Thursday, February 25, 2010

Mommy, What are the differences?

Cheetah

And the most confusionable
Jaguar

Leopard
Most of the time in najihah’s animal board books (especially if the pics are actually a drawing) I’ll come across these animals; leopard,cheetah and jaguar. If you notice, these 3 animals do have similarities in appearance.
Since I tried to teach najihah both language simultaneously, meaning if the board book is in Malay, I’d also tell her the English word for any word mention in the book and vice versa.

This is when the problem came, when I’m trying to translate these three animals I got mixed up (might also because of my poor English).The most confused one is leopard and jaguar. When I search In the Oxford Dictionary, these are the translations for these three cats

Cheetah: Sejenis harimau Kumbang

Jaguar: Harimau Kumbang

Leopard: Harimau Bintang

Additional: Puma: sejenis harimau (aka harimau dahan)

So, I tried to seach in the internet and this is the most interesting answer I’ve found;

Jaguars and leopards are the same family, but jaguars are in south and Central America and Mexico, and leopards are in Africa, Asia, China, and India. Cheetahs are a different family.

Cheetahs are day animals as well; jaguars and leopards are night animals. The Cheetahs rear legs are also longer and its spine is suppler, allowing its stride to go up to 23 feet (that is part of why it is so fast). Its claws do not fully retract like the jaguar and leopard which enables it to have better grip so again, it can run faster.

Jaguars and Leopards are far more powerful however; they can behead a victim with one swipe of the claw. They are lone hunters like the Cheetah, but their strength far outweighs that of the Cheetah. They have over 500 voluntary muscles they can use at will.

And the answer about the similarity in appearance;

A Jaguar has black spots on its body. The Cheetah also has spots, but is distinct because it has black 'teary' lines from its eyes down to its nose. The Leopard has black spots with thin black circles around them.

I hope this answers could somehow help us in future (^0^) - when our children are curious enough to ask ‘mommy, what’s the difference between these animals?’

If any mommy got a better answer, please do share. Appreciated.

6 comments:

Lynn Nasir said...

mila,

cheetah = cheetah girls / sport stuff brand

puma = sport stuff brand

leopard = rimau bintik-bintik

jaguar = bakal keta sport ummi Auni & Muaz

ngeh-ngeh-ngeh.. :p

transformed housewife said...

hmm I don't know how to explain the diffrences between these three types of tigers myself! You've done a good job of doing the research.

mila.ibunajihah said...

Lynn- ya, terbukti la nama ketiga2 kucing liar ini tidak asing lagi pada kita kan.. hehehe..
p/s: nnti nak tumpang jaguar, sy bleh pangku najihah n auni sekali..kihkih..

temp h/wife: makasih akak, tp bila da publish tu terfikir pula, mcm tadak idea sgt, walhal kekeliruan tu bermain dlm kepala spjg hari.adoi..mcm takde fikir benda lain pula.hehe..

Anonymous said...

i tunjuk gambar lion, leopard, tiger, cheetah, cat..cougar..semua miya kata "meoow"

Anonymous said...

saya pun x reti beza kan..hehe

kalau org tanya, saya bedal je semua tu kata harimau bintang. hahaha

mila.ibunajihah said...

mama miya- kalau miya nmpak real life tiger or lion kat zoo agak2 dia masih pggil miow tak..hehehe..

Red- yup, itulah confusion2 yg timbul.anyway, thanks 4 visiting ya. ur blog is nice taw.

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