The current emoji catalog doesn’t represent the biodiversity seen in nature, and this hurts conservation, say scientists.
iScience journal published that while animals are well represented, plants and microorganisms get short shrift.
”While the biodiversity crisis may seem distant in our digitized society, we should not underestimate emojis to raise awareness and appreciation for the diversity of life,” wrote authors Stefano Mammola, Mattia Falaschi and Gentile Francesco Ficetola, Italian conservation biologists.
Ensuring equal representation of the Tree of Life in digital communication was crucial. The team assessed Emojipedia between 2015 and 2022.
Overrepresented were vertebrates, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and bony fish.
Arthropods such as insects, arachnids, and crustaceans, were underrepresented.
No emojis represented nematodes, or platyhelminths, despite their abundance of species. Emoji biodiversity increased with the addition of the ‘worm’ emoji in 2020, and cnidarians in 2021 including a red coral emoji.
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