Worries Over a Misspelling Doomed Bird to Extinction

 

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

To the natural world, the words we use to name things are largely arbitrary, so who could have guessed that a single vowel will likely lead to the demise of an entire species? Great Indian Bustards, among the largest flying birds, were once widespread throughout their native India, though now they number around 250 with extinction looming. There was a time, however, when bustards were the obvious choice for India's national bird, promising with it the strict protections that title entails -- but bustards lost out. It seems officials were concerned that 'bustard' could be too easily misspelled and mispronounced as 'bastard', so they basically doomed it to extinction.

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