Science desk
< November 5	<< Oct \| November \| Dec >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

November 6[edit]

What are the lowest level taxon(s) where [taxon]ologist is a real word[edit]

in OED or at least a genuine peer-reviewed biological paper? What's the lowest if clades our own species are in don't count i.e. anthropologist, primatologist and mammalogist? (though ornithologist, ichthyologist, entomologist etc. show that "classologist" is not very specialized at all, we have lots of articles on insect "orderologists" too so it might be "suborderologist" or below, and coronavirologists study a single suborder or family apparently so it is indeed below "orderologist") Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "lowest"? That'll help. As for cladistics, "low" isn't really useful. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From the wording of the question it should be obvious that clade A would be considered lower than clade B if A is nested in (i.e., is a subgroup of) B. So Forficula is at a lower level than Dermaptera. Any forficulogists out there? However, two clades that do not have a common ancestor cannot be compared. For the purpose of interpreting the question, the conventional taxonomic rank is more helpful. --Lambiam 11:34, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You exclude the study of humans, but do you also exclude human-domesticated animals? If not, then you could have (say) hippologist. catslash (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A cynologist studies a (divergent) subspecies of Canis lupus. You can't get much below that. --Lambiam 11:34, 7 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]