Rasva-Maha

This is the colorful fish that caught my eye, in the pond water of display case glass at the corner store… Sometimes I think my spirit animal is a wolverine. They are the largest member of the weasel family. Wolverines have two speeds, fast and stop, and roam for hundreds of miles marking their territory with scent glands. The etymology given by wikipedia seems to confirm that I am, in fact, a hairless wolverine…

“The wolverine’s questionable reputation as an insatiable glutton (reflected in the Latin genus name Gulo) may be in part due to a false etymology. The animal’s name in old Swedish, Fjellfräs, meaning “fjell (mountain) cat,” worked its way into German as Vielfraß, which means roughly “devours much.” Its name in other West Germanic languages is similar (e.g. Dutch Veelvraat).

The Finnish name is Ahma, derived from ahmatti, which is translated as “glutton.” The Russian росомаха (rosomakha) and the Polish and Czech name rosomak, seem to be borrowed from the Finnish rasva-maha (fat belly). Similarly, the Hungarian name is rozsomák or torkosborz which means gluttonous badger.

Purported gluttony is reflected neither in English nor in North Germanic languages. The English word wolverine (alteration of the earlier form wolvering of uncertain origin) probably implies ‘a little wolf’.”