this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yep, this had me confused because Ailuropoda is the panda family.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

FWIW the suffix -poda means "feet." So the panda family's name literally translates as "cat-like-feet"! 🐱 🦶

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Wow! My mind, if not blown has been somewhat stirred by this information.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I mean red pandas are pretty cat like.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The prefix ailuro- does mean cat, in much the same way that the word "felis" means cat.

But I'm not enough of a pedant to try to argue the point though -- in our crazy, anything goes modern world, people use whole words in place of prefixes all the time, and that's okay: languages change! Just like ailuro- used to be Greek, and then got pulled into Latin! 😆

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I guess it makes sense to use Latin in scientific names given how redundant it is.