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The Name Game

Skunk or polecat? Pillbug or roly-poly? Animal nicknames can be all over the place.

By Larry Hodge

August | September 2024 Issue

Port Lavaca's Halfmoon Reef Lighthouse
You talkin' to me? Prairie dog or sod poodle?
Photo by Rob Curtis | The Early Birder

We were driving on our hunting lease west of the Pecos River when my wife exclaimed: “Phainopepla! Phainopepla!” What was she talking about?

Actually, she had just spotted a rare bird for Texas, Phainopepla nitens, whose glossy black plumage and erect topknot account for one of its common names, black cardinal.

Pblack cardinal - Phainopepla nitens
Phainopepla nitens or black cardinal?
Photo by Joseph Richards

Names are a handy shorthand for communicating identity, but both parties have to be on the same page.

Most of us use common names for plants and animals, and those names can vary quite a bit from person to person: One person's crappie can be someone else's sacalait. A freshwater drum to me may be a gaspergou to you. A goose in the Panhandle may be a ganso in deep South Texas.

Scientists deal with this problem by having a unique name for every unique, individual thing. For that we have Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) to thank.

The rest of us just have to muddle along, calling channel catfish caught from stock ponds mud cats because of their taste, as I did growing up. But some people also call blue catfish channel cats, since the two species have a number of similar characteristics. Neither are easily confused with flathead catfish, but here we go again, with that species variously called yellow cat, Opelousa cat (or Ops), pied cat, Mississippi cat, mud cat or shovelhead cat.

Channel Catfish
Channel catfish or mud cats?
Photo by Robert S. Michelson

There are many fish in the water, and many names for those fish. While some call the freshwater drum a sheepshead, there is a saltwater fish often called by the same name, and you don't want to find yourself trying to explain to a judge why you didn't know the difference. Many common names are based on appearance, as is the case with white crappie and black crappie, sometimes called white perch or calico bass. While both have black on their sides, the black on white crappie is arranged in vertical bars, while the black crappie has random black splotches. And what's with that Cajun name, sakalait (sac-à-lait)? Literally translated “bag of milk,” it supposedly refers to the fish's white flesh — not at all helpful — but actually comes from a Choctaw word, sakli, meaning “trout.”

And trout? Early European visitors to Texas remarked on the “green trout” found in many streams. Today we call them largemouth bass (or black bass, or Florida bass, or shoal bass, or Suwannee bass). And they aren't really bass: They are actually members of the sunfish family along with bluegills (bream, perch). True bass include saltwater species such as striped bass (striper, rockfish, lineside) and freshwater species such as white bass, also called sand bass (and barfish, streaker, silver bass).

Common names live up to their name: they're ubiquitous. Is that a redfish, a red drum, or a bull red? It depends on who's talking. Texas tortoise or Tamaulipan tortoise? Depends on which side of the Rio Grande you're on. Whitetail or venado? Depends on what language you're using.

Nicknames and common names abound across all living things: plants, insects, birds, mammals and more. Yellow-rumped warblers are called butter butts. Spiderlike harvestmen have such distinct appendages that most of us call them daddy longlegs. Prairie dogs, as evidenced by the Amarillo minor-league baseball team, were called sod poodles by pioneer settlers.

Although common names can be confusing, not many of us are versed in Latin or Greek and able to remember thousands of scientific names. And sometimes it's refreshing (and educational) to be confounded by someone yelling “Phainopepla! Phainopepla!

Animal Nickname Glossary

For a longer list, check out our blog at tpwmag.com.

Mammals

Armadillo

  • armored pig; look like little pigs with a defensive shell
  • pocket dinosaur; look a bit prehistoric
  • tactical possum; have a protective shell
  • Texas speed bump; get run over often in Texas

Coyote

  • American jackal; similar to jackals in appearance and behaviors
  • prairie wolf or brush wolf; habitat and similarities to wolves
  • yodel dog; high-pitched “bark” sounds like a yodel

Mountain Lion

  • catamount; “cat of the mountain” (though they live in multiple habitats)
  • cougar; from an indigenous language via French and Portuguese
  • ghost cat; stealth
  • puma; Incan name for the animal

Raccoon

  • trash panda; tendency to forage for trash and black patches around the eyes like pandas

Fish

Blue catfish

  • giant blue; ability to grow up to 100 pounds and 5 feet long

Flathead Catfish

  • Mississippi cat; native to Mississippi River
  • mudcat; for muddy taste
  • Opelousa cat (ops); named after a city in Louisiana
  • pied cat; due to various colorings
  • shovelhead; broad and flattened head that looks like a shovel
  • yellow cat; body is pale yellow

Flounder

  • flatfish; bodies are flatter than other fish
  • fluke; specific name for summer flounder

Largemouth Bass

  • bucketmouth; for their mouth that extends further than other bass
  • hawg; large bass fight back similar to wild hogs
  • hogzilla; combination of hogs and Godzilla for their size and aggression
  • mossback; name for large, slow fish

Snapper

  • bream; considered part of the bream family
  • old man snapper; face looks like an old man
  • porgy; Native American name for fertilizer, which is what the fish were used for in colonial times

Birds

American Coot

  • mud hen; for their love of marshes and ditches
  • pouldeau; Cajun name, means “water hen”

American Goldfinch

  • goldie; shortened
  • King Harry; after King Henry VIII
  • draw-water; they can be taught simple tricks, such as lifting a thimble-sized bucket of water

Crested Caracara

  • Mexican eagle; common folklore about the bird, including a suspicion that this is the bird on the Mexican flag

Great Blue Heron

  • gilly whomper; possibly from Scottish “ghillie” meaning a helper or servant to someone who is fishing or hunting
  • marsh hen; often found in marshes
  • ol' cranky; possibly due to their loud squawk
  • shag poke; perhaps for their shaggy feathers

Turkey Vulture

  • buzzard, turkey buzzard; early settlers mistook vultures for hawks, buzzard is the British term for hawk

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