Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus)

This is a vulture. This is obviously a vulture to anyone who has ever seen a vulture anywhere.

Nonetheless, this bird is also known as a “gier-eagle” (derived from the Hebrew root for “to love”, reflecting that the birds live in mated pairs.) It is listed as an unclean animal in Deuteronomy 14:17 and Leviticus 11:13.

Yet, for some reason, it is also known as a “Pharaoh’s chicken”, though the Internet is rather less enlightening as to why except that it might be the fault of Henry Hunter (1741–1802) of the Church of Scotland.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Southern Bald Ibis (Geronticus calvus)

Again, from Wikipedia:

Vocalizations

The Southern Bald Ibis is known to be a relatively quiet bird. This species in particular has been noted to make a weak gobbling sound. This is refers back to their old Afrikaans name of “Wilde-Kalkoen”, otherwise translated as “wild turkey”. This bird is most boisterous in the nesting areas and in flight. It projects a high-pitched keeaaw-klaup-klaup call, resembling that of a turkey’s.

OK. It gobbles, so it’s like a turkey. Except, it’s like a turkey that makes a high-pitched “keeaaw-klaup-klaup”, which I’ve never heard a turkey do. That aside though, think about this …

The bird’s name in Afrikaans translates as “wild turkey”. This means that the following must have happened.

* Sometime in ancient history: Europeans go to Turkey and see a guinea fowl, which was actually imported from Africa.

* Sometime in the 1500’s: Europeans go to North America and see a bird that they believe to be related to the guinea fowl (it’s not) and name it after Turkey, the country.

* Sometime in the 1600’s: Europeans go to Southern Africa and, frankly, don’t treat the natives very well.

* Sometime in the 1700’s: Europeans in Southern Africa start making people speak Dutch, but it doesn’t take, and Afrikaans starts to form.

* Sometime in the 1800’s: Afrikaans replaces Malay as a primary language (due to forced schooling) and the old words get lost.

* Sometime after that: Someone points to a bird and says “What’s that?” in Afrikaans. Since it doesn’t have a name in Afrikaans yet, someone who knows what an American Turkey is hears its noise and names it after a North American bird, which is named after a Turkish bird, which is actually an African bird that is entirely different from this particular African bird.

* Sometime after that: It gets written down that way and we’re stuck with it forever.

The Europeans have some things to answer for, is what I’m trying to say here.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Indian Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis)

Sometimes you just have to scamper with all the joy of being a rhinoceros.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.