Devon Jones / Edge columnist
Most people have encountered crazy things on the internet, weird conversations usually end in searching things up for proof. The animal known as a seahorse is an animal named for its head and its head alone, so how did scientists name it something that makes absolutely no sense.
Shark biologist David Shiffman decided earlier this month to put any wrongly named animals on the spot. He created the page known as #StupidCommonNames, where if anybody finds an animal with a misleading or downright dumb name for a animal, they send it there.
Last year, poorly named animals such as the “red panda”, red squirrel”, and the red fox etc. Were complained about how none of them are red, yet they are named red. “
“It has come to my attention that animals have been named incorrectly. As anyone with eyes (that isn’t colorblind) can see the animals with red in the name are often, in fact, orange” Said, “Nick Deblonc” the host of the petition.
Adding to the red panda, the red panda is named after the color of its fur, and how it helps them camoflauge. This animal is not red, and resembles a raccoon or a fox more than a Bear.
Why most animals names need a change, and classification if the worst thing ever when there are too many species, the way classification works is a web called a Dichotomous key. Where to find out an animal’s species, you break it down with little details.
Classification names have occurred which would not make any sense to the normal person, for example, the “mountain chicken”, is a type of frog. According to google “The mountain chicken (Leptodactylous Fallax) is not a chicken; it is a frog. Known for its large size and the fact that it is eaten for food. If that is the case any big size animal for its species can be called a mountain chicken, that reason for it being named the mountain chicken is such a generic description that it seems that the people who named the animal just had a moment where they all said, “why not”.
The animal specials name is only the name that makes sense because it is narrowed down to new names for the species while on the other end, the nicknames that are given are unthoughtful. Another animal that has been created for no reason is the crocodile, and it was not just given an alternate species of alligator, it was given an entirely different species for reasons that really do not matter. Sure, it lives in the water most of the time and has maybe a differently shaped mouth, and the way its teeth interlace when closed., but one reason that Steve Irwin pointed out to Conon O’ Brian on the TV show “Late Night with Conan O’Brien“. Is that on alligators, “The fourth tooth sticks out of its mouth when closed. It has been made clear that is a very big detail if you look it up.
Coyotes, wolfs, dogs, and dingo’s look very much the same, but have enough slight details about where they live and body differences that they are completely different animals. They are similar to the point where its hard to tell them apart if they were next to one another. The main argument is that with theses small differences they are different animals, if that is true. Then why are not dogs? Apparently, dogs are a different species because their behavior physique, and morphology during domestication.
Dogs are one of the most different from each other animals I can think of with each having with its own size, color, fur texture, patterns, and living conditions. Yet scientists all called them dogs with a different breed when they have way more differences than alligators, crocodiles, dingo’s, wolves, and coyotes combined.