# Pigeons and Doves - Carabou and Raindeer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 8, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159 "2012-04-08T06:27:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2012, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159/41 "2012-04-08T23:58:14Z")

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> [@Blake](#):
>
> Mules woudl eb the obvious one.
> 
> You don;t need genetic evidence to know that your donkey fucked your horse and the horse produced an animals that was a little like both parents.

Maybe the confusions was your use of the term “hybrid species” instead of “hybrid offspring”. A mule is not a “hybrid species”.

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**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159/42 "2012-04-10T15:41:27Z")

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> [@naita](#):
>
> The problem is more complicated than caribou / reindeer only because zoologically ignorant English explorers or settlers used the European name elk for the wrong animal.

I think it went like this: the people who first came across a wapiti in the forests of North America had never actually seen an elk, they had only heard about them, so when they came across a big deer they assumed it was the same kind of animal. When other (or the same) explorers met a real elk the name was already taken, so they used a local name for the animal.

> [@thelurkinghorror](#):
>
> I think taxonomically, dolphin is a type of whale, but not always in common usage.

That is a peculiarity for the English language. All other Germanic languages (at least those I have checked) call all “Cetacea” whales, regardless if they have teeth or baleens.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159/43 "2012-04-10T15:45:32Z")

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> [@Floater](#):
>
> That is a peculiarity for the English language. All other Germanic languages (at least those I have checked) call all “Cetacea” whales, regardless if they have teeth or baleens.

That’s not really the issue. In English, we distinguish between the larger toothed whales and the smaller ones. The latter being called dolphins or porpoises. We don’t have a non-scientific term to distinguish between baleen and toothed whales. Just big and small.

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**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pigeons-and-doves-carabou-and-raindeer/618159/44 "2012-04-10T17:27:33Z")

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> [@Floater](#):
>
> That is a peculiarity for the English language. All other Germanic languages (at least those I have checked) call all “Cetacea” whales, regardless if they have teeth or baleens.

A non-biologist, non-whaling Norwegian will separate “whales” and “dolphins” and put baleen and large, toothed whales in “whales”.

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