McGuffey Readers and animals

Hey!

So I downloaded the first McGuffey Reader and skimmed a bit
through it. What gave me headache is that there are
frequently mentioned everyday animals. Since the Ayeri are
supposed to live on another planet, there are of course no
dogs, cats, duck(ling)s and such per se. But I don't know
enough about Biology and I can't draw well enough to make
up own animals of the respective kinds. Should I simply
make up words for these animals then? Should I mangle their
Latin name or their German or their English name? Supposing
American astronauts (Of course Americans! Who else?!)
landed on Areca, and then even in the vast equatorial
forests of the continent Cataya[1], managing to make their
way through all the L.A.N to Airon Nuavirang ... It's
fairly uncertain that in a short time, everyone on that big
planet (120% Earth's size!) would know all the animals
common on Earth ... And supposing that Areca is in a
completely different corner of the universe, the
probability to get there during the next 50 years or so is
incredibly small, except they really find a way to let
sci-fi stuff (e.g. travelling at lightspeed/through
wormholes [black holes]) come true, what I strongly doubt.
I guess I should really make up names for animals and say
that they're quite similar to ours. What did you others do
in this case?

Thanks,
Carsten


[1] I recently made up names for some of the continents of a
map of Areca I drew "pre-last" summer. -- At least my
drawing skills are good enough to hand-draw a map. But
better don't ask me to reproduce parts of it by hand. Even
with checkered paper this is a hard job for me.

--
Edatamanon le matahanarà benenoea eityabo ena Bahis Pinena,
15-A8-58-1-3-2-2 ena Curan Tertanyan ... Pericyanang nuhiro
emino 15-A8!
» http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri

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