Funny, long, or just plain weird animal names

I found out today that Giant Water Bugs are also known as ‘Toe-biters’ which a much more entertaining name!

https://inaturalist.ca/taxa/81570-Belostomatidae

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Didn’t you know about that name? It’s a pretty common one.

What do you think about the Hawaiian blue?

I think you need a separate topic specifically for taxa to add to your list!
Not that I think there’s anything wrong with you following along here!

It just turns out there’s a lot of fairy tale names (see here just for ones with “fairy”) and they could get lost among the other names in this topic. :laughing:

[edited to add: you can change the keyword from fairy to any word of your choosing…I believe many taxa commonly use words like “dragon”, “elfin”, “witch” (the fairytale kind, not Wiccans), etc. so that may be another way to find some in addition to asking]

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Very “blue”.

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Exactly!

Well people here on this topic seem to be enjoying this so I don’t see why not! :blush:

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But it’s pretty blue on upper side?


Here all Lycaenidae are called blues, even those that have no blue on them at all, only because majority are of that colour.

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Same for most of the “blues” I’ve personally seen in central Texas. They are gray (maybe slate blue, if you’re feeling generous on the color mismatch) on the underside, but very clearly BLUE on the tops of their wings.

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And they are very difficult for me to photograph with wings open! ( hand held iPhone in west Michigan)

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Same! I have 4 observations of blues (3 in Texas, 1 in Italy).
I only managed to photograph 1 (The Holly Blue in Italy) with it’s wings open enough to see the topside.

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Yes I knew that very well, it was just a silly joke since this thread is mostly for humor.

In fact, I don’t know any blue with a blue underside, I made that joke because green and blue are very opposite colors and very few blues are actually green (although green is made with blue and yellow but well).

Oh yeees, blues with open wings, so spectacular but hard to photograph. They only seem to open them when basking. But one of my favorites is the Reakirt’s blue (particularly the female). When it opens its wings it looks like a rainbow.

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Theclinae have particularly many green ones, in my opinion it’s the best group of them all, very beautiful species.

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A plant with a name that seems weird to me is field bastard-toadflax.

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Well those are hairstreaks so it’s not surprising to see many green ones, they are the most diverse group of their family and they are mostly tropical. And yes, they are extremely beautiful.

Today I learned that some salt water clams received the name Meretrix meretrix. Well, the Latin word “meretrix” means “prostitute”.

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I just found another, I’m a bit fan of the Total Wreck Talussnail!

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This is dependent on culture/language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language

For example, in Korean:
청 can refer to both the color of ‘blue jeans’ as well as ‘green grapes’.
푸르다 can refer to both the color of the sky and the color of a forest.
파랗다 is often translated as ‘blue’ but is also the word used to refer to the traffic light color that means ‘go’.

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And I thought English was confusing!

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Well that’s totally true. I didn’t thought that before but indeed is well known that your perception of colors depends largely on your culture and language.

But I’m no Korean.