8 Unusual Animals of Web Branding October 21, 2008 - 1:34 pm PDT - by Stan Schroeder 6 Comments
WhenI saw that Mozilla’s latest offering, a Web browser for mobile, wascalled Fennec, I had to enlist the help of Wikipedia to see what thename meant. It’s another curious naming scheme in the world of Web 2.0;besidesawfully spelled words, cute baby words or just plain nonsense, we also have “animals you probably haven’t heard of.”
Unless you’re a biologist or an expert in rare animals, you might becurious to know what these names are all about, and we did all thedirty work for you.
Bango- I’ve got no idea where this mobile analytics company got their namefrom, but Bango Fish is sometimes used as another name for rays,so I’ve decided to include the name here. Rays come in severalvarieties, some of them poisonous, some electric; they’re related tosharks, and as we all probably remember, they can be quite dangerous.I’m not sure which exact species can be addressed by the name “Bango,”so I’d be grateful if someone could shed some light on this.
Fennec - unlike the Firefox, the Fennec Foxis actually a fox. The folks at Mozilla probably named their mobilebrowser after the Fennec because the animal is quite small for a fox,weighing up to 1.5 kg with a body length of up to 40 cm. What it lacksin general size, it makes up in ear size, which can grow up to 15 cm inlength. It lives in the Sahara Desert of North Africa, feeds onrodents, insects, birds, eggs, and probably doesn’t care much aboutmobile browsing.
Firefox- contrary to the popular belief, Firefox is not just a very cool foxor a fox on fire; it’s a distinct animal species that actually looksquite similar to the one on the popular Web browser’s logo. Its name isRed Panda,it’s a herbivorous mammal that feeds on bamboo, and lives only in theHimalayas in Bhutan, southern China, India, Laos, Nepal, and Burma. Ifyou ever see one, please don’t try to spin it into the Firefox logoposition for photographing; it won’t like it and will probably biteyou.
Myna, Aviary’s audio editor is - like all Aviary’s products - named after a bird. The mynas are birdsof the starling family (Sturnidae), a group of birds which occurnaturally only in southern and eastern Asia. They prefer the opencountry, eat insects and fruit, and some of them are quite good atimitating sounds.
Songbird - the Firefox-based media player, Songbird is also named after an animal. Although neither Songbird’s old nor new logo look much like it. Songbird or oscineis “a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri, in which the vocal organis developed in such a way as to produce various sound notes, commonlyknown as bird song.” There are many species of songbirds; interestinglyenough, crows - which produce rather unpleasant sounds, at least to thehuman ear - are one of them.
Tern- in Web terms, is Aviary’s upcoming online terrain generator tool.Just like Myna, it’s not currently available even as an alpha product,but given Aviary’s track record, they’re both bound to be veryinteresting products. Tern, the birdis a seabird in the family Sternidae, a relative of gulls and skimmers.Most hunt fish by diving, but they’re not particularly fond ofswimming.
Thunderbird - unlike other animals in this list, is either extinct or never existed,depending on which type of thunderbird you’re referring to.Phorusrhacidae, also known as terror birds, were giant flightless birdsthat lived in South America during the Cenozoic, and they weren’t niceat all, especially if they considered you as prey (which they often didwith mammals of all sizes).
If we’re talking cryptozoology, Thunderbird is a large bird-likecreature rumored by some to still wander the Americas. Mozilla’sThunderbird - once a very important part of their product range - todayseems to be on the verge of extinction, too. It’s still being activelydeveloped, and it’s a great e-mail client; the problem is that no onereally cares much about desktop e-mail clients anymore.
Yahoo- besides being the popular Web portal and “the company that shouldhave taken Microsoft’s offer before everything went to hell,” the wordyahoo usually denominates a loud, unintelligent brute. However, there’sanother meaning to the word: it’s the popular name for the Grey-crowned Babbler,a bird that inhabits Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.Besides its rather specific call which probably gave her the nameYahoo, it doesn’t seem to be particularly interesting.
Know of another Web service or product named after an animal? Please, name it in the comments, we’d like to hear about it!