Apparently a group of doctors got tired of finding plastic bread clips lodged in colons, the clips having been swallowed. To raise awareness, they wrote an article on the taxonomy of bread clips.
On the serious side, they’re asking for input from other doctors to determine which bread clips are safer when swallowed. On the less serious side, damn.
The genus is Occlupanidae. As an example, distinguishing features of species archignatha are:
My hat’s off to Larisa M Lehmer, Bruce D Ragsdale, John Daniel, Edwin Hayashi, and Robert Kvalstad. They could have just labeled them A, B, C, etc., but instead they took the extra effort to be a bit amusing. I hope it gives the article legs and gets them the feedback that they’re asking for.
Several years ago I found a fascinating and hilarious article in a Connecticut newspaper on the taxonomy of plastic coffee cup lids.
This ISN’T it, but it gives the idea. Without the humor.
I’m curious as to whether a proto-archignatha form has been postulated. It is possible that one has already been described as a member of another genus.
Although wiki states that he carved the first one out of a credit card with a pen knife, I would not consider credit cards to be taxonomically related. Perhaps the circlip is the ur-form.
