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[–] 50 points 1 year ago

Ornithologists have two modes when naming things: blunt descriptive and horny

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    I like to imagine all birds were named by a single elderly couple, Evelyn and Wallace. Evelyn put a lot of thought and poetry into naming them, like the Nightingale, the Scarlet Tanager, the Indigo Bunting and the Cedar Waxing. Then we have Wallace. Wallace brought us the Blackbird, the Barn Owl, and the Woodpecker.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    its that joke about there being 4 kinds of names for birds:

    • God’s Specialest Little Boy
    • Horncocked Boobtit
    • Blue Bird With White Head
    • Jeremy’s Fingernail
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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm not good with ornithology. Is the fourth one meant to signifiy there's a tendency in ornithology to name a bird after your own name and a body part ?

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  • [+] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It clearly has red on its wings.

    Yes it's orangish red, but have you ever heard of an animal called "Orange-something" no, because scientists can't see orange.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    Bird names are all either, "red-breasted blackbird," or, "deep-throated cum-tit." There's no in-between.

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  • I'm just surprised it wasn't named after some private part that birds don't even have.

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Xanthocephalus, from Greek Xanthous, meaning yellow, and cephalos, meaning head (compare with "cephalopod" meaning head-foot). That's right. The binomial name is also just "that thing with the yellow head"

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I would have called it a black bodied yellow bird.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago