Interesting thing about the Japanese language...

Recently, I've noticed that the Japanese have interesting names for some animals. Japan is not home to very many animals in the animal kingdom. And so, while the Japanese language was being developed, only a few animals got Japanese names. Examples include dogs (inu) and cats (neko).

Some of the animals without Japanese names have names that sound like the English counterpart. Examples include gorillas (gorira) and lions (raion).

But then, there are those animals with names that are really Japanese descriptions. These are the really interesting ones. Examples include porcupines (harinezumi) and raccoons (araiguma). Harinezumi means needle mouse while araiguma means washing bear. The Japanese for porcupines I understood immediately. I guess a person who's never seen one could say that it looks like a mouse with needles sticking out of it. But the raccoon... the raccoon had me stumped for a while. I mean, the first thing I notice about raccoons are the black rings around their eyes. I don't notice the fact that they wipe/wash everything they eat with their hands. And there's the whole bear thing. They don't look anything like a bear. They look more like cats or dogs or I dunno, beavers than bears. But then that's my opinion.