Researchers have pulled a paper because it turns out they sequenced the wrong snail, Retraction Watch reports.
In their Parasites & Vectors paper earlier this year, researchers led by the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences' Yinchang Hu ostensibly reported sequencing the mitochondrial genomes of two snails, Radix swinhoei and Planorbarius corneus. However, as Retraction Watch reports one of those snails wasn't what the researchers thought it was.
Rather than sequencing the mitochondrial DNA of R. swinhoei, the researchers now say the sample likely belonged to a member of the Physella genus. In the retraction notice, Hu and colleagues note that the identification was based on morphology and wasn't checked through any Blast searches. "Because of this misidentification and the fact that the phylogenetic analysis did not include members of the family Physidae, the conclusions drawn from the 'Radix swinhoei' sample in our article are incorrect," the researchers write.
Hu and colleagues note that a reader brought the error to their attention.