From the New Scientist (on-line 6/24/13, in print 6/22/13 with a different headline), “Forget pandas – ugly animals should be protected too” by Tiffany O’Callaghan”:

It’s time the gob-faced squid and taildropper slug got the attention they deserve, argues Simon Watt, creator of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society [a comedy night touring in the UK]

[Watt] In London [the mascot is] the proboscis monkey. In Edinburgh, the branch’s mascot is now the gob-faced squid… Its real name is Promachoteuthis sulcus. Until very recently it didn’t have a common name. We unofficially named it and it caught on. It looks like it has a human mouth in the middle of its body. It’s really creepy, freaky and a bit lopsided.

… [For a favourite ugly animal,] I champion the Canadian blue-grey taildropper slug. It’s the colour of a Smurf, and if you scare it, its bum drops off. That’s its survival tactic.

The three animals Watt names are in fact threatened or endangered. Taking them in turn:

The proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) or long-nosed monkey, known as the bekantan in Malay, is a reddish-brown arboreal Old World monkey that is endemic to the south-east Asian island of Borneo. (Wikipedia link)

(#1)

Promachoteuthis sulcus is a species of promachoteuthid squid. It is distinguished from related taxa on the basis of several morphological features: nuchal fusion between the head and mantle, much larger size of arm suckers compared to club suckers, greater width of tentacle base than arm base, a recessed club base, and the presence of an aboral tentacle groove. (Wikipedia link)

(#2)

Prophysaon, common name taildropper slugs, is a genus of air-breathing land slugs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Arionidae, the roundback slugs.

These slugs can self-amputate (autotomy) a portion of their tail.

… This genus of slugs occurs in North America, including California and Oregon.

(Autotomy is a wonderful word.)

The blue-grey taildropper slug is Prophysaon coeruleum:

(#3)

Taildropper slugs come in several colors, mostly shades of brown. But then there’s this rare blue beauty.

Elsewhere on the web, there are several sites featuring ugly animals, but this one specializes in ugly animals in need of protection, and it uses humor to gain public attention.

In contrast, here’s the list of “13 of the ugliest animals on the planet: The ugly stick of evolution” on Mother Nature Network:

California condor, blobfish, naked mole rat, proboscis monkey, warthog, star-nosed mole, aye-aye, monkfish, marabou stork, elephant seal, horseshoe bat, red-lipped batfish, hyena

The California condor went exinct in the wild in 1987, was later reintroduced from captive breeding, and is still a very rare bird;  the proboscis monkey is endangered on Borneo; but I think that the others on this list are holding their own.

An assortment of short items on various topics, beginning with three from the July 22nd New Yorker. Portmanteaus, New Jerseyization, oology, dago, killer whale, and Gail Collins on Bob Filner.

1. Monster portmanteaus. On p. 25 of the New Yorker, Tad Friend in a Talk of the Town piece about horror moviemaker Roger Corman and his wife Julie:

Lately, the Cormans have been producing films for the Syfy channel. The titles are fairly self-explanatory: “Dinocroc,” “Supergator,” “Piranhaconda.” I balked at “Sharktopus,” Corman said. “I told the network, ‘You should go right up to the acceptable level of insanity in a title, but if you go over it, the audience turns against you’ — and then ‘Sharktopus’ was one of their biggest hits.” Coming soon, therefore, is “Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda” — not to be confused with last week’s succès d’estime “Sharknado,” produced by one of Corman’s many imitators.

From “More dubious portmanteaus”:

The world of portmanteaus is crowded with playful formations that are unlikely to survive for long (Higgsteria), including many that are just for ostentatious display (Piranhaconda and Sharktopus).

2. A prize -ize. On p. 45, in John Seabrook’s “The Beach Builders: Can the Jersey Shore be saved?”:

Orrin Pilkey, a distinguished coastal scientist and author from Duke University, calls the state’s approach to coastal engineering “New Jerseyization.” The term is not complimentary.

I have a sizable file on innovations in -ize, often inside nouns in -ization, including some based on proper names: Gitmo-ize, Cape Codization, Atkinize, Nascarization, Wal-Mart-ization, iPodization, Iraqization, Keplerize, Anderson Cooperization, Vermontize, Politico-ization, Walkenize. In older -ize words, there is a resistance to -izing words ending in vowels and words with accented final syllables, but these constraints are generally lifted for proper-name bases: New Jerseyization, Cape Codization.

3. And an excellent -ology. On p. 52, in Julian Rubinstein’s “Operation Easter: The hunt for illegal egg collectors”:

Oology — the study of eggs — is “one of the most exciting areas or ornithology and, in many respects, one of the least known,” Douglas Russell, the curator of the egg collection at [the Natural History Museum at] Tring [north of London], told me.

Oology is in NOAD2, but I don’t recall having seen this wonderful word before.

4. Another portmanteau. From Thib Guicherd-Callin on Facebook yesterday:

Today is my 12th Ameriversary. (Re-read this word carefully.)

America + anniversary.

5. A slur and a mythetymology. From the NYT on July 23rd, “Barbecue Vendors Ejected From Saratoga Over an Ethnic Slur on Their Food Truck” by Thomas Kaplan:

Andrea Loguidice and Brandon Snooks thought they had won the sandwich lottery when they were awarded a spot to sell barbecue at the Saratoga Race Course this summer. To prepare for the crowds, they developed a special menu, bought a six-foot smoker and cleared their calendar.

But on Friday, opening day at Saratoga, their dream went up in smoke. Complaints came in, not about the cooking, but about the name on the side of the food truck: Wandering Dago, which Ms. Loguidice and Mr. Snooks had thought was cheeky and clever, but which racetrack officials deemed simply offensive. The truck was banned from the grounds.

… Ms. Loguidice and Mr. Snooks, who are both Italian-American, started their food truck about a year ago in Schenectady; their best-seller is the HomeWrecker, which features pulled pork, brisket, smoked bacon, barbecue sauce and melted provolone on a toasted ciabatta roll. She said they meant no offense by using the word “dago,” a slur that the Oxford English Dictionary says is derived from the Spanish name Diego, but which they understood to refer to Italian immigrants who were day laborers, and were paid daily, or as the day goes.

“Our daily pay depends on what happens that day, so we just thought it was a fun play on words,” Ms. Loguidice said. She added: “We didn’t think it was derogatory in any manner. It’s self-referential. Who would self-reference themselves in a derogatory manner?”

Anthony J. Tamburri, dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, which is part of the City University of New York, said that regardless of the word’s origin, it was not appropriate for a food truck. He described it as “the most offensive term one could use with regard to an Italian-American.”

An inventive etymology, which removes most of the offense from the word. But it’s a mythetymology, and the word is indubitably offensive. From NOAD2 :

dago  noun ( pl. dagos or dagoes ) informal, offensive   an Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese-speaking person.

Whether dago is the most offensive term for an Italian-American depends on what you think of wop. From NOAD2:

wop  noun informal, offensive   a contemptuous term for an Italian or other southern European.

origin uncertain, perhaps from Italian guappo ‘bold, showy,’ from Spanish guapo ‘dandy.’

There’s a mythetymology for this one too, an acronymic one: from WithOut Papers.

6. Killer whales. From the NYT Science Times on July 30th, in “Smart, Social and Erratic in Captivity” by James Gorman:

[Diana Reiss of Hunter College said] she does not see ambiguity about killer whales. “I never felt that we should have orcas in captivity,” she said. “I think morally, as well as scientifically, it’s wrong.”

The animal in question, Orcinus orca, is actually the largest dolphin. Its name apparently came not because it was a vicious whale, but because it preyed on whales.

That would make killer whale a very odd compound, conveyong ‘whale killer’.  Wikipedia tells a different, though still somewhat confused, story:

The killer whale (Orcinus orca), also referred to as the orca whale or orca, and less commonly as the blackfish, is a toothed [marine mammal] belonging to the oceanic dolphin family. Killer whales are found in all oceans, from the frigid Arctic and Antarctic regions to tropical seas. Killer whales as a species have a diverse diet, although individual populations often specialize in particular types of prey. Some feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals such as sea lions, seals, walruses, and even large whales. (link)

Oceanic dolphins are members of the cetacean family Delphinidae. These marine mammals are related to whales and porpoises. They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves. As the name implies, these dolphins tend to be found in the open seas, unlike the river dolphins, although a few species such as the Irrawaddy dolphin are coastal or riverine. Six of the larger species in the Delphinidae, [including the killer whale (orca),] … are commonly called whales, rather than dolphins (link)

So killer whales are (in common usage) whales, and some of them hunt (and kill) marine mammals, so killer whale isn’t a bad common name.

7. A dubious vow. From Gail Collins’s op-ed column in the NYT, “Things to Skip in August”, on the 15th:

You may remember that, in July, Mayor Bob Filner [of San Diego] was charged with sexual harassment by some of his former supporters who claimed that, among other things, he grabbed female workers around the neck and whispered lewd comments in their ears. That was the moment when the nation first became aware of the term “Filner headlock.”

Initially, the information was all secondhand, and Filner vowed that “the facts will vindicate me.” Even then, things looked ominous. For one thing, the facts-vindication defense had been preceded by a vow to behave differently. It was sort of like announcing that you’re innocent but will definitely never do it again.

Definitely an odd sort of speech act.

Found in the Beautiful Farmyard postcard set, an elegant photo of a Frizzle, a type of chicken. Here’s a collection of them:

(Photo by Ingrid Douglas.)

From Wikipedia:

A Frizzle is a type of chicken with feathers that curl outwards, rather than lying flat as in most chickens. While many consider the Frizzle to be an entirely separate breed, it is not. Chickens from all breeds may have a frizzled appearance. It is a variety within breeds, some with clean legs and others with feathering on the legs. Genetically, the frizzled gene is a dominant trait. As a result of its unusual look, Frizzles are primarily exhibition birds

Now on frizzle, the verb and noun, and their base frizz, verb and noun. NOAD2 on frizzle:

verb [with obj.]    form (hair) into tight curls.

noun   a tight curl in hair.

ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from frizz + -le⁴

On -le⁴:

forming verbs, chiefly those expressing repeated action or movement (as in babble, dazzle), or having diminutive sense (as in nestle)

And on frizz:

verb [with obj.]   form (hair) into a mass of small, tight curls or tufts: her hair was frizzed up in a style that seemed matronly.

• [no obj.]    (of hair) form itself into such a mass: his hair had frizzed out symmetrically.

noun   the state of being formed into such a mass of curls or tufts: a perm designed to add curl without frizz.

ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘dress leather with pumice’): from French friser. The sense ‘form hair into a mass of curls’ dates from the late 16th cent.

(Technically not visually X-rated, but very heavy in sexual content.)

In writing about facial expressions during gay sex (especially, during man-on-man intercourse), I’ve remarked on an ecstatic expression often shown by one partner (usually, the bottom) or both of them. From a posting on “Captioned croppings”, this example of mutual ecstasy (mouths open, eyes narrowed or fully shut):

The expressions are an outward manifestation of an inner state of mind (and body), an intense giving over of one’s self to, or losing one’s conscious self in, the sexual experience — an ecstasy or rapture. Gay men sometimes speak of a bottom in this transcendant state as being in heat; the counterpart for a top would be, I suppose, being in rut or rutting, though I’ve never heard the expression. These ways of talking adopt the vocabulary of sexual behavior in certain animals for an only very roughly analogous human phenomenon.

From Wikipedia:

In species with estrous cycles [like cats and dogs], females are generally only sexually active during the estrus phase of their cycle … This is also referred to as being “in heat”. (link)

The rut is the mating season of ruminant animals such as deer, sheep, elk, moose, caribou, ibex, goats, pronghorn and Asian and African antelope. During the rut (also known as the rutting period, and in sheep sometimes as tupping), males often rub their antlers or horns on trees or shrubs, fight with each other, wallow in mud or dust, and herd estrus females together. (link)

In human beings, the transcendant state during sex can be distinguished from a preceding state of intense desire for sex, though the two are part of a larger behavioral and psychological pattern. For the state of intense desire for gay sex, the general expression in English seems to be the all-purpose being horny, although this is most often used of men desiring the sexual services of another man (who serves as fellator or bottom). Otherwise, being in heat or in rut can be extended to the preparatory phase, or a longer, more compositional expression can be used: need dick or be hungry for dick, need a blow job, need to be fucked, need (an) ass, etc.

Some animal behavior that looks sexual may in fact spring from other sources — humping in dogs, in particular. (The term humping relates the phenomenon to sexual intercourse, since it also serves as a synonym for the stronger fucking.)

From a Psychology Today piece of 9/1/12, “Why Dogs Hump: There isn’t, a single reason behind this normal behavior”, by Mark Bekoff:

“On a beautiful, warm afternoon, I watched a group of dogs frolic in a dog park. Suddenly, I heard a woman’s high-pitched yelp, followed by the pounding of human feet. There was no need to look; it was obviously about humping, which we can also refer to as mounting.” So wrote Julie Hecht in her excellent review of humping by dogs. Indeed, because humping often often offends some people, Julie titled her essay ”H*umping”.

Mounting and humping by dogs are among those behavior patterns about which humans make lots of assumptions but we really don’t know much about them. Dogs will mount and hump other dogs and other nonhuman animals … from a wide variety of positions, human legs, and objects such as beach balls, water buckets, food bowls, pillows, and garbage pails without a care in the world. If you want to watch please do but an audience isn’t necessary. Sometimes they hold on for upwards of 20-30 seconds and sometimes they just jump on and slide off and saunter away. And size doesn’t matter.

While many humans feel embarrassed when they see a beloved four-legged friend mount and hump in public places, this behavior is a normal part of a dog’s behavioral repertoire. Both males and females mount and hump, and these behaviors first appear early in a dog’s life, particularly during play. Mounting and humping should not be considered abnormal behavior patterns.

While mounting is best known for its role in reproduction, it also occurs in many other contexts and emotional states. Dogs mount when they’re excited and [aroused] and even when they’re stressed and anxious. Take out the leash to go for a walk and Lassie starts humping Toto. You come home after a long day’s work and Spot goes for your leg.

Heard on KQED just moments ago, an NPR piece on puffin restoration on the Maine coast. Puffins have a special place in my household, because they were my man Jacques’s  totem animals (as penguins and woolly mammoths are mine) — from his many summers Down East, where the puffins roam.

A nice drawing of an Atlantic puffin:

(#1)

And a photo of a puffin testing its wings:

(#2)

From the NPR story (“On A Rocky Maine Island, Puffins Are Making A Tenuous Comeback” by Fred Bever, originally  8/21/13  from WBUR):

Rocky, windswept Eastern Egg Rock, about 6 miles off the coast of Maine, was once a haven for a hugely diverse bird population. But in the 1800s, fishermen decimated the birds’ ranks — for food and for feathers.

When ornithologist Stephen Kress first visited 40 years ago, the 7-acre island was nearly barren, with only grass and gulls left. Not a puffin in sight. Not even an old puffin bone.

“But it had great habitat because there were great boulders on the island, and I could imagine the puffins standing on top of them,” Kress says.

No imagination is needed now. Thanks to a relocation experiment pioneered by Kress and his co-workers in the Audubon Society’s Project Puffin, this treeless little island is now kind of a bird tornado.

In peak years, more than 200 of the orange-and black-beaked puffins nest here. Ten other bird species — including the endangered roseate tern — have been tempted into the island habitat, with an assist from handmade burrows, decoys and recorded bird calls. In nesting season, humans are posted to wave off predators such as black-backed gulls and eagles.

The problem in Maine, as in parts of the UK, comes from the warming of the ocean, which (among other things) has severely reduced the supply of the herring on which the puffin chicks — pufflings — feed.

From Wikipedia:

Puffins are any of three small species of alcids (auks) in the bird genus Fratercula [Latin ‘little brother’, from the resemblance of the plumage to monastic robes] with a brightly coloured beak during the breeding season. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil. Two species, the Tufted Puffin and Horned Puffin, are found in the North Pacific Ocean, while the Atlantic Puffin is found in the North Atlantic Ocean.

All puffin species have predominantly black or black and white plumage, a stocky build, and large beaks. They shed the colourful outer parts of their bills after the breeding season, leaving a smaller and duller beak. Their short wings are adapted for swimming with a flying technique under water. In the air, they beat their wings rapidly (up to 400 times per minute) in swift flight, often flying low over the ocean’s surface.

The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) has a wide range in the North Atlantic:

coasts of northern Europe south to northern France, the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Norway and Atlantic Canada then south to Maine

and winters south, to Morocco and New York. The species continues to thrive in Iceland.

Encountered in my set of Beautiful Farmyard cards yesterday: the rumpless tufted araucana, a breed of chicken. Wonderful name, odd-looking bird:

(It comes in many colors.)

From Wikipedia:

The Araucana, also known in the USA as a South American Rumpless, is a breed of chicken originating in Chile. The Araucana is often confused with other fowl, especially the Ameraucana and Easter Egger chickens [the Easter Eggers are so called because of their colorful eggs], but has several unusual characteristics which distinguish it. They lay blue eggs, have feather tufts near their ears, green legs and yellow undersides to their feet. Conversely, the Ameraucana has blue-slate to black legs and either black or white on the undersides of the feet.

To comply with the North American standard they must have no tailbone and so are rumpless whether or not they have a physical tail.

The ancestors of the modern Araucana chicken were purportedly first bred by the Araucanians (Spanish exonym for the Mapuche) of Chile—hence the name “Araucana”. The Araucana is a hybrid of two South American breeds: the Colloncas (a naturally blue-egg laying, rumpless, clean-faced chicken) and the Quetero (a pinkish-brown egg layer that has a long tail and prominent ear-tufts)

So rumplessness came from one breed and the tufts from another. Why anyone wanted a bird that combined both these features is a mystery to me, but then animal breeders often take odd paths.

The tufts turn out to be especially problematic. From Wikipedia again:

When the Araucana was first introduced to breeders worldwide in the mid-20th century, the genetics that produced tufts were recognized to also cause chick mortality. Two copies of the gene cause nearly 100% mortality shortly before hatching. The tufted gene is dominant, however. Because no living Araucana possesses two copies of the tufted gene, breeding any two tufted birds leads to half of the resulting brood being tufted with one copy of the gene, a quarter being clean-faced with no copy of the gene, and a quarter of the brood dead in the shell, having received two copies of the gene.

In the decades to follow, most breeders took one of two tacks — either to preserve the old style of bird, or to breed out the tufts while increasing productivity.

After the rumpless tufted araucana, another entertainingly named (and odd-looking) creature from from the Beautiful Farmyard cards: the swallow-bellied mangalitsa, a furry pig. From Wikipedia:

Mangalitsa (US spelling), Mangalitza (UK spelling) or Mangalica (original Hungarian spelling) is a name for three breeds of pig bred especially in Hungary known also as a curly-hair hog. It belongs to European unimproved lard-type breeds (as well as Iberian Black and Alentejana pigs) that are descended directly from wild boar populations. The Mangalitsa pig is unusual as it grows a hairy ‘fleece’, akin to that of a sheep. The only other pig breed noted for having a long coat is the now extinct Lincolnshire Curly Coat of England. The Mangalitsa was formerly bred as a lard pig, and animals were large and round. Because of the drop in demand for lard, the breed’s popularity has declined and it is now regarded as a “rare breed”.

… There are three Mangalitsa breeds: Blonde, Swallow-bellied, and Red. They all have the same behavior; the only difference is the colour. The Blonde Mangalitsa is blonde, the Swallow-bellied (originally produced by crossing the Blonde Mangalitsa with the extinct Black Mangalitsa) has a blonde belly and feet with a black body, and the red (produced by crossing the Blonde Mangalitsa with the Szalonta breed) is ginger.

Two mangalitsas, blonde and swallow-bellied:

(#1)

(#2)

The swallow-bellied mangalitsa is so called because, like swallows, it’s dark on top and light (usually white) underneath. I don’t know the etymology of margalica in Hungarian.

More from Wikipedia:

The primary product made from this pig is sausage, usually packed in the pig’s duodenum. The minced meat is seasoned with salt, pepper, sweet paprika, and other spices. It is then eaten in slices with pickled vegetables. The pork is also served braised with sauerkraut, potatoes, and stuffed peppers as a side dish. Farmers also produce smoked hams. The fresh meat tastes strong and juicy; the suckling pigs are much preferred for their good fresh meat qualities.

Some years ago, at a linguistics conference in a village along the Danube in Austria, a Hungarian colleague announced with great pleasure that he’d come across an eagle in the bushes along the way from our lodgings. This did in fact seem remarkable to the rest of us. Then I got it.

I asked him to describe the creature, and got, not an account of a huge wide-winged bird of prey, but one of a small furry mammal: the hedgehog (naturally found in bushes, underbrush, and hedgerows). In German, Igel (which sounds a lot like eagle in English, and indeed my colleague knew only the German name and not the somewhat fanciful English compound noun hedgehog).

A hedgehog:

From Wikipedia:

A hedgehog is any of the spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae, which is in order Erinaceomorpha. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera, found through parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and New Zealand (by introduction). There are no hedgehogs native to Australia, and no living species native to the Americas. Hedgehogs share distant ancestry with shrews (family Soricidae), with gymnures possibly being the intermediate link, and have changed little over the last 15 million years. Like many of the first mammals they have adapted to a nocturnal, insectivorous way of life. Hedgehogs’ spiny protection resembles that of the unrelated rodent porcupines and monotreme echidnas.

No doubt someone has looked at the question of why so many people find hedgehogs impossibly adorable.

In my packet of Beautiful Farmyard images recently, one of a Campbell drake, a male Campbell duck. Another image, with the duck perched on one leg and with its head folded back:

According to Beautiful Farmyard,

Active ducks, Campbells prefer foraging to brooding.

Note the ambiguity of the verb brood here.

On the breed, from Wikipedia:

A Khaki Campbell (or just Campbell) is a breed of domesticated duck that originated in England and is kept for its high level of egg production. The breed was developed by Adele Campbell of England at the end of the 19th century. The “Khaki” portion of the name refers to the duck’s typical color.

… Campbells can come in three color varieties: khaki, dark and white.

… The Khaki Campbell drake is mostly khaki colored with a darker head usually olive green lacking the white ring of its Mallard ancestors.

The drake above is a Khaki Campbell.

That brings me to the proper names Campbell Drake and Drake Campbell, both notably U names for men (or, possibly, for women). The expressions Campbell drake and drake Campbell are both N + N compounds, with very similar meanings: ‘a drake of the Campbell breed’, ‘a Campbell duck that’s male’. (I’m not sure what would motivate choosing one over the other in any particular context, but no doubt this would be worth studying.) As proper names, they have a family name as a personal (first) name and another family name (Anglo or Scots) as surname, which makes them cultural class signals. (Of course, there are special cases, and things change over time and differ in different places.)

A story that combines libfixes, extraordinary animals, and science reporting. From Stan Carey yesterday, a pointer to this BBC News science story, “ ’Platypus-zilla’ fossil unearthed in Australia” by Rebecca Morelle:

Part of a giant platypus fossil has been unearthed in Queensland, Australia. Scientists have dubbed the beast “platypus-zilla” and believe it would have measured more than 1m long (3ft).

Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the researchers say the creature lived between five and 15 million years ago.

… Today, all that survives of this platypus is a single fossilised tooth, which was unearthed in the Riversleigh fossil beds in northwest Queensland.

Based on its size, the researchers have estimated that the new species (Obdurodon tharalkooschild) would have been at least twice as large as today’s platypus.

Bumps on its teeth and other fossil finds nearby suggest that the creature feasted on crustaceans, turtles, frogs and fish.

Science reporting in BBC News is notoriously unreliable (as Language Log writers repeatedly point out), but let’s take this story as basically faithful to the academic sources (while noting the playful name platypus-zilla rather than the expected common name Giant Platypus and observing that the historical creature is reconstructed from a single tooth).

On the common or garden platypus, from Wikipedia:

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is a semiaquatic mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five extant species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth.

… The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate fraud. It is one of the few venomous mammals, the male platypus having a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.

… The common name “platypus” is the latinisation of the Greek word πλατύπους (platupous), “flat-footed”, from πλατύς (platus), “broad, wide, flat” and πούς (pous), “foot”.

(As a flat-footed person, I admire the name platypus.)

Then there’s the name platypus-zilla. Words in -zilla have come up here several times; this posting has links to earlier stuff. Almost all X-zilla words have monosyllabic X; from my files:

X = snow, Glenn, mum, plan, prom, bride, beard, fly, cock, black, white

with the notable exceptions panty-hose-zilla and godcomplexzilla, both with trisyllabic X. To which we can now add the trisyllabic (but similarly front-accented) X platypus. A bit on the awkward side, but serviceable.

In the Beautiful Farmyard postcard set, one for the Brahmousin:

Hybrids of many kinds are named by portmanteaus; the names mirror the things. So it is with the Brahmousin.

(Brahmousins are usually pictured as big and blocky, but here’s a sweet family.)

From French Wikipedia:

C’est un hybride de bœuf européen, Bos taurus, et de zébu, Bos taurus indicus. Cette race a été créée en croisant la brahmane aux qualités reconnues de résistance aux maladies tropicales et à la chaleur avec la limousine, race hautement productive et à la qualité de viande reconnue.

From the Brahmousin website:

The superior maternal traits, insect resistance, foraging ability, and heat tolerance of the Brahman combined with the carcass traits of the Limousin make Brahmousin an unbeatable breed for the cowman.

In the Beautiful Farmyard set, a card for the lionhead rabbit:

(This one is gray; they come in many colors.)

Lionhead rabbit is one of the newer breeds of domestic rabbits in the United States … The Lionhead rabbit has a wool mane encircling the head, reminiscent of a male lion, hence the name.

… The Lionhead rabbit originated in Belgium. It is reported to have been produced by breeders trying to breed a long coated dwarf rabbit by crossing a miniature Swiss Fox and a Belgian dwarf. This resulted in a genetic mutation causing wool to appear around the head and on the flanks. This gene has come to be known as the “mane” gene. (Wikipedia link)

“A cross between a Swiss Fox and a Belgian dwarf”: beautiful.

From the Beautiful Farmyard card set, one showing the Runner strain of ducks, with this wonderful note:

Runners flock together and are often seen today at sheepdog demonstrations, much to the delight of the crowd.

From Wikipedia:

Indian Runners (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus) are an unusual breed of domestic duck. They stand erect like penguins and, rather than waddling, they run.

From Kim Darnell, a link to this HuffPo piece,”These 19 Adorably Awkward Mixed Breed Dogs Will Make You Love Mutts Even More” by Amanda Scherker on 1/29/14. In the tradition of established mixed breeds like the labradoodle and cockapoo come more, mostly with portmanteau names to go along with the breed crossing.

Some of the offerings:

pitsky: pit bull + husky
schnoodle: schnauzer + poodle
puggle: pug + beagle
horgi: husky + corgi
pugapoo: pug + poodle
chusky: chow chow + husky
corgipoo: corgi + toy poodle
siberpoo: Siberian husky + poodle
alusky: husky + Alaskan malamute
cheagle: chihuahua + beagle

Here’s a siberpoo puppy:

Some time ago, Arne Adolfsen posted on Facebook about seagulls in Chicamauga GA, well inland. Commenters noted that, amomg other things, gulls were attracted to garbage dumps (and other places where edibles were to be found).

I then realized that though gulls were easily found a few miles away from my house — which is close to the San Francisco Bay and not far from the ocean — I didn’t see them in my neighborhood. (Gulls are large and noisy, so they’d be hard to miss.)

But we do have large and noticeable birds.

We also have a great many small and insignificant birds, some of which sing sweetly, especially in the mornings. Twitter, twitter.

But then there are larger and more noticeable birds, starting with mourning doves (which coo in the mornings). And of course pigeons, which are everywhere. And jays, aggressive and noisy. And especially crows, which seem to have multiplied locally recently: very very noisy, and they congregate in packs (technically known as murders, for you fans of terms of venery). But gulls, no. (As with jays, there are several species, but I’m lumping them together here.)

So: gulls in Chickamauga, but not (apparently) downtown Palo Alto.

Passed on by Jonathan Lighter, this story of the 4th from Herald Scotland:, “Meet Farmer Murphy’s geep (or shoat): now what will he call it?”

An Irish farmer who claims to have bred a cross between a sheep and a goat is seeking a name for the rare offspring.

… Similar crossings have been reported before in Chile, Jamaica, Malta and in Botswana, where scientists found a hybrid – known as the Toast of Botswana – had 57 chromosomes, a number in between that of sheep and goats.

In most cases the offspring is stillborn.

A photo:

The genetic status of the creature is still to be determined. (You’ll note the Herald Scotland‘s caution in reporting this part of the story: “claims to have bred a cross…”)

On the linguistic front, one strategy for naming such a hybrid is compounding: a copulative compound like sheep-goat or goat-sheep. Another choice is a portmanteau, essentially a compact version of a copulative compound (reflecting the hybridity of such a creature by a fused linguistic form): geep or shoat.

Shoat would be a bad choice, since the word has an already established use, for ‘a young pig, esp. one that is newly weaned’ (NOAD2). Geep sounds silly to me, but that’s just my personal aesthetic judgment.

Posted by Neil Copeland on Facebook and passed on by Mar Rojo, this article from the New Zealand Press, by Rachel Young, with the headline:

Is this NZ’s creepiest crawly?

and the subhead:

Rare land leeches have been found on several offshore islands, one of which is now headed to Te Papa [the museum in Wellington]

The ambiguity of the subhead elicited some discussion:  is it a land leech or an offshore island that’s headed to Te Papa? (Details below.)

The creature:

On the analysis of the original subhead: at first it looks like

(1) Rare land leeches have been found on several offshore islands, one of which is now headed to Te Papa

simply has a non-restrictive relative clause modifying several offshore islands (the nearest nominal, immediately preceding it.. But that’s preposterous. The intended interepretation is that what looks like a non-restrictive relative clause modifies the subject of the clause, rare land leeches. Where would that come from?

One possibility is that the original subhead has an extraposed relative clause, certainly something that’s well attested. There are several types of extraposed relatives; textbooks generally illustrate the phenomenon with extraposed restrictives, but non-restrictives occur as well. So we get:

(2a) Several people turned up late for the concert, some of whom had no tickets. [similar in structure to (1)]

as the extraposed variant of:

(2b) Several people, some of whom had no tickets, turned up late for the concert

Another possibility is that (1) is interestingly parallel to SPARs (subject predicational adjuncts requiring a referent for the missing subject), except that the adjunct has a subject. As I’ve posted here a number of times, clause-final SPARs very strongly want to “find” the required referent for the missing subject in the subject of the modified clause (rather than the closest nominal. A couple of nice examples in my 3/2/11 posting “Dangling advice”. My favorite is

(3) Last Sunday’s Observer reported on the young man missing from home in the US for four years: “Yesterday Shawn and his family appeared at their home-town school in Missouri to talk to reporters. Shawn walked on to the stage, festooned in well-wishing posters and blue and yellow balloons.” 

The nominal in (3) nearest to the clause-find past-participial SPAR is the stage, and that was the writer’s intention. But it’s hard not to read (3) as picking up the missing subject for the SPAR from the main-clause subject, Shawn.

I’m now suggesting the possibility that the clause-final non-restrictive relative in (1) is functiong as  a sentence adverbial — like a SPAR, but with an explicit subject, so that (1) picks up an antecedent for the relative pronoun which from the subject, rather than the closest nominal.

This account is highly speculative, but it does have the virtue of treating “zero pronouns”, as in SPARs, and explicit pronouns, as in (1) in parallel ways.

[Digression on the interpretation of (1). on Facebook, Mar Rojo treats (1) as merely potemtially ambiguous, with the effective interpretation being the one that makes sense in context. In fact, he quotes me on types of ambiguity:

"'The POTENTIAL for ambiguity is not the same thing as EFFECTIVE ambiguity in context.' -- Arnold Zwicky"

But Neil Copeland wrote:

Both the intended meaning, and the ludicrous meaning of the sentence as it actually stands, hit me instantly and simultaneously.

This difference isn't surprising; it's well-known that people differ in the extent to which they rely on context vs. form in the interpretion of examples, at least in their initial responses.]

A finaldevelopment. (1) was the subhead as first published. If you look at the Press site now, you’ll get only an updated version, with the headline:

Rare leeches found on NZ islands

and the subhead:

Rare Discovery: The leech, from the Snares Islands, is being sent to Te Papa in Wellington to be put on display.

No more ambiguity issue.

Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky’s flower photos — piles and piles of them, since so many flowers, some with brief blossoming times, are in bloom now — include a number with spiders in them. Well, actually, not spiders, but harvestmen, a similar-looking but quite distinct creature. Here’s one on its own:

Intro to harvestmen, from Wikipedia:

Opiliones (Latin opilio, “shepherd”; formerly Phalangida) are an order of arachnids commonly known as harvestmen. As of December 2011, over 6,500 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide

… Well-preserved fossils have been found in the 400-million-year-old Rhynie cherts of Scotland, which look surprisingly modern, indicating that their basic body plan appeared very early on, and, at least in some taxa, has changed little since that time.

… Although superficially similar to and often confused with spiders (order Araneae), Opiliones is a distinct order that is not closely related to spiders within Arachnida. They can be easily distinguished from even long-legged spiders by their fused body regions and single pair of eyes in the middle of their cephalothorax (spiders have an ‘abdomen’ that is separated from the cephalothorax by a constriction, as well as three to four pairs of eyes, usually around the margins of their cephalothorax).

Particularly in the UK and North America, Opiliones are colloquially known by the name “daddy longlegs” or “granddaddy longlegs” … They are also referred to as “shepherd spiders” in reference to how their unusually long legs reminded observers of the ways that some European shepherds used stilts to better observe their wandering flocks from distance.

… An urban legend claims that the harvestman is the most venomous animal in the world, but possesses fangs too short or a mouth too round and small to bite a human and therefore is not dangerous … This is untrue on several counts. None of the known species of harvestmen have venom glands; their chelicerae are not hollowed fangs but grasping claws that are typically very small and not strong enough to break human skin.

In ordinary language, daddy longlegs are frequently treated as a type of spider and referred to as spiders.

The world of museums is full of marvelous oddities: in particular, remarkably specialized museums, of all sizes (there are also grab-bag museums: local museums, exhibiting anything having some connection, however remote, to the locality, and eccentric museums, gathering together all sorts of things that have caught the collector’s eye).

Two specialized museums that have come by me recently: one that’s a fresh mention of an old friend, the Frog Museum in Estavayer-le-Lac, Switzerland; and a new acquaintance, the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik.

The Frog Museum. Some years back, when my daughter Elizabeth was living and working in francophone Switzerland (near and in Neuchatel), she wrote about this museum, across the lake ( “A nice boat ride from where I used to live”, she wrote recently, when Ann Burlingham came across the place).

From their web site:

In the Frog Museum, you will find something that is truly one of a kind: a collection of 108 stuffed frogs arranged in scenes portraying everyday life in the 19th-century.

Stuffed frogs are discovered at the school, at the barbers, as soldiers in the army, as well as by a game of cards at your favourite table. François Perrier created the extraordinary frogs between the years 1848 and 1860, depicting satirical scenes of this very particular era.

An example:

Despite being amphibians (cold-blooded and often perceived as “slimy”), frogs have in general a reputation as being “cute” creatures, with various pieces of mostly delightful folklore and stories about them — a notable exception being the hated (poisonous) pestiferous cane toads of Australia. (Ann Burlinghame was hoping that cane toads could be converted into change purses and the like.)

Meanwhile we have frog as as a slur. From NOAD2:

informal, offensive   a French person.

Used as a general term of abuse in Middle English, the term was applied specifically to the Dutch in the 17th cent.; its application to the French (late 18th cent.) is partly alliterative, partly from the reputation of the French for eating frogs’ legs.

The Phallological Museum. From Wikipedia:

The Icelandic Phallological Museum …, located in Reykjavík, Iceland, houses the world’s largest display of penises and penile parts. The collection of 280 specimens from 93 species of animals includes 55 penises taken from whales, 36 from seals and 118 from land mammals, allegedly including Huldufólk (Icelandic elves) and trolls. In July 2011, the museum obtained its first human penis, one of four promised by would-be donors. Its detachment from the donor’s body did not go according to plan and it was reduced to a greyish-brown shrivelled mass pickled in a jar of formalin. The museum continues to search for “a younger and a bigger and better one.”

Founded in 1997 by retired teacher Sigurður Hjartarson and now run by his son Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson, the museum grew out of an interest in penises that began during Sigurður’s childhood when he was given a cattle whip made from a bull’s penis. He obtained the organs of Icelandic animals from sources around the country, with acquisitions ranging from the 170 cm (67 in) front tip of a blue whale’s penis to the 2 mm (0.08 in) penis bone of a hamster, which can only be seen with a magnifying glass.

In the latest (7/5/14) New Scientist, a “60 seconds” (ultra-brief) feature “Bouncing on five legs”:

Kangaroos have five “legs”, making them the first known pentapedal animals. A study of kangaroo motion suggests their tails aren’t simply a crutch but actively move them forward, producing as much propulsive force as all four limbs combined (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0381).

What about starfish? Aren’t they pentapedal animals? What about primates that use their tails (in addition to their hands and legs) to propel themselves?

Well, it depends on what you mean by animal and what you mean by leg. Starfish are customarily said to have five arms, and primates to have only two legs (but four limbs, plus, for some, a tail that can function rather like another limb).

The abstract from the Royal Society site, which refers to a pentapedal gait, and not to a pentapedal animal:

When moving slowly, kangaroos plant their tail on the ground in sequence with their front and hind legs. To determine the tail’s role in this ‘pentapedal’ gait, we measured the forces the tail exerts on the ground and calculated the mechanical power it generates. We found that the tail is responsible for as much propulsive force as the front and hind legs combined. It also generates almost exclusively positive mechanical power, performing as much mass-specific mechanical work as does a human leg during walking at the same speed. Kangaroos use their muscular tail to support, propel and power their pentapedal gait just like a leg.

Similar caution can be seen on other sites, for instance on the terminology page of the Back to Nature Wildlife Shelter site:

Pentapedal Movement – using forelimbs, hindlimbs and tail to move around (pent means five)

This version uses limbs rather than legs, and might well take in some primates as well as kangaroos.

None of this detracts from the wonder of the kangaroo’s tail.