tayra

English

A tayra

Etymology

Borrowed, via Spanish tayra or Portuguese taira, from Old Tupi eîrara. (Compare Portuguese irara, Spanish irará, eirá, connected to Guaraní eíra (“honey”), a food the animal is fond of, whence also Portuguese papa-mel, another vernacular name.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtaɪ.ɹə/

Noun

tayra (plural tayras)

1. A South American omnivore, Eira barbara, allied to the grison, with a long thick tail.
   • 2004, David Rains Wallace, Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution‎^[1], page 66:

     Cope considered it partly arboreal, as tayras are, and possibly omnivorous as well as herbivorous, yet he thought he saw how it could have evolved into hulking Coryphodon in a relatively short time.

   • 2006, Tom Jackson, Michael Chinery, The New Encyclopedia of American Animals, page 152,

     A few tayras are known to live in areas of tall grass.

     Tayras forage for food on the ground and also in the trees, where their long tail helps them to balance as they move through the branches.

   • 2010, Carlos L. de la Rosa, Claudia C. Nocke, A Guide to the Carnivores of Central America, unnumbered page,

     Tayras can be tamed and make interesting but fairly destructive pets.

Alternative forms

• taira

Translations

Eira barbara

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 狐鼬 (húyòu)

• Portuguese: taira (pt) f
• Spanish: tayra m, irará m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Tupi:

  Old Tupi: eîrara

  Nheengatu: please add this translation if you can

References

• tayra on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Eira barbara on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Eira barbara on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• “tayra”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• atray, yarta, yatra

---

Amis

Verb

tayra

1. to go to; to leave for

References

“Entry #”, in 阿美語中部方言辭典 [Dictionary of the Central Dialect of Amis]‎^[2] (in Chinese), Taiwan: Council of Indigenous Peoples, 2021

---