Prefix/Suffix Animal Pairs
 

Hello all,

My friends and I bumbled across a puzzle tonight.

Name a pair of animals such that if you prepend a letter to one animal's name you get a second animal name*.

Do the same by appending a letter (pluralizing doesn't count of course).

We found one pair for each. Try to avoid gender-specific animal terms.
Maybe there's a bunch of solutions but we only came with those during our brief subway trip.

*meaning creatures from the kingdom animalia

[spoiler]Prefix: ox-fox[/spoiler]

[spoiler]There's also ox-lox, but I suppose "lox" applies only to a specific food preparation of the animal involved.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]ox-pox, if viruses were considered animals[/spoiler]

[spoiler]eagle / beagle ?

Not as good as ox/fox because beagle is a particular breed of dog, but it still seems to meet the stated criteria as a beagle is undoubtedly an animal.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler]possom/opossum (yes, they're two different animals)[/spoiler]

[spoiler]id / kid [/spoiler]

Nice answers, especialy your o-pair Mini-Geek.

We came up with :

[spoiler]
(w)asp
boa(r)
[/spoiler]

Any other possibilities?

If other languages are allowed:
In dutch: os/vos (ox/fox) for a prepend
ka/kat for an append (a kind of bird/cat)

Sure, I'm curious about solutions in other tongues.

Another prepend:

[spoiler](f)owl - a bit of a stretch[/spoiler]

Two more:

[spoiler]rasse / wrasse
dog /dogy[/spoiler]

In Dutch:

[spoiler]koe / koet
[/spoiler]

A couple of fully justifiable ones:

[spoiler]tit / titi
nag / naga (Mally would have like that one). [/spoiler]

Two which strictly meet the conditions, but are just alternative spellings for the same animals in each case: zo / dzo and id / ide.

Finally, one which demonstrates some creative cheating: rat / ratel (well, "el" is a letter!)

Paul

[spoiler]
man / manx
[/spoiler]

and then just being silly:
[spoiler]
horse / seahorse
[/spoiler]

[QUOTE=xilman;116086]A couple of fully justifiable ones:

[spoiler]tit / titi
nag / naga (Mally would have like that one). [/spoiler]

Two which strictly meet the conditions, but are just alternative spellings for the same animals in each case: zo / dzo and id / ide.

Finally, one which demonstrates some creative cheating: rat / ratel (well, "el" is a letter!)

Paul[/QUOTE]


By 2nd animal, I meant a different animal

One that works: hag, shag.

One that doesn't qualify but is included here for completeness: ewt, newt.

[quote=Mini-Geek;116049][spoiler]possom/opossum (yes, they're two different animals)[/spoiler][/quote]How do you support your claim that they are different animals? Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines [spoiler]possum as "[by shortening] : opossum"[/spoiler], so they're just synonyms.

[quote=cheesehead;116097]How do you support your claim that they are different animals? Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines [spoiler]possum as "[by shortening] : opossum"[/spoiler], so they're just synonyms.[/quote]
[spoiler][URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possum[/URL] and [URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didelphimorphia[/URL] (yes, Wikipedia...not very reliable, I know, but still...)[/spoiler] is where I got the idea. Its sources are mine, since it is my source. [spoiler][URL]http://www.americazoo.com/kids/opossum.htm[/URL][/spoiler] says they're two words for the same thing. Who knows.

Too bad spoilers don't work right for links, but they still obscure it, at least.

[spoiler]Ass / Bass[/Spoiler]