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Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

author:BGI of BGI

Recently, under the article on the scientific research results of Antarctic krill, the editor found that many fans and friends have launched a heated discussion around "krill is not shrimp".

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

In fact, not only krill, there are many "unnamed" animals in the animal kingdom, let's take a look at what they are~

Cheetahs are not leopards

The cheetah (scientific name: Acinonyx jubatus) is not strictly a leopard despite the word "leopard" in its name.

According to biological taxonomy, cheetahs actually belong to the cat subfamily under the cat classification, and the leopard we often say is actually a leopard subfamily under the cat family, such as the money leopard, snow leopard, etc. Therefore, although the cheetah looks like a leopard, it is a completely independent branch.

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

Many people are easy to confuse cheetahs and leopards because their patterns look very similar at first glance, but in fact, as long as we master the method, it is not difficult to distinguish between the two.

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

In contrast, the pattern of the cheetah is a solid black dot, about 2-3 cm in diameter; The pattern of the money leopard is called rose spot, the middle is hollow, and the edge is broken, which is larger than the pattern of the cheetah.

At the same time, the call of the cheetah is also an important basis for distinguishing it from the leopard clade. Many animals of the leopard clade can make roaring sounds due to the special laryngeal and hyoid bone structure, while cheetahs do not have the ability to roar, and their voices are sharp and short, more like cat or bird calls.

As the fastest "speed machine" on land, the cheetah can accelerate from a standstill to 75 kilometers per hour in 2 seconds, equivalent to F1 in the animal kingdom. But its voice is indeed "ho hehe", the contrast is cute, isn't this coming [dog head]

Whales are not fish

Although the whale lives in the sea and has a fish-like body, it is not actually a fish, but a mammal. Like humans, whales breathe with their lungs, viviparously, and feed their cubs with milk.

What's even more amazing is that through DNA sequencing, scientists found that the species closest to whales is hippos!

The common ancestor of hippos and cetaceans lived about 50 million years ago, and one swam to the sea to become a cetacean, while the other evolved into a carboniferous mammal (some of which later evolved into a hippopotamus).

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

Traditional morphological classification in the past classified cetaceans as a separate order of cetacea, independent of the order Even-hoofed order. And this discovery finally allowed cetaceans to "recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors" and classify them into the order of cloven-hooves. This further shows that we can't just rely on appearance to judge the classification of organisms~

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

To digress, in fact, the crucian carp and sea bass we often eat belong to the teleost fish, sharks belong to the cartilaginous fish, and the mammalian whales really have nothing to do with them, after all, they are super "class" [dog head].

A giraffe is not a deer

The earliest record of giraffes in China is in the Ming Dynasty, when Zheng He went to the West for the fourth time, Punggara (the name of the ancient country) paid tribute to a "unicorn" sacred beast. And from the historical materials handed down, we can see that this "unicorn" is actually a giraffe.

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

"Punggera into the Qilin Diagram" (Source: National Museum of China)

Like cheetahs and whales, although giraffes have "deer" in their names, they are not strictly deer. We often say that deer (such as sika deer) belong to the family of deer under the order of cloven-hoofed deer, and giraffe belongs to the giraffe family under the order of even-hoofed order, and the two are considered close relatives.

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

The "little pull" on the giraffe's head is often jokingly called "deer by the instrument", which is actually the giraffe antlers. Unlike the solid horns of deer and the cave horns of cattle, giraffe antlers are ossified cartilage and are wrapped in skin on the outside. In fact, in addition to the most obvious pair on the top of the head, the giraffe also has two pairs of horns that grow behind the ears and behind the eyes~

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

Antelope is not a sheep

When many people hear the name, they think that the antelope is a kind of sheep. In fact, antelope belongs to the antelope subfamily under the bovine family, and the goats, sheep, etc. we often say are actually sheep subfamilies under the bovine family. They are completely independent branches.

In fact, whether the name is an antelope, a sheep or a cow, they all belong to the same family in taxonomy - Bovidae. Therefore, in theory, they can all be called "cattle" in a broad sense.

Krill is not shrimp? Cheetahs are not leopards! How many "misnomers" are there in animals

Many antelopes have horns in both males and females, which is a significant difference between their role as bovines and deer (only males have long horns). Have you learned all the cold knowledge today [dog head]?

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In addition to the above four animals, there are actually many species that are "not worthy of the name". This suggests that dividing organisms by morphological characteristics is not entirely accurate.

In fact, to judge the relationship between two species, we only need to look up the Latin scientific name to see at a glance. Because the same species may have multiple "common names", and the names vary from country to country. In order to ensure the accuracy of scientific research, we give each creature a unique name in Latin.

Take the Latin scientific name of the lion (Panthera leo) as an example, the Latin scientific name = genus name + species name, and the first half of Panthera (leopard genus) is the "genus name", indicating which subclass this species belongs to; The second half of the leo (lion) is the "species name", indicating what species the creature belongs to.

The Latin name of the tiger is Panthera tigris, so it can be judged that the tiger and the lion are different species of the genus Leopard. Isn't it very simple~

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