Are any other animals’ young referred to as “kids,” or is it just goats and humans (colloquially, of course, w/r/t humans)?
Wikipedia says that a young ibex is called a ‘kid’. List of animal names - Wikipedia
That’s the only one I’ve found, besides the young goat, after a lot of googling.
Ibexes do cross-breed with goats, by the way. Which may account for the nomenclature.
Ibexes are a kind of wild goat, in the same genus as domestic goats (Capra), so they are not really an exception. There are several other species of wild goats, and it would be proper to refer to the offspring of all of them as kids.
I concur!
Which means thus far the only exception we’ve found to the “kids must be juvenile offspring of goats” is the roe deer.
Or will you tell me something surprising about roe deer now?? :dubious:
n.m.
I shall indeed!
I was initially puzzled by the fact that the young are called “kids,” but a little googling suggests the reason. Although a true deer and not related to goats, the roe deer is apparently regarded as being somewhat goatlike, perhaps because of its small size and agility. Linnaeus named it Capreolus capreolus, derived from Capra and meaning “little goat.” Its names in other European languages apparently have the same derivation. This article, evidently an Estonian site, indicates the name in that language is “metskits,” meaning “forest goat,” with “kits” being derived from the German “kitz.”
Another fun fact to amaze your friends with: In the original novel of Bambi, he was a Roe Deer, and hence a kid rather than a fawn. His species was changed by Disney to Mule Deer for the American audience.
And you most certainly did! I’m impressed. I shall turn to you first in all future matters capric, and move you into the esteemed expert category in the dusty corridors of my mind’s storage system.
Roe, a deer, a little goat…
Mountain goats have kids, but zoologically speaking they’re not actually members of the goat genus Capra. (The ibex, mentioned upthread, is a member of that genus.) That’s a pretty fine technicality, though.
As I kid, I recall watching Disney documentaries back in the 80s where they talked about the research that the Disney animators would do in order to be able to draw all of the animals in their movies, and they enjoyed going out into nature or to a zoo to perform their studies.
I’d suspect that it’s less about targeting American audiences and more to do with local availability of the animal to go look at. (Hypothesis.)
It sounds like the word for human children derives from the goat word. Which would make sense if you’ve ever watched goat kids fool around. The only equivalently silly and impudent young animal would be a foal.