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What the hey, let's do another theme -- beasts:
aardwolf (AHRD-woolf) - n., a striped nocturnal hyena (Proteles cristatus) of southern and eastern Africa.
Which is slightly inaccurate in that while it's currently classified as a member of the hyena family, it's in a genus all its own and not actually called a hyena but rather "related to hyenas." It's insectivorous, specifically feeding chiefly on termites -- which require digging up from those tall, hardened-mud cones that are their nests. The Afrikaners saw this beast digging furiously, and called it an earth-wolf, or aardwolf in Afrikaans (and its antecedent, Dutch).
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
aardwolf (AHRD-woolf) - n., a striped nocturnal hyena (Proteles cristatus) of southern and eastern Africa.
Which is slightly inaccurate in that while it's currently classified as a member of the hyena family, it's in a genus all its own and not actually called a hyena but rather "related to hyenas." It's insectivorous, specifically feeding chiefly on termites -- which require digging up from those tall, hardened-mud cones that are their nests. The Afrikaners saw this beast digging furiously, and called it an earth-wolf, or aardwolf in Afrikaans (and its antecedent, Dutch).
Thanks, WikiMedia!
---L.
