Chimp & See Talk

Mongooses or mongeese?

  • Batfan by Batfan

    Just found this by 'hacking' to see if the mangabey I'd seen in the previousl clip was still present here. Thought I'd just flag it up as it's quite a nice shot of the mongooses / mongeese. It's also made me wonder what the plural of mongoose is - an internet trawl seems to throw up both variants so I'm still none the wiser. Is there one that's more correct than the other?

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  • AnLand by AnLand moderator

    Very nice find! I was always grateful that we use the singular for species only exactly because of this question. I have no idea!

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  • Boleyn by Boleyn moderator

    You're not alone with this question, Jane 😃 Maybe this article can shed some light to this:

    What's the plural of Mongoose

    I think the term has nothing to do with "goose" but I really don't know where it came from. The german word for mongoose is "Manguste" and for "goose" it's "Gans". so we'd never even think of something gooselike here 😃
    In German these animals are also called "Mungo". Now maybe this might have lead to the englisch expression?
    Funny also: if you look up the translation of Manguste in latin, what do you think is the answer? Mongoose!

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  • Batfan by Batfan

    Thanks both for your replies. I'm glad its not just me who's confused 😃 From your link, Heidi, it definitely looks like mongooses wins, so that's what I'll use in future.

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  • MimiA by MimiA scientist, moderator

    nice multispecies 😃 very cool!

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