Taxonomy in the popular media

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 08:17 AM 01-14-97 -0500, Richard Jensen wrote:
>How about the "Little Shop of Horrors?"  :-)!  Just kidding.

If I recall, Roger Corman's original "Audrey" was stated to be a cross
between a butterwort (Pinguicula sp., Lentibulariaceae, Asteridae) and a
Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula, Droseraceae, Dilleniidae).  Inter-subclass
hybrids?  Well, what do you expect on a $20,000 budget?

Speaking of distant hybridizations, from an phylogenetic perspective, the
worst are story lines (such as the much beloved Star Trek) that include
human-alien hybridizations, a la Mr. Spock.  Try explaining to a class of
students reared on such things that they have more genetic material in
common with pond scum than they do with a Vulcan, that they'd have a better
chance hybridizing with a petunia than with a humanoid from another world.
Draw them a cladogram, actually TWO cladograms: the Earth one and the Vulcan
one.  They still don't get it (overly impressed by the parallelisms in gross
morphology, I guess).

>More seriously, any good accout of the Lindbergh kidnapping will  include
>the role of a wood anatomist who applied his taxonomic knowledge in
>demonstrating that wood found at the scene matched wood found at Bruno
>Hauptman's house (the ladder, I believe).

I've seen a botany textbook with a full discussion of this as a sidebar to
the discussion of wood anatomy, but I can't place it just now.  Can anybody
recall?

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Thomas G. Lammers
Department of Botany                     Classification, Nomenclature,
Field Museum of Natural History          Phylogeny and Biogeography
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive       of the Campanulaceae
Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 USA

e-mail:     lammers at fmppr.fmnh.org
voice mail: 312-922-9410 ext. 317
fax:        312-427-2530

        "The naming of things by their right names is the beginning of wisdom."