A mountain goat is a goat, it’s just not in genus Capra.
Fun trip and interesting trip through taxonomy, though, in addition to the gags. A collection of wikipedia articles would be a nice companion.
it’s just not in genus Capra
That’s definitionally what goats are. It’s close, being in the same subfamily, but then so are sheep.
I think words like “goat” should have a generic and unstudied applicability: if it looks like a goat, and acts like a goat, it’s a goat.
A mountain goat looks like a goat and acts like a goat, therefore it is a goat.
A sheep neither looks like a goat, nor acts like a goat, therefore it is not a goat.
All semantics, of course. If you want to understand goat to mean “member of genus Capra”, you certainly can. If you want me to make goat mean that, you’re out of luck.
I’m willing to grant you the distinctions between goats and true goats, in deference to the science of biology. I am not a monster.
I’m willing to grant you the distinctions between goats and true goats, in deference to the science of biology.
Well that’s my point: this post is about how common names contrast with actual, rigid taxonomical definitions. :p
Like the colloquial word “goat” fits, but your comment read to me, given the context of the post, like you were saying goats can exist outside Capra via a technical definition, which isn’t true.
True or false: The tomato is a fruit and a vegetable.
True in that it’s a fruit botanically and a vegetable culinarily (or, less arbitrarily for the latter, that it’s a part of a plant consumed for food).
A carrot, as another fun example, is a root botanically, a vegetable culinarily, and, in the European Union, a fruit legally as a carve-out for laws about making jams.
Same with peppers, zucchini, and all forms of squash.
Also, strawberries aren’t fruit, botanically speaking because the seeds aren’t inside
Yes, we don’t disagree on the biology… I’m just emphasizing the nature of colloquial language as a crowdsourced effort and distinguishing it from the technical rigors of taxonomy.
Also this post is a joke, as King Bird isn’t taxonomically defined.
Wait until you find out what a fish is.
Either everything is fish, or nothing is
Nice ouroboros definition
if it looks like a goat, and acts like a goat, it’s a goat.
Logic like this is why people used to consider mammals like dolphins and beavers as fish. Stop it.
Doplphins and beavers don’t act or look like fish to me. Dolphins maybe I could understand if you were an ancient person who lived inland, but beavers?
But I guess part of crowdsourcing is that you get some really stupid people on the project.
“fish” is perhaps a bad example to make your point with, given that that’s a non-technical term that doesn’t refer to any particular genetic branch of the animal kingdom - hence the podcast “no such thing as a fish”. So I’d say that calling a mountain goat a goat is supported by the idea that many unrelated animals are called fish.
genus Capra
Ahh so thats what Capra Demon is
Context is what matters, I agree, except in contexts where the difference is important (conservation, biology, ecology)
Not sure what the original source of this was, other than an old tumblr post
Here’s the original tumblr thread just in case
“Tumblr thread”. I didn’t know that was a thing. I only remember it as a blogging platform.
Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal.
Nobody has mentioned mountain oysters.
Rocky mountain oysters
That looks like some Diogenes shit right there
It May Fly, but does it???
Does it???
It does for a bit, and it’s more like a Junefly in my experience
In Canada they’re junebugs
Mayfly indeed may fly, give it a pass!
- Horseshoe crab – Not a crab.
- Hermit crab – Not a crab.
- King crab – Not a crab (but, in fact, a hermit crab).
- Porcelain crab – Not a crab.
No Such Thing As A Fish
That’s actually not true, funnily! There’s no such monophyletic thing as a fish, but “fish” has a very clear, commonly accepted definition in modern science, namely non-tetrapod vertebrates.
- Imitation Crab - a crab
Hermit Crab - what kind of hermit would be so obsessed with real estate deals?
I never see a hermit crab by itself, there’s always at least a hundred of them together
Hmmmm… The guide didn’t say the mountain goat isn’t a mountain… So I guess I’ll go catch me me own mountain!
Sea Lion - not a Lion.
They’re called Mountain Goats 'cause they’re the GOAT.
How is no one talking about the mountain chicken?
Or chicken of the woods?
In parts of China where frogs are eaten, they call them 田雞 which literally means “field chicken” (although it can refer to several different species of frog)
Almost like those names were made for morphological categorization rather than a phylogenetic categorization where we use a completely different naming scheme.
Fascinating on King Cobras, I had no idea!
For anyone who’s actually wondering, with snakes, ‘king’ is generally used to denote snakes that eat other snakes (like kingsnakes, for example).
I’m pretty sure when a snake has ‘king’ in it’s name, that’s because it eats other snakes.
Just like human kings do!
I’m studying insects at the moment and came across a couple of cracking beetles:
Classic. Love this one
