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can reach a length of over a meter
like a water meter? That's normal squirrel size. 🇺🇸
A water meter is like 1.02 metric yards
So lower left photo is not a bad photoshop?
That's a Pokemon
Nintendo patented this creature and it is now in violation of copyright law.
Well some scientist was feeling pretty lazy the day that thing got "named". That's just a description.
For a lot of languages, lots of names are just "descriptions". Like Finnish, German — and I assume — Japanese.
Like capybara is a "water pig" in at least Finnish and German. And English usually just takes loanwords it doesn't understand, and thus English speakers don't think of as descriptors. "Capybara" is originally from Tupi language (spoken by indigenous Brazilians) capiuára , from capĩ ‘grass’ + uára ‘eater’.
Although the names aren't always accurate. Like guinea pigs aren't from Guinea. (And neither are they related to pigs, really.)
"Schwein" (=pig) was used much in the same way "deer" once was in terms of animals and "apple" was in terms of fruit. A general term. Oranges are still etymologically "Chinese apples" in Northern Europe/Nordics; variations of "appelsin" ~applechina.
Languages are fun, aren't they?
I love that when it flies, it's flipping the bird to all beneath it.
Looks like a flying red panda cat
This sounds like an animal name that I would have come up with.
I didnt know chapaas existed irl