Random and slightly pointless thoughts: Pot-Bellied Pigs and other silly animal names

Has anyone ever wondered about the names of some animals and how they're just a little bit daft?

No I don't mean all animal names - some make sense, the white tiger for instance, it's a tiger and it's white, the African elephant, it's an elephant and it's from Africa, and so on and so forth. But some names are just dumb. The spider monkey? Yes it's a monkey, but how on earth does it resemble a spider? Does it have 8 legs? No. Does it shoot webbing out it's butt? No. Do the females eat the males? Well, probably not either. See my point?

Some names just don't make sense.

Others are just a little bit pointless.

The duck-billed platypus. Yes ok it's a platypus and yes it has a bill like a duck, but who has ever seen a platypus without the bill of a duck? They don't exist, so why not just call it a platypus and be done with it?

Which brings me onto the pot-bellied pig. Why pot-bellied? In what way does it's belly resemble a pot? To me it looks like the belly of all other pigs. The only difference I see is that it's a damn sight uglier than other pigs, so why not just call it the ugly pig?
Another example: below are two sharks, one is a leopard shark, the other a zebra shark. Which is which?

The one on the right is the leopard shark right? Wrong. That would make much too much sense. What loony looked at this spotty, predatory fish and thought "You know, that reminds me exactly of a herbivourous, stripy, horse-like zebra"?

Of course in terms of sheer ridiculousness of names, Australian animals win hands down; kangaroo, kookaburra, wallaby, cassowary, dingo... but let's not get into that here.

My point is naming animals after something that they clearly look nothing like. Here's a few more examples (all genuine):

Antelope squirrel

Ant cow

Bullfrog

Catfish / Dogfish / Parrotfish / Rabbitfish / Squirrelfish

Horsefly

Hedgehog

Meercat

Mongoose

...and the list continues - see daft right?

Of course this idea of giving ridiculous names to things isn't just limited to animals, it's prevalent in loads of other different things, sports for example. Just look at cricket!