My 3 year old daughter is starting to take an interest in natural history - which is nice. Largely, this consists of looking through books with pictures of animals and naming them: or at least attempting to name them, often with comic results. These are a few of my favourites:
The Hopper (Hoppitus Hoppus)
The Hopper is an extremely bouncy animal which lives in a field and jumps over trees and people. As far as I can tell it includes a wide variety of sub-species including
Hoppitus Bunnius and
Hoppitus Whippetus. I did enquire as to whether this includes Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh books but apparently that is silly.
The Snapper (Tarsus Nippus)
The Snapper is one of three types of animal to be found in the sea - the other two being fish and sharks. Again, the snapper comes in a variety of sizes from the microscopic through to the sort of thing that spends its spare time chasing Sigourney Weaver around a spaceship - not that I would imagine that my daughter has any idea who Sigourney Weaver is or why she should be residing in a spaceship.
Buzzy Bees (Insectus Notawaspus)
Buzzy Bees are very useful animals who live in flowers and are not as troublesome as wasps. They spend their time producing nice things such as honey and pizza. (I have no idea where that last bit came from.)
Scary Spiders (Arachnus Petrifius)
Scary Spiders are the largest and most fearsome of the order
Creepius Crawlius. Their usual habitat is down the bath plug hole or under little girls' beds. Their diet consists almost entirely of small children.
Fluffy Ducks (Sillius Madeupbydadus)
Fluffy Ducks are a silly animal that Dad made up. They consist of a teddy bear with a duck beak shoved on. I did try to explain that they are mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk but that didn't really get me very far. In fairness, when the British Museum was first sent one they initially thought it was a hoax from someone who had attached a beak to a mole. I'm surprised that Creationists haven't used it to "disprove" evolution - but that would probably involve them having to admit that God came up with it shortly after the creation of the magic mushroom.
Fluffy Ducks are a silly animal that Dad made up. They consist of a teddy bear with a duck beak shoved on. I did try to explain that they are mammals that lay eggs and sweat milk but that didn't really get me very far. In fairness, when the British Museum was first sent one they initially thought it was a hoax from someone who had attached a beak to a mole. I'm surprised that Creationists haven't used it to "disprove" evolution - but that would probably involve them having to admit that God came up with it shortly after the creation of the magic mushroom.
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