STAT 408 - Statistical Learning
Clustering

Lecture Exercise: Clustering Zoo Animals

Use the dataset create below for the following questions.

zoo.data <- read.csv('http://www.math.montana.edu/ahoegh/teaching/stat408/datasets/ZooClean.csv')
rownames(zoo.data) <- zoo.data[,1]
zoo.data <- zoo.data[,-1]

• Use multidimensional scaling to visualize the data in two dimensions.

• What are two animals that are very similar and two that are very different?

• Create a hierachical clustering object for this dataset.

Why are a leopard and raccoon clustered together for any cluster size?

• Now add colors corresponding to four different clusters to your MDS plot.

Interpret what each of the four clusters correspond to.