• Kalkaline @leminal.spaceEnglish
    36·
    7 months ago

    When you figure out hippocampus is the genus name for seahorses, and then see the little tail on the coronal MRI it makes a much stronger visual image.

    • a new sad me@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      7 months ago

      This happened to me, but then I went to investigate where the name “campus” came from, since campus has nothing to do with sea in Greek. All I found is that there was a sea monster in Greek mythology of that name …

      (In Percy Jackson, there are sea horse which are proper horses only of the sea, I’m not sure where Rick Riden took the inspiration for them from)

      • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.socialEnglish
        7·
        7 months ago

        Campus might be from the Latin “campus, ī, 2m” for field or plain… maybe something to do with the “horse” part of it?

        EDIT: nope. Kampos is also from Greek, it means sea monster or shark in this context… and hippos of course is horse. They had a “hippocamp” in mythology with the front end of a horse and rear of a dolphin, hence the “sea monster” etymology. Real sea horses are thus named because they resemble a miniature hippocamp.

        • a new sad me@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          7 months ago

          Interesting.

          I wonder what I did wrong in the first time I searched for this that I couldn’t find anything.

          So if I understand this correctly it is Greek mythology -> actual sea creature -> brain part.

          • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.socialEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            Pretty much. And for etymology searches like this Wiktionary is a life saver. Just type in hippocampus and follow the link rabbit holes, and it gives you the etymology: hippocampus < hippocamp (mythical sea monster) < hippos (horse) + kampos (shark).