News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accelerator. Parent comment

Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by ncmncm on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @10:14PM (#19621175)
Spain was named by the Phoenicians after the huge number of rabbits they saw there. But they had no word for rabbit, so they used their word for hyraxes.

Which are, by the way, the closest extant taxon to the elephants. Which themselves are named just for their thick skin.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by twic on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @08:41AM (#19624006)
Hyraxes, in turn, look rather like chunky ferrets. As you say, they aren't closely related, but i suppose if you're a mammal which lives in holes in the ground, there aren't many body shapes which work.
[ Parent | on HN ]