The big fancy proper Latin names for most living and extinct creatures in the world are somewhat fitting, if not entirely accurate. Sabre-tooth cats are called 'Smilodon', which means 'knife-tooth'; the kind that once roamed North America is called 'Smilodon fatalis', which means 'deadly knife-tooth'. Fitting. The Latin genus name for the rhinoceros is actually 'Rhinoceros', which means 'nose-horn'--the Indian rhinoceros is even called 'Rhinoceros unicornis', 'one-horned nose-horn'. (Supposedly Marco Polo encountered this species during his travels to the East and actually believed he'd seen a unicorn--and he was pretty disgusted with what he saw.)
Every now and then it seems like the people in charge of these names were just phoning it in.
Mastodons are one of the now-extinct elephantine creatures that once inhabited the Americas, cousins of the woolly mammoth but hairless and more like modern elephants. But if you're like me you picture the Black Ranger's zord from the old 'Power Rangers' TV show when you hear the word 'mastodon'. Either way it's an imposing kind of creature.
Except that the name 'mastodon' is the Latin name and it means... 'nipple-tooth'.
No really. I'm not kidding. Go look it up.
I don't think I'll ever be able to take those animals seriously again. If they weren't already long extinct by the time they were given this name, they probably would have died from collective shame.
Nipple tooth. How many hits of opium did it take to come up with that one, huh?
No comments:
Post a Comment