Misleading Animal Names

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The horned toad is not a toad at all, but a lizard.

Great horny toads!!

The word "dolphin" is EXTREMELY confusing.

There are about thirty species of small toothed whales (air breathing mammals like ourselves) referred to as "dolphins and porpoises". Some species are commonly referred to as "dolphin" (bottlenose dolphin), and others as "porpoises" (spotted porpoise). And there is no rhyme or reason as to why one species is called one, and one is called the other. So there is no difference between "dolphins" and "porpoises".

But on top of that there is a large (human sized, and porpoise sized) fish (cold blooded, gill breathing fish) in the Atlantic/Caribbean ALSO called a "dolphin". This fish is a favorite of game, and commercial fisherman. It has a distinctive blunt shaped head. The "dolphin" in the title of the jazz standard song "Green Dolphin Street" is probably that kind of "dolphin".

When I was a grade school kid my mom was shocked to see "dolphin" meat for sale at the meat counter. Since I was an aspie kid who devoured animal books I reassured her it that it "must be the FISH dolphin, and not the mammal dolphin", and that "They aren't butchering Flipper".

Now that I think about it: I don't see "dolphin" meat offered for sale at Giant these days. Probably for that very reason. Its still sold, but probably under another name for better marketing.

Polecats are not cats. They are more closely related to ferrets (and they don't live on poles, either!)

If my goldfish were really gold I'd be the richest man on my block.

If, instead of squishing silverfish beneath my heels I cashed them in, I'd be the richest man in this city.

The name hippopotamus is Greek for "river horse". But they are more related to whales and dolphins than horses.

It's not a specific animal, but if an organism is cold-blooded it doesn't mean that their blood is 'cold'. It means that their body temperature is dependent on the temperature of the immediate environment. So I guess their blood can be cold sometimes, but not all of the time like the term 'cold-blooded' suggests.

Sea lions are not actual lions. They are more closely related to seals (and yes, there is a difference between the two; sea lions have ear flaps, while seals only have ear holes.)

Though sometimes seals, sea lions and walruses are, for some reason, all called seals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinniped

Sea lions also have hind legs, like land mammals, though with flippery feet. And can run pretty fast on land. True seals only have front limbs, and have to squirm around on land.

.........NOOT NOOT!.......

A woolly bear is not a bear, let alone a mammal. It is a caterpillar.

Polish name for "guinea pig" = "świnka morska" (translates to "sea pig" )
but it's neither a pig nor it lives in water.

The Glass Snake is not a snake, but a legless lizard. They have eyelids and external ears, which snakes do not have. And they're not made of glass either, but they can lose their tails, which can break into several pieces like glass, to escape from predators. Although glass doesn't *usually* move around on its own after breaking.

A lot of animals get their names from their resemblance to another animal or something else.

Like the mole cricket. It's obviously not a mole, but it has forelimbs that kind of resemble the front legs of a mole, and it burrows underground.

I always hated hunting for the little buggers in the Animal Crossing games.

komodo dragon
mud bug (AKA crawfish, crayfish, spiny lobster)
sea cucumber
other names for roly-poly (potato bug, pillbug, doodle bug, sow bug, cellar bug)

A whale shark is not a whale. It is very large like a whale, but it is really a shark and not a mammal at all. And even though it's a shark, it is quite docile, slow moving, and mainly feeds on tiny animals, like plankton and krill.

And they are most definitely not the result of a whale cross-breeding with a shark!