunderstanding makes sense- Here in Nebraska for instance, where salamanders are rarely seen, folks had no clue their fish bait was just a larvae of a critter.
Or how about those folks in the South Eastern US that call them "spring lizards"? (My Yankee ears had never heard of such a thing.)

But incorrect textbooks and field guides is just inexcusable. A misidentified picture or incorrect information is the fault of the author first and the editor(s) second.

Then again, this is a school district that had 178 8th graders taking Algebra and only had enough money for 30 books. The 5th grade football team got brand new uniforms and gear on the school's tab though!

 

[blueberlin]

And when they think they're getting smart, we'll throw in the platypus.

You know, I read about 100 years ago that the platypus was to be reclassified as a reptile? Because only reptiles have the special feature of not having an esophagus that shares wind and food, so that they can breathe while swallowing without chewing. Reptiles, and the platypus. The hairy reptile. Or maybe a newt in beaver's clothing?

-Eva

 

[Shawn_532]