In this summer, Estonia was voting for a national animal. The most popular one was... HEDGEHOG
It was fabulous. I think the tiny spiky creature would've matched us really well, as several other countries indeed have lions and bears. It won the public voting by a long shot. But the officials had a different opinion and now we have a wolf, as most probably do a few other countries. Oh well. Still a cool fella, but I feel sorry for the tiny and awesome hedgehog. It deserved to win!

@Mirijah It's bullshit when a public voting is arranged, but then some self-proclaimed bunch of experts in the committee overrule the voting result and instead choose something else entirely. It's of course a different thing if foul play is observed in online voting.

@Louhikaarme Yeah, it did get our hopes up for the hedgehog, but I must admit that the wolf was on the second place in the public voting. And they did warn the people that even though the voting influences the decision, the choice will be made by the organizations (hunters club, theriological society, nature society, etc nature and culture organizatons).

@Mirijah What was wrong with the hedgehog? Especially if it was the popular choice. Hedgehogs are awesome animals. Among the most resilient and adaptive creatures we have.

@Rogers Could be confused with NZ's kiwi on international meetings? And NZ is the country most often forgotten on world maps, so Estonia certainly won't want to be mistaken for that?

@Mirijah Hedgehogs are awesome! My Patronus is a hedgehog. Estonians have great taste.

@Mirijah, I totally agree, hedgehog would be so cool

@Mirijah Haaaan it's too bad, hedgehogs are smart and useful creatures, it's easy to understand why they are so popular, and it would have been a really original animal to be chosen.

@Mirijah So are you just going to take that? Start making hedgehogs! Hedgehog-dolls, -ceramic, -cartoons, -dancing. What the gov say is less important then practice!

@Mirijah Totally cool vote, but the wolf doesn't seem to be common as national animal either. Serbia may have it too, and possibly Italy. For some reason, Wikipedia lists the barn swallow for Estonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_animals

@Myrica Yeah, barn swallow is our national bird! We had a bird before the ainmal (mammal) and the barn swallow is really used a lot as a symbol. And also seen a lot at the countryside, basically every farm used to have some nesting on their grounds.

@Mirijah It is just as well, the hedgehog is more a czech thing.

@tomyironmane What? Why?

@Mirijah welcome in the wolf club, with Italy, Apennine wolf, and Turkey, grey wolf.

Scotland not riding around on a unicorn in the background is a missed opportunity

@RegsaGC With Wales flying on a Dragon.

The Latin word for Frenchmen, Gallus, was the same as the word for rooster, gallus. The French decided to adopt the fighting cock, one of the most vicious animals ever to have been domesticated (seriously, they are bastards), as their mascot. Thus, Brother France's rooster.

Of course, that leads to the obvious jokes...

@CorruptUser ...indeed...
...Caesar used this coincident as s.k.o. a nickname for his enemies...!
...and b.t.w. according to some scientist chicken are the closest surviving relatives to T-Rex and Raptors...!

@Packless1 Yeah ! get that you f***ers ? We got a badass T-Rex as our national animal !
Wanna get a piece of us now ? You afraid much ? You jealous much ?
...
No ? You think it looks like a dumb bird ?
Oh okay...

but why did the frenchman cross the road?

@CorruptUser Totaly true for the ethymology, it is believe that when the Roman arrived in then Gaule, they call it that way because apparently every peasants everywhere has chickens, hence they nicknamed us by it.

However, the national animal is not the fighting cock, but the most pompous, sophisticated bred of the very ancient race called the "gauloise doré" (golden gallus, latin name gallus gallus) https://www.fermedebeaumont.com/gauloise-doree-p-4162.html Which is also a very rustic breed, good to lay eggs and good to eat. It suits us much better than a breed one's can hardly chomp and that doesn't make eggs all year.

One of our most iconic humorist said about it: "The Cock is our nationnal animal, you know why? Because it's the only bird that will sing when he's standing with two feets in shit." (Coluche)

To be fair, Finland has a national everything.

National animal (mammal): bear
National bird: whooper swan
National tree: silver birch
National flower: lily of the valley
National fish: redfin perch
National insect (!): seven-spot ladybird
National butterfly (not an insect apparently): holly blue
National STONE (!!!): granite
National horse: Finnhorse
National dog: Finnish Spitz

We could not come to an agreement about the national cow.

We also have...
...a national poet, a national author, a national composer, a national artist (a painter), aaaaaand a national PHILOSOPHER.

And all of our 19 provinces have a provincial plant, a provincial fish, a provincial bird, a provincial stone and a provincial lake. Most of them also have a provincial land animal (a mammal). All of them have a provincial anthem and a provincial coat of arms.

Just to clarify, we take this sort of a thing very seriously. Just in case you have not already noticed.

@AinoKyllikki : It's like that here in the US too. Every State as an "Official State something-or-other" for everything they can imagine! "Official State Sandwich" anyone? No one pays attention, but it gives the local politicos something to get their pictures in the paper over & makes some pressure group feel good about themselves.

@Newnetherlander I like the provincial ones. I think the anthems actually depict the Finnish “tribes” pretty well. Most of our symbols are nature related. Bears, whoopers swans, silver birches and lilies of the valley are genuinely important to people. Most of these symbols have been around for quite some time, so no sandwiches here. As I wrote, we take these things very seriously.

@Newnetherlander, I like how a bunch of US states have "state cat" =)

@molotovinpeikko We are currently debating this matter too although unofficially. #9790383

@AinoKyllikki "We could not come to an agreement about the national cow." how many types of cow in Finland? Is that so hard to find the perfect one and crowned it to be the "national cow"

@Zuperkrunch There are three domestic breeds of cows in Finland and they all are strongly associated with a certain region, which turned out to be a problem.

We are currently fighting over the issue of the national cat. The state is not involved in the debate though. Just a bunch of cat people having a noisy cat fight.

@AinoKyllikki lol.. A very serious problem..

It's jokingly implied that Denmark has two national birds. The official one is the mute swan, and the unofficial one is the grillkylling.

(Grillkylling is a popular fast food dish in Denmark. It's a deep-fried chicken half, served on a pile of fries, with pickle chips, remoulade and sometimes a salad or coleslaw as sides)

@EricTheRedAndWhite
Gimme. now.

@EricTheRedAndWhite This sounds suspiciously American.

Norway's national animal is the moose, not lion which is the royal national animal.

National things we got:
Animal: Moose
Royal animal: Lion
Bird: White-throated dipper
Horse: Fjord horse
Fish: Cod/Hagfish
Dog: Norwegian Elkhound Gray
Cat: Norwegian forestcat
Dish: Fårikål
Cake: Kvæfjordkake
And some other stuff...

@NossMarin thanks for this ^^

No wonder the French are so stereotypically flamboyant
They like cock

No wonder why the French are so cocky.

@Ladoga Heh..hehe.. Thank you very much for whats was, at least to me, pun of the day ;)

Scotland has the best national animal: the UNICORN!!!

And the twist, of course, is how many countries with a lion as a national animal... actually have lions native to their territory?
This needs a half-dozen big dudes from African countries to just barrel in and shove these three off the stage. "Move aside, posers! Come back with one of your squirrels or something!"