God help me, I'm about to teach about "protists" in zoology! Molecular methods have taught us that "protists" is a term without meaning in the evolutionary scheme of things, but the term won't die since it's a "convenient" way to talk about everything that isn't a plant, an animal or a fungus. But it leads to all kinds of confusion so I personally doubt the educational value of such a term.

For example, the text I'm using insists on calling Opisthokonts a "phylum" (opisthokonts include animals and fungi) and then turns around and calls the animals a "kingdom"! You can't have a "kingdom" as a group contained within a "phylum". Furthermore, in a couple of places unicellular critters with no close connection to animals are called "animals". There's something about zoologists that doesn't let them give up critters that used to be thought of as "animal-like", but clearly aren't. Maybe it's the collection mentality.

Speaking of the collection mentality, a group I'm associated with is arguing about moves to have the Monarch butterfly declared a threatened species. Beyond the difficulty of determining what "threatened" means, I'm sure part of the disagreement stems from collectors who fear another encroachment on their ability to collect. Already in many European countries one cannot collect moths and butterflies without some sort of permit from the government, and those permits are often quite difficult to obtain.

I find myself torn on this issue. I applaud the drive to preserve nature, and I think collectors can be unconscious about the impact of their activities, but really? Banning a kid from picking up a net and collecting some common butterflies or moths helps conservation efforts how?