Dr Maggie J Watson

I have this pet peeve, which I try not to indulge too vociferously, because, well, I have so many more that I indulge in on a regular basis. I usually save my vocal peeves for correcting grammar, either using #grammarpolice on Twitter, or, just coming out and saying it straight to the person. #notthebestwaytomakefriendsandinfluencepeople I have made it my personal mission to stop people from saying “versed” rather than “versus” and misusing the subjunctive mood (“I wish I WERE”, not “I wish I WAS”); or editing student’s papers (One sentence does not a paragraph make…); or removing those star labels off of random appliances; or…

Sorry.

Got a bit carried away there.

So, this pet peeve, which I rarely indulge is a sub-section of the #taxonomyfail and includes all those jarring (to me) times when absolutely the wrong animal appears in a movie. I wish I didn’t notice, but I do, and so every once in a while I just have to have a nice grumble about it.

The first one I ever noticed way back in the 90s while watching t.v. was in Close Encounters of the First Time. There is this scene meant to be in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia (which, for whatever reason was filmed in the Dumont Dunes, California) and the main character crests a dune with a whole bunch of dudes and their camels–FRELLING ONE-HUMPED CAMELS. Now, as everyone knows, there are two types of camels–the dromedary (the one-humped camel Camelus dromedarius from Africa and the Middle East) and the bactrian (the two-humped camel Camelus bactrianus from Mongolia and China, although their range used to be much larger) and NEVER THE TWO SHALL MEET! Well, that is not strictly true, some people do breed hybrids, but that is a different tangent. The dromedary is found in hot deserts, the bactrian, in cold ones. The dromedary is DEFINITELY NOT used in Mongolia (trust me, I’ve been there).

Here is a picture from the film to prove my point: (image from

The other really big one that bugs me (and rather bums me out, cuz, well, it is a seabird) is Nigel the pelican in Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo is set in Australia, right? All the fish and the turtles and such are from Australia, right? The film makers made sure to be as terribly accurate as possible about the Great Barrier Reef, right? THEN WHY COULDN’T THEY GET THE FRELLING BIRDS RIGHT?!?! There is only one species of pelican in Australia. It is called the Australian Pelican:

And, what did they use in Finding Nemo?

Yep. A Brown Pelican. From America. Not Australia. There are other inaccuracies in Finding Nemo (let’s not talk about the weird deep sea fish thing and the gulls are some weird hybrid between Silver Gulls and Pacific Gulls), but at least they TRIED to get mostly the right species, except for Nigel. Why? Sigh.

And my final example, which practically ruined the whole film for me (yeah, I know) was in The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey. The Hobbit was written by an Englishman, and was specifically set in England, and Peter Jackson used the correct animals for many scenes (such as using Megaloceros for the deer that Theranduil rides and Eurasian jays and the European thrush at the end) except for the robin. So wrong. So #taxonomyfail it is not even funny!

Yep. That is an AMERICAN robin. Not a European one:

Not hard people.

Sigh.