Well, hemi means half, and the pode bit is to do with podos, which means foot.
So. A half-foot...
...nope. No idea at all. What has only half a foot?
Half a slug?
Whatever it is, the poor thing has the ugliest, heaviest, most clumping name.
As it turns out, the hemipode not only has two feet but also a rather lovely alternative name.
A hemipode is a button quail. Button quails are little round birds that run about in warm grasslands and look very much like ordinary quails, though they're probably really specially adapted shorebirds: that means their aunts and cousins include the avocet, the herring gull, and the jack snipe.
This hemipode is a quail-plover, from Africa.
This is a painted button quail from Southern and Eastern Australia.
Button quails are small but peculiar. Not only do the ladies wear the brightest feathers and keep several husbands at a time, but they also do all the chatting-up, and require the male to do all the hatching and looking after the babies.
How do the females do it? Well, they do have a unique stracture in their chests which means they can make a surprisingly loud booming noise, so I rather suspect it comes down to nagging.
And the half-foot thing? Well, they don't have a hind toe. But, I don't know, that's a bit like calling a rhinoceros a trunkless.
Word Not To Use Today: hemipode. Unless you have koumpounophobia* then button quail is a much brighter and friendlier way of describing the members of the family Turnicidae.
I mean, you really don't want to get on the wrong side of one of those females, do you.
Hemipode really does mean half-foot in Greek.
*A fear of buttons.
Love this and am going to put link to it on Twitter!
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