{"id":130,"date":"2016-02-08T12:34:36","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T11:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/?p=130"},"modified":"2016-02-10T12:35:24","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T11:35:24","slug":"of-nose-bears-and-swamp-beavers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/2016\/02\/of-nose-bears-and-swamp-beavers\/","title":{"rendered":"Of nose bears and swamp beavers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday&#8217;s visit to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tierpark-greifswald.de\/ueber-den-tierpark.html\"><em>Greifswalder Tierpark<\/em><\/a> (zoo) repeatedly called to mind the helpful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.babbel.com\/en\/magazine\/funny-animal-names-in-german\">German Animal Names Flowchart<\/a> that was doing the rounds on Facebook a while back.  Among the Greifswald residents are many of the animals that the chart covers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ocean piglets (<em>Meerschweinchen<\/em>) = guinea pigs<\/li>\n<li>spike pigs (<em>Stachelschweine<\/em>) = porcupines<\/li>\n<li>water pigs (<em>Wasserschwein<\/em>) = cabybaras<\/li>\n<li>wash bears (<em>Waschb\u00e4ren<\/em>) = racoons<\/li>\n<li>threatening chickens (<em>Truth\u00fchner<\/em>) = turkeys<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A number of their neighbors aren&#8217;t on the chart but could be, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/S%C3%BCdamerikanischer_Nasenb%C3%A4r\">South American nose bears<\/a> (<em>S\u00fcdamerikanischer Nasenb\u00e4ren<\/em>) = coatis, which are actually relatives of wash bears, even though their long snouts call to mind <a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ameisenb%C3%A4ren\n\">ant bears<\/a> (<em>Ameisenb\u00e4ren<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nutria\n\">swamp beavers<\/a> (<em>Sumpfbiber<\/em>)= nutria<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Erdm%C3%A4nnchen\n\">little earth men<\/a> (<em>Erdm\u00e4nnchen<\/em>) = meerkats<\/li>\n<li>prairie dogs (<em>Pr\u00e4riehunde<\/em>) = prairie dogs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OK, so maybe that last one doesn&#8217;t seem so silly to English-speakers . . .<\/p>\n<p>We also saw many animals whose names don&#8217;t have quite as much entertainment value (e.g., <em>K\u00e4ngurus<\/em>, a <em>Dingo<\/em>, and <em>Alpakas<\/em>).  Even though they don&#8217;t have room for any big animals, like <a href=https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nash%C3%B6rner>nose horns<\/a> (<em>Nash\u00f6rner<\/em>), it&#8217;s really a wonderful little zoo (in addition to being a fun place to amuse oneself with literal translations).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday&#8217;s visit to the Greifswalder Tierpark (zoo) repeatedly called to mind the helpful German Animal Names Flowchart that was doing the rounds on Facebook a while back. Among the Greifswald residents are many of the animals that the chart covers: &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/2016\/02\/of-nose-bears-and-swamp-beavers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eveofdiscovery.com\/schildpattgeschichten\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}