this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
1192 points (98.7% liked)

Science Memes

11431 readers
2460 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

I'm sorry but you're simply incorrect.

Bug is a technical term. Only insects of order Hemiptera, categorized by the ability to fly and the presence of piercing, sucking mouth parts, are considered true bugs.

Lobsters are certainly not considered bugs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Crawdads are still mudbugs though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

But commonly it's a catch all for any creepy crawly, including arachnid. The classification is even called True Bug, not just Bug

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The scientific taxonomic system was made, in part, because traditional colloquial terms are a mess. For example, "daddy longlegs" refers to a type of spider in my area, but there are two other animals and three plants that it could refer to depending on where you grew up. Taxonomists saw that there are ten different standards, decided to make a new one to replace them all, and for once, it actually worked out for the most part.

"Bug" is one of those old terms. It might have been mapped post hoc on top of the modern taxonomic system, but it didn't start that way, and isn't always used that way. I wouldn't expect an entomologist to use the term at all in formal contexts.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Merriam-Webster, definition 1:

a: any of an order (Hemiptera and especially its suborder Heteroptera) of insects (such as an assassin bug or chinch bug) that have sucking mouthparts, forewings thickened at the base, and incomplete metamorphosis and are often economic pests

called also true bug

b: any of various small arthropods (such as a beetle or spider) resembling the true bugs

c: any of several insects (such as a head louse) commonly considered obnoxious

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

I'm sorry but you're simply incorrect. Bug can be a technical term, but that doesn't also preclude it from also being a non-technical term, because words often have more than one meaning. See also: theory.