“Panda” was the only name for the red panda for about 100 years. There were no other critters called “panda,” and it was never qualified as “red” or “lesser” panda. . . because there were no others. They were the OG panda!
Sometimes, I see people who report UTC time, but their local date, because they forgot that part. Annoying
The kiwi commonly available in stores isn’t actually pickled bird flesh, but is instead a fresh fruit only distantly related to Apteryx australis.
Eh? Clouded yes, you’re right, but snow? I think you’re wrong. Same genus as the leopard.
Doesn’t matter.Linnaean classification predates phylogenetic classification. Phylogenetically, closest relative is the tiger.
And the one most people were likely to experience (at least in the first half of the 20th century), if they saw any, since they showed up in zoos earlier (and are presumably somewhat hardier and easier to breed in captivity) and “panda” did not require any qualification or adjective when mentioning them in old newspapers and books.
Then the panda bear seems to have displaced them very quickly—I definitely didn’t hear about red pandas growing up in the 90s or have any reason to think “panda” was anything other than the roly-poly stuffed-animal-looking bear thing.
Maybe that will be different now, since the Internet seems to have discovered the red panda a few years ago* and they’ve gotten an anime and a Disney movie out of it (yes, yes, Kung Fu Panda exists also; I know). Mozilla leans into that from time to time, too, even if Firefox’s logo is actually a fox that’s on fire.
* And they are quite frankly more charismatic. Maybe that comes from being closer to otters and raccoons (the procyonids being their closest neighbors in Musteloidea)
Also same genus, though. So I’d still consider them the same family.
“Family” is usually regarded as the next level up from genus. So anything in the same genus is, by definition, in the same family. Though of course you can still track the degree of relatedness even within a genus.
Yes, that is the Linnaean family, the sense of which I indicated I was not using. I was using in the sense of 'having descended from the same common ancestor, so, yes, ‘clade’ would have been the proper term, but I didn’t realize at the time it would bring all the Linnaeophiles out of the woodwork. But. . . That is indeed the theme of this thread!
So, to rephrase:
Snow and clouded leopards aren’t members of the ‘true leopard’ clade, but are more distantly related.
Tough crowd!
Johnny Carson “I did not know that”.
Both part of the same genus however. With Tigers and Lions. I mean, yes, Snow leopards are not Panthera pardus. true. Depends heavily on definition and interpretation.
Clouded leopards are not members of that Genus. They are in Neofelis. You were totally correct there.
No, the vanguard is the leading edge of an army. The avant garde is a french cultural term somewhat equivalent to “edgy” – experimental, new, irritating …
The original meaning of “Avante garde” was the same as “vanguard” in the military sense - using it in the cultural sense (for artists who think of themselves as “on the forefront”) is building on the initial military usage.
There are a few places in The Lord of the Rings where someone in an army is described as riding “in the van”, and I always picture an Econoline leading the group.
Well, vanguard has gone the same way.
True - I see it in the original sense in military fiction, but the word shows up in many non-military places.
I always think of this song
When they wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Storm fort or redoubt, they were sure to call out
For Abdullah Bulbul Amir.
Sure, but by the time you get down to a particular genus, everything’s pretty closely related to everything else.
Colibri considered snow and clouded leopards as different cats from unqualified leopards, and that’s good enough for me. Fact is that snow leopards are still a closer relative to the tiger. Heck, jaguars are more closely related to true leopards than snow leopards are.
A pity the discussion has moved on from whether it is okay to call a whale a fish. I came across an article on the 50 year anniversary of “Jaws”. It had this little tidbit.
Spielberg wasn’t the studio’s first choice for director; initially they hired Dick Richards, but Richards kept referring to the shark as a whale. Eventually, he was fired
Sounds like he was sacked for sloppy terminology.
Which raises a question from film-illiterate me:
Has anyone made a similar horror / disaster movie about Orca’s / “killer whales” terrorizing a human population?
A quick wiki search suggests this one, but their might be more: