Spellchecking

Ha ha ha, I spelled its name wrong. But it caught it!

I've been using the browser extension Grammarly to check spelling and punctuation in the site. This is a big job that will take a week or two in small pieces, but is actually not difficult. In fact, it requires very little thinking, it is almost mechanical. I had the necessary functionality to do this quickly and efficiently already built into the WordPress back-end, this is the first time I am using it.

The situation is not that bad. Grammarly is smart enough to know when you have used the wrong word (spelled right) and flags it. It also does a fair job of sorting out commas. Most of the errors I am correcting are from cut-and-paste and OCR that didn't catch my eye, not my own writing. I'd say Grammarly is right most of the time, and some of the time I just ignore it.


Bullfrog
Bullfrog

"Higher animals" is a catch-all term for vertebrates other than fish. This is rather self-congratulatory, since the so-called "lower animals" - fishes and invertebrates - are actually the dominant species on the planet, both in numbers and diversity! The four classes of higher animals are:

  • Amphibians - class Amphibia
  • Reptiles - class Reptilia
  • Birds - class Aves
  • Mammals - class Mammalia