Wastebasket taxon

So, you know how we have different groups for animals like dogs, cats, and fish? These are called species. Sometimes, scientists find an animal that they can't figure out where it belongs, so they put it in a group called "wastebasket taxon."

It's like when you have a bunch of toys that you don't know where to put, so you just dump them in a wastebasket. Scientists do this too sometimes. They put animals they can't figure out in the wastebasket taxon, so they can come back to them later and figure out where they really belong.

It's not really a great system, because it's like putting a bunch of toys in a wastebasket and forgetting about them. But scientists keep using it because it's better than just guessing where an animal belongs.