More like ocean piglet - the small kinda pig looking creature, that was shipped to europe via the ocean
Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum von … quieck, quiiieeck, quieck…
Dies
It is consistent with polish too. “Świnka morska” literally means “Sea piggy”
Russian too.
slovene aswell
Hungarian too
Tengerimalac
Serbian too (morsko prase)
I’ve have learnt that Capybaras are also sometimes called “Water Pig” in German. We are onto something big here.
Capybaras actually do hang out in the water at least
i mean guinea pigs were originally bred as a replacement food source for ocean voyages as it tasted the same as a pig but was way smaller
thus the name (morski prašiček - sea piglet in slovene)
I thought the name is because they come from overseas?
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A porcupine is a “Spike Pig”. The hedgehog has a name on its own called “Igel”.
Funny though if you look at the name hedgehog. Basically a wild pig in a bush.
Meanwhile in Italy: “little Indian pig”
Same in Brazil. (Porquinho da Índia)
Same in Portugal.
Same in France (cochon d’Inde)
Well,…
- The swam over to us (that’s why “sea”)
- They make squeeky sounds (that’s why “pig”)
It’s the same “translation” in Russian btw
Just wait until you find out how meerkats got their name
MORE CATS
And leopards
Don’t look up what Guinea pigs were originally bred for.
Why is the fact that they were/are food so bad? People eat rabbit too.
There’s a few animals I was surprised to find out some find weird to eat: rabbit, horse, reindeer. I was especially surprised by rabbit. It’s such a commonly hunted animal too.
In australia we eat our kangaroos and emus too. Also camels, sometimes.
And crocs! I went to a buffet at the old Centrepoint Tower revolving restaurant that had emu, kangaroo and crocodile all to eat. I love me some kanga mince, but the steaks are a bit too tough for me. You’ve gotta slow-cook croc too because it’s pretty tough, but it has a really nice chicken-mixed-with-irony/bloody taste.
Yeah croc gotta taste nasty. Most meat eating animals (like humans) avoid eating other meat eating animals if they can.
Really? Humans have been eating pig/boar, fish (including shark), crustaceans and cephalopods for a very long time. My understanding was that humans tended to eat more herbivores than carnivores or omnivores more because they’re prey that usually don’t fight back, making them easier to hunt or farm, whereas omnivores and carnivores are hunters themselves and therefore have offensive tools they can use defensively.
There was some speculation that humans are good at throwing rocks specifically for hunting rabbits before tool development. The sling made it even easier.
Who eats a horse?
I don’t know about eating a whole horse but horse meat is sometimes used in meetvursti and similar meat products and horse meat is sold as cold cuts here in Finland. I like it
I checked and the meetvursti I have in the fridge right now has horse meat in it. Apparently bred and slaughtered in Argentina.
Someone who’s very hungry?
Also smoked horse is awesome.
Humans, since over 300,000 year ago.
Giant rabbits seem like an economic alternative to larger animals.
A German once sent a dozen giant rabbits to North Korea in order to kick start a giant rabbit breeding program there. The intent was to help them overcome a famine, but instead the rabbits were all eaten at Kim il Sung’s birthday party.
North Korea moment
Honestly, if giant rabbits aren’t a native species there, it was probably a good call on North Korea’s part
I once had a very vivid dream that i lived in a society that valued animal life, but still ate meat, and figured that the best compromise was to breed bigger cows, so that fewer number of animals needed to be killed for more meat. So a genetically engineered ultracow was bred that was the size of a battleship, and it took a whole city to care for and feed it. But something went wrong and the ultracow got out of its pen and just roamed around breaking stuff and nobody could catch it again.
There was a Netflix film about that: Okja. The beastie is more pig-like though. It did look kind of tasty, in a Miyazaki way…
Why do people always have cooler dreams than me?
Look up “rabbit starvation” some time. Rabbit’s fine but you have to be sure your diet is diverse enough.
Sex?
Nein, essen.
Groß- und Kleinschreibung üben wir aber nochmal wa
Zeichensetzung üben wir aber nochmal, ne?
What do you mean “originally”?
What did I buy at that roadside bbq stand then?
Rat, most likely.
Very unlikely in Ecuador.
Fun fact, if you go in pretty much any farm in Ecuador, the ground level (lived in) will have lots of guinea pigs scuttling around (a bit like a lot of farms will have rabbits around, except they’re guinea pigs, and they’re in the house). Although they aren’t typically an everyday meal, they’re kept for special occasions, like a wedding or something like that.
Piggie Nuggies
how’s guinea pig any better?
They’re from Guinea!
(Actually it’s apparently because they were a food animal that cost about a guinea…)
There’s a whole section about it on Wikipedia with a lot of speculation but the tl;dr is we have no clue why they’re called that
Merisiga in Estonian which also translates to sea pig.
Why did I read this in Scottish accent?
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