How animals are named in the English language

People forget that animals are named as descriptors not only on the species level, but on a characteristic level. Many New Ageists fall into the bad habit of looking up an animal by its name, and multiple species or just subspecies, they design the message of the animal based on the suffix attached. For example, the black-footed ferret and the domestic ferret are both ferret spirits, while the mountain weasel and least weasel are both weasels, and the european mink and the north american mink are both minks. In the first two examples we can see that the usage of noting these different spirits is completely nill: both these ferrets and weasels are of the genus mustela. Thus, unless it is tied to the English language or coat patterns, they would be best looking at animal spirit best described as the Ferret-Weasel (technically the Ferret-Weasel-Polecat-Mink) spirit. However, the latter example combines very different animals: The European Mink is in mustela, like ferrets and weasels. But the American mink is in a different group, Neovison.

Some different examples might help explain it, thanks to our culture's own understanding of it. If we're talking about the Bear spirit, then we're asking the bear spirit to be all of the bears: sloth bears, panda bears, polar bears, brown bears, and even more. Eight whole bear species. That would be what we do with the Weasel spirit, when we ask it to be all of the weasel species. But maybe we decide to exclude some species: pandas are a different color than some bears, so we'll exclude it. Let's also exclude the polar bear and American black bear, too. Then the bear spirit is all of the brown and black-colored species of bears. Is it the whole of the Bear species? No. It is only the ones that cannot normally be white-furred. Some people might find this sound. Others might find this concept weird. Some people probably excluded pandas from their understanding of Bear spirit, but not polar bears. Pandas just don't seem like bears too them, they're too different from their bear base: the grizzly bear. Therefore, pandas are technically bears, but not really a part of the bear spirit. They're vegetarians, have two thumbs, have a weird coat pattern and body shape for a bear. Therefore the Panda spirit and Bear spirit can both exist, but are not harmonious together.

By focusing our thoughts on the English language we forget the differences between species and also how close they are together. We could join the mustelas into the Ferret-Weasel-Polecat-Mink spirit. Or we could have spirits that are just the single species or subspecies of animal. A long time ago weasel referred to the least weasel, and stoat to the short-tailed weasel. Overtime scientists decided that these animals were closely related, and gave them new names. They gave them not just scientific names, but new English names so that people would understand how similar these two weasels were to each other. They also gave mustelids around the world different names, usually in connection to these European names. So the American mink is now a mink, and the Steppe Polecat is now a Polecat, the mountain weasel is now a weasel. The scientists changed the word weasel to denote a creature mustelid in body, slender, with a yellow or brownish-top and a whiter bottom. Noticeably the Siberian weasel is allowed to be called the kolonok. It has a mask on its face, and no underbelly color. It is slightly fluffier in the middle than most weasels. It doesn't fit the typical weasel build and colors, but is still close to it. So if you want to consider it a weasel you can, if you don't want to you don't have to. The trend continues with other mustelids: minks are called a mink if they're mostly solid brown and like to swim; polecats are typically fatter with a ferret-like coloration (or rather, polecat coloration). The domesticated ferret, like most domesticated animals, gets its own name, and the black-footed ferret was named after the domesticated ferret.

The names the scientists gave these animals to distinguish between them is based off of coloration, if nothing else. Each mustelid is its own creature with its own habits, as can be seen through research. But because we call these animals by a suffix of what was once a name bound to a single species, many people make the mistake of associating them with each other. This is true not just of New Ageists, but by laypeople and to an extent scientists themselves. If you go onto wikipedia article for weasels, you can see that they list all of mustela, as if they're all weasels. But when you look into its section "Cultural meanings" you can see that they only count mustelas who have the suffix of weasel in their name. Polecats, ferrets, and minks are not included. Bu using the suffix of weasel we have clearly demonstrated that we are disincluding "other 'weasels' " because they're not really weasels. This fallacy is pseudo-scientific and based wholly on the ignorance of how related animals are to each other and how distant and seperate they can be from each other by species, subspecies, and locality differences. It is a fallacy built upon language. This is why, instead of having a whole Species page for each animal and listing their mythology, folklore, and human impact from around the world, I redirect you to a scientific name's page to study that local animal. If you want to understand "weasels" you need to understand it is a word for yellow mustelas, and you should consider: "Do I need all mustelas in my research, or do I need a specific species of weasel?" In this manner you can separate the mythology of two weasels from each other- the Japanese Itachi is not based on the Stoat, even if they both do have violent tendencies. To connect them together is not unlike someone connecting the Coyote to French wolves- violent and tricksy they may be, they are stills seperate species of Canis. If you need to consider the whole of what they are, include the polecats, ferrets, and European mink. Just as how you would include the panda as a bear.