What is your favorite tank/aircraft named after an animal?

Seems to me like this would be a good name for a stealth craft since nobody would expect it. :chicken:

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Well it is an aircraft.

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Who in WW1 would respect a vehicle called tank? What is a tank? ā€œYou mean the thing that holds liquids?ā€.

Going to be real. I donā€™t think iNaturalist is the place to talk about glorifying weapons. Call that a hot take if you want. Also no, this is not just for people interested in these things. This is a public forum post open to everyone. Itā€™s getting harder and harder for me to see this forum post in a good light. Even when the conversation begins to start actually talking about the honestly small connection between the names and nature. You say something like that. In the context of this being a citizen wildlife site meant to connect the public with nature. Saying something like that gives me an uncomfortable feeling. Everybody from kids to all walks of life use this site, and here thereā€™s a conversation about military hardware including Nazi hardware, because it has tiger in itā€™s name which is an animal.

There is a time and a place for discussion of military vehicles, and i struggle to see how you can fit that with iNaturalist. I feel a much more connected conversation about military vehicles is their impact on nature. How does the treads of tanks affect plants when they get run over, (do they all die, only some, etc), How do naval ships deal with invasive species in their ballast tanks? How does artillery fire effect a natural landscape and what plants and fungi might recolonize the craters created? These are just examples of topics I feel relate much more to nature than just the names of the vehicles.

I will disclose as the post below me also did. I do have some interest in military hardware like many other nerds do. Personally I really like learning about modern naval ships like carriers and destroyers. There isnā€™t an issue in being interested about these things. The Issue I have though with this forum post is the place. The iNat forums is not a place to nerd out about military aircraft and ships. This is what i feel like iā€™m seeing and reading in this forum post.

Edit.

We should not be trying to skirt the ā€œPlease wait 4 hours between posts in this topicā€ Tony set in place by editing messages to reply. We can reply again after 4 hrs of the first message.

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Yes I am complaining. I have nothing against your interest in weapons. In fact I am a SRA member and gun owner. That being said, this is not the place for that.

The guidelines of this forum state:

iNaturalist created this forum as a place for members of the iNaturalist community to have constructive discussions about iNaturalist-related issues, provide feedback, and nerd out about nature-related topics

When you say ā€œthisā€ I assume you mean this thread and when you say ā€œthese thingsā€ I assume you mean weapons, that is where you are mistaken.

This forum is intended for iNaturalist and nature related discussions, claiming that it is for anything else is incorrect. This thread has a very loose connection to nature, the best you can do is the etymological connection and why, although from your first post it is apparent that wasnā€™t your original goal with this.

I will disclaim that while I have a personal problem with your evangelicalism on iNat and forum, I am trying to keep that separate from this.

Edit:

@tanker-aviator-naturalist I do not. I respect all religions and you asking that is a fallacy of composition and does nothing to help your point. What about lgbtq+ people on here? That is a red herring, unrelated and irrelevant. Regardless, if you looked at my profile at all you would have the answer to that question. I donā€™t know why you feel a need to attack me.

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I wasnā€™t actually looking for answers to those questions. I asked them to more make a point and example of how this conversation can actually relate better to nature. Also birds arenā€™t the only flying creature? So really why would you automatically expect it to be a bird? Why not bat, why not wasp, insect, dragonfly? This is how you can make this conversation actually relate to nature.

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Yeah, that makes sense. But doesnā€™t ā€œSR-71 Blackbirdā€ (which I am just using as an example, I know itā€™s because, um, itā€™s black) sound better than ā€œSR-71 Calico Pennantā€? Although, yes, I do love the thought of aircraft with names like meadowhawk or lacewing.

not a fan of belic thing, just iā€™m not into killing technology, but in Chile, there is a chilean company who is using chilean fauna in their planes


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You talking about military disturbances actually just reminded me about the story of Fort Bragg and the previously endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker. Fort Bragg is one of the few places you can find quality Longleaf Pine habitat as everywhere around it has been fragmented due to development. Them using tracer rounds for trainings incidently created ā€œprescribedā€ burns on base that allowed Longleaf Pine to thrive, which in turn kept the woodpeckers on base. PBS did a documentary on it, and Iā€™ll leave it below.

https://youtu.be/iYcly7FSC9I?feature=shared

Something a little more nature related.

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I recall somewhere in the past in another thread that iNat staff was unsure we should have a Nature Talk category that was separate from categories dealing with iNat itself, presumably because topics could be all over the place. But Nature Talk is a popular place for a wide variety of nature-related discussions which Iā€™ve found to be informative and fun. But discussions really should be grounded in something that relates directly to nature.

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On the subject of military impacts to natureā€¦ obviously they can be negative, but not always. Interestingly iā€™ve done ecological surveys on military bases in the past and while there are issues like unexploded ordinance, even still they are often in much better shape ecologically than the areas near them, which are destroyed by development or impacted by inappropriate land management, excessive ATV use, etc. There are broader issues with war being bad, but given the world we live in, i donā€™t think ignoring the existence of military technology helps anything.

While there are other issues with some of the posts in this thread, I donā€™t think itā€™s too off topic for nature talk. For people who donā€™t like it, itā€™s easy to ignore it, and itā€™s just in one thread. If all threads get shifted from ecology and nature to military hardware that becomes an issue.

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But didnā€™t you just edit the message instead of waiting four hours? Isnā€™t thay hypocrisy?

You just said you have a problem with evangelicalism on iNat and now you say you do not?

Yeah, thatā€™s true.

You just said that you ā€œhave a personal problem with evangelicalism.ā€ You say that to my face and assume that isnā€™t offensive. Do you see why I would want to ā€œattackā€ you now?

First of all, there are a few aircraft named after insects. I mean, look at the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet. They are modern jet fighters. Also, birds are what inspired man to fly. So, I would think thatā€™s pretty relevent, wouldnā€™t you? Also, correction, there is an aircraft named after a bat. The MiG-25 Foxbat.

And see the Hornet

Thank you, this is what Iā€™m talking about. Yes, some names are quite obvious and some take a little bit of pondering to figure out the origin of the name. And lacewing, they probably didnā€™t name any that because it sounds too whimpy. You want to give a military aircraft a name that sounds respectable, sounds fearsome, sounds overall just cool. There is a birddog aircraft that served in the Vietnam War and guess what? It looked super whimpy. Good aircraft get good names and weird ones get weird/whimpy names. If you named an aircraft the lacewing, itā€™d probably be a weak aircraft that is small and will get blowj away easily. Meadowhawk does sound cool though. Iā€™m sure theyā€™ll use that name in the future.

Looks super cool. Thanks for sharing.

Wow, that is very interesting. I nevee heard of it. Thanks for sharing.

But the rules say that everything should be ā€œnature related.ā€ Doesnā€™t it?

Iā€™m struggling to see how this is appropriate. How are you equating the two?

Again, not an appropriate conversation for iNat, but having a problem with evangelicalism is not the same as having a problem with a religion. This whole thread is inappropriate and unproductive.

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The oil taking, freedom bird of Kuwait, the Fairchild A- 10C Thunderbolt ll Warthog!!! And its old uncle, P-51 D Mustang!!! Canā€™t for get the m22 locust or the Kungstiger, the tiger 2

It could be used for show or something, not war. Besides, lacewings are fearsome predators.

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Hahahaha, thatā€™s true.

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I originally let this thread go to see if it could be a discussion that found some interesting links between nature/biology and some of these crafts, but itā€™s mostly been just a listing of tanks and aircrafts and has generated more flags than any recent thread. Because itā€™s becoming a moderation burden and isnā€™t really related to nature Iā€™m going to close it.

When I was a kid I was really into military aircraft as well so I understand it as a topic of interest and am not against it, but the iNat Forum isnā€™t really a place to host it, Iā€™m sorry.

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