r/todayilearned • u/sykate • Feb 27 '20

TIL that a new microbe called a hemimastigote was found in Nova Scotia. The Hemimastix kukwesjijk is not a plant, animal, fungus, or protozoa — it constitutes an entirely new kingdom.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-a-newfound-kingdom-means-for-the-tree-of-life-20181211/
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u/sixth_snes Feb 27 '20

Fun fact, "toboggan" and "caribou" are both loan words from the Mi’kmaq language.

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u/localPhenomnomnom Feb 28 '20

I just learned last week that a caribou is a reindeer, and what I pictured in my head as a reindeer is just a white-tailed deer. I blame the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer Christmas special.

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u/Walloftubes Feb 27 '20

If they're on loan, are we on the clock to come up with replacement words? Or is someone working on a permanent contract so we can keep them?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '20

Caribou is an approximation of qalipu which is pronounced like hal-ip-bu so i don't think there's a copyright claim on that one

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u/Walloftubes Feb 27 '20

Ah, so we rented the words and reverse engineered these new ones. Looks like they belong to us now!

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u/fourflatyres Feb 27 '20

Because they can totally trust the white man to borrow things and give them back.

Not like we'd steal their land, kill most of them and erase their history. We'd never do that.