Hello everyone, I’m helping a colleague who’s classifying Czech printed images and we’ve run into a question about proper notation. She’s looking for the right classification for “zajíc” (rabbit/hare) but has only found the hare notation, which appears to be grouped with rodents (25F26(RABBIT) rodents: rabbit). Since hares are actually lagomorphs rather than rodents, we’re wondering if there’s a more accurate notation available, or if this is something that might need updating in the system. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks. Veronika
Veronika, I think your colleague is the first who has noticed this. With a few thousand pictures having been tagged with 25F26(RABBIT) or 25F26(HARE) and taxonomic research ongoing among our colleagues in Biology, my first instinct is to be practical.
It would be easy to edit the definition of 25F26 rodents and change it to 25F26 rodents and lagomorphs and also add a link to the Wikipedia page about rodents
Would this help?
Dear Veronika, dear Hans,
thanks a lot for this topic. I can see the point and I am happy that someone is pointing on the wrong biological classification of rabbits and hares in common parlance. Most people believe that an animal that has long front teeth and potentially gnaws on furniture and cables must be a rodent, and for them it would be quite reasonable to find in Iconclass rabbit and hare as 25F26(RABBIT) rodents: rabbit. Whereas the term “lagomorphs” is not that much known. The colleagues in biology are also discussing whether guinea pigs are actually rodents or whether they belong to a separate group. If so, what do we do with Iconclass then? Rodents, lagomorphs and cavies? Small mammals? Best wishes, Dagmar