all the time.

Not to argue, but a platypus is a living animal. You can't combine two animals while still keeping them alive. If a platypus was a duck and a beaver combined,  it would be like a Jenny Haniver (which are fake mermaids, to be very concise) and not be alive.

What's more interesting about our dear old friend JRR Tolkien is the way that he framed his worldbuilding- basically, according to him the Hobbit (and LotR) were books that already existed and were written in Westron (basically Middle Earth's version of English). Tolkien himself was just a translator of the books from Westron into English (obviously he wrote them, but everything he wrote was from the perspective of him translating ancient Westron texts, if that makes sense). Which is actually pretty smart, right? Because if there are any details that don't make sense in a high fantasy setting, it can just be explained away as 'oh that was just part of the translation'. For example, a Christmas tree in the Hobbit? Does that mean that there was a Hobbit Jesus and Hobbit Christianity in Middle Earth? And if there is Christianity in Middle Earth why isn't it ever mentioned again in the books outside of this one passing mention of a Christmas tree? Well, the answer Tolkien had for that is the OG texts in Westron that he translated included some sort of wintertime holiday, and to make the translation more relatable to a modern, mainly Christian European 1940s audience he added the Christmas tree. Bam! Now he doesn't have to answer pointless continuity questions.

Now the naming conventions are interesting, because why does Tolkien change some names, like the hobbits (eg Maura into Frodo), but not others, like Legolas? Well, that would be because Tolkien only translated names that were in Westron into English! Legolas is a Sindarin name, which is an elvish language. Anything elvish (and dwarfish, and Numerorian, or anything non-Westron) would go untranslated into English, unlike the English-ified Westron names, which include most humans and the hobbits. Okay, well, if the names are translated into English then why do they sound so weird and fantasy? Bilbo and Frodo hardly sound like names translated into English. Well that's because Tolkien was such a nerd he couldn't translate the Westron names into just regular old English- no, he had to make them more complicated than that, so he used a lot of Old English and Norse and German and so forth. For example: Hobbits is a modernization of the Old English word 'holbytla' which is a combo of 'hol' (hole) and 'bytla' (builder). Maura is a name that means 'wise' in Westron (again, a language that Tolkien literally made up), and Frodo is a proto-germanic name that roughly means the same thing. Razanur (Pippin's Westron name) means 'traveler', which is also what Peregrine means, which was then shortened to Pippin. For some reason Merry's Westron name (Kalimac) is meanlingless but shortened to Kali it means 'happy', which obviously Merry is a synonym for. Banazir means 'half-wise' in Westron, Sam is a Proto-Germanic prefix for 'half' and he kept the 'wise', giving us 'Samwise'. Eoh (horse) + Wynn (joy/bliss) = Eowyn. We don't know Eowyn's Westron name but can infer that it starts with an L because of a existing translation that he gives us of the root word of her name.

Anyway this got wayyy too long but thanks for giving me the chance to ramble on about a topic I know way too much about!! Hope this is at least mildly interesting :)) 

My first thought: Wow, you're so lucky, I love mice (long story...)

My second thought: Oh...it's the third time and in two places and also apparently wild mice in the house might not be a good thing...