Forum - View topicREVIEW: With You and the Rain GN 1 & 2
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Thatguy3331
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Oh wow I had no idea this got licensed! I kept seeing art from this on Twitter but never knew what it was from or what it was about but it'll be nice to eventually give it a shot.
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13616 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Japanese raccoon dogs, which are what tanukis are also called, are indeed dogs. They are wild dogs and may/may not be able to mate with domestic dogs, but are still dogs.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2653 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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You're right! I hadn't realized they were classed as canidae. So technically no one who says he's a dog is wrong...he's just not a domestic dog. |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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Wait wait wait - what? They're canids, yes, but they're not dogs insofar as the definition of "dog" is being "canis familiaris" or hell, even just in the genus "canis" (which includes wolves and dingos as well). The closest relatives of raccoon dogs are foxes, and to my very best knowledge they're definitely not able to breed with domestic dogs. |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13616 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Then why do we have animals called African wild dogs? "Dogs" doesn't exclusively refer to "Canis familiaris". That is, I am perhaps goin on more of a practical and non-scientific standpoint. Heck, "Canidae" comes from a Latin word meaning "dog". Heck, when mentioning the word "dog", I would imagine wild dogs like wolves or foxes come to mind for some people. |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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Taxonomy and popular naming are different things! Most non-scientific animal/plant names have not been decided by committees based on biological facts, and there are a lot of animals, plants, etc. called something that they're not, either due to superficial similarities or just arbitrary reasons. Koala bears are not bears (not even close), killer whales are not whales (they're more closely related to dolphins), jellyfish and starfish are not fish (...duh?), red pandas are not pandas (their closest relatives are raccoons), and so on and so forth. Raccoon dogs are neither raccoons nor dogs, they just look superficially similar to American raccoons and I guess kind of resemble small pudgy dogs if you're drunk enough, hence "raccoon dog" but that doesn't mean they're actual dogs. Two, just because an animal is called something in English (or have a common naming pattern in a larger cultural context), and that people have certain associations based on that, doesn't really mean anything in and of itself. Even in English for a very long time "apple" was a catch-all term for all fruits except berries. Does that mean pears were apples at the time and stopped being apples once usage started changing? A lot of animals are called "[something] dog" or "[something] cat" or "[something] bear" simply because superficially they look similar to an animal that the people who came up with the name had as a frame of reference. That doesn't mean they are in fact closely or at all related to that particular animal. Other languages or cultures may have completely different names for the same animal that use completely different frames of reference. (In my first language "raccoon dog" is "nyestkutya", "marten dog".)
"Canidae" in this context literally means "dog-likes", not "dog". "Canis" means "dog". That's why we have the Canidae family for dog-like animals, and within it the genus Canis for actual dog types, in which you have various species ranging from wolves to dogs or jackals... not raccoon dogs, though. Those are yes, in the Canidae family but belong to the genus Nyctereutes. Saying that raccoon dogs are actual dogs just because they're Canidae is kind of like saying lemurs are in fact humans because we're both primates. There's a bit more to it than that!
Maybe, but science aside, I'd say it's a very strange person who, upon hearing the English word "dog" thinks of a fox, or even a wolf. Words mean things, that's kind of why they exist. |
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Kadmos1
Posts: 13616 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Look, I am not not denying that I basically do not know even the bare basics of taxonomy. However, arguably common sense would say that fox, jackals, wolves, tanukis, dholes, New Guinea singing dogs, dingoes, etc. are all also dogs. Just because some species cannot mate with the domestic dog or are grouped in a different taxonomic level, that doesn't make them any less of a dog.
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