Hippo offering a ‘worm’ motherly kiss to its calf is not intimidated by a ‘mare’ sound from a catfish

EVERY Saturday the Daily Blog carries a feature titled “In the Wild”. There would be an article telling us one thing or the other about animal behaviour in the wild savannah.


I find these articles very educative as well as entertaining. So, this weekend, we savour how the writer delivers his message about the animal world.


I have three articles in front of me carrying the following titles: “How catfish mysteriously benefit leopards” (10 January); “Serengeti annual migration best in the World” (31 January); and, “The Evolving Hippopotamus of African wetlands” (February 7). The articles are accompanied by fantastic photographs of animals doing this or that action.


I like the photograph of mother and baby hippo apparently showing affection to each other. This is how the caption under this photograph reads: “The deadliest animal in Africa ‘offer a worm motherly’ kiss to its calf”.


We are used to see adult birds feeding their young ones on worms but do young hippos, or adult ones for that matter, feed on worms?


The article does not tell us. We however believe that mother hippo is not offering a worm kiss. What the writer wanted to write about was “a warm motherly kiss”, not “a worm motherly kiss”. “Worm” and “warm” should be included in the forthcoming edition of Longhorn’s Students’ Companion, under the category “Words Liable to be Confused”.


The list in the current edition is short but includes words such as: “adapter and adaptor”, “alley and allay”, “altar and alter”, “ascent and assent”, “bare and bear”, “beach and beech”; “cheap and cheep”, “boy and buoy”; “dye and die”, “course, coarse and cause”; “fare and fair”; “feet and feat”; “flea and flee”; “heal and heel”; “guerilla and gorilla”; “grate and great”; “ingenious and ingenuous”; “key and quay”; “cue and queue”; “rain and reign”; “shear and sheer”; “sore and soar”; “sum and some”; “son and sun”; “stationery and stationary”; “ware and wear”; “week and weak”; “woo and woe”; “wreak and wreck”; and many others.


“Warm and worm” should be included on this list in the book since they are currently missing. The caption accompanying the photograph should read:


“The deadliest animal in Africa ‘offers a warm motherly kiss’ to its calf”. The story about the catfish is characterised by the writer missing out on putting an “s” on various words, where this is a must.


Describing the catfish, the writer had this to say: “These are elusive ‘fishes’ ‘who’ live mysterious life which ‘enable’ them feed the leopard when antelopes and other herbivorous ‘mammal’ migrate to greener ‘pasture’


………


In savannah during dry season sunrays heat the ground for a ‘longer’ time leading to most seasonal streams, rivers and ‘swamp’ to lose big amount of water through evaporation which also ‘make’ the remaining amount to be inhabitable to marine ‘creature’ because of contamination and lack of oxygen”.


My re-write of the above quotation would go along the following lines: “Catfish are an elusive fish species which live a mysterious life which exposes them to be fed upon by leopards when antelopes and other herbivorous mammals migrate to greener pastures ………


In the savannah, during the dry season, sunrays heat the ground for a long time leading to most seasonal streams, rivers and swamps to lose large amounts of water through evaporation which makes the remaining amount of water inadequate for habitation for marine creatures because of contamination and lack of oxygen”.


In order to protect themselves from predators such as leopards, catfish take protective action: “When catfish notice any danger they will stop and miraculously produce drumming sound which can terrify people like me or you but the feline will not be intimidated by ‘a mare’ sound, and they will continue with a night feast to their satisfaction”.


A mare sound? Not likely. A mare is an adult female horse. The adult male horse is called a stallion. Our conviction is that by ‘a mare sound’ the writer had “mere sound” in mind.


The writer tells us some dangers facing catfish: “Some catfish die when they fail to manoeuvre through difficult terrain covered by sticking mud as a result die through suffocation and become food for ‘staving’ scavengers such as ‘vulture’ and ‘hyena’’. “Staving scavengers?” No. These scavenger animals are short of food. Therefore we are talking of “starving scavengers”.


A rewrite, is as follows: “Some catfish fail to manoeuvre through difficult terrain covered by sticking mud and as a result, die through suffocation and become food for starving scavengers such as vultures and hyenas.” Have a nice weekend.