Quotation error, citation copying, and ant extinctions in Madeira

Many authors have written about how exotic ants invaded the Atlantic islands of Madeira and negatively impacted or even completely exterminated its native ants, despite the lack of firsthand observations concerning such impact.I examine howquotation error (misrepresentation of previous work) and citation copying (citing unexamined publications referred to by others) led to the origin and spread of the erroneous story of ant extinctions in Madeira.Quotation errorand citation copying may be more common than most scientists realize, particularly when authors cite references that are written in languages they do not understand.