My daughter is learning Spanish in school, and has been practicing the words for animals...and we've got a question:

She learned that "monkey" (her nickname) is "el mono"...but since she's a girl, is she a "mona"? That certainly sounds strange to my ear, but it seems odd to call your girl monkey (even if she's a person) "el mono."

Same with cat (is there a "gata"?), dog ("perra?"), etc.

Thanks!
Tara

Yes, el mono/la mona, el perro/la perra, el gato/la gata ...

Although there are expresions rather "ambiguous" like it could be "b*tch" in ENglish, having two meanings. One of those would be "zorra", femenine of "zorro".

Also, there are some which make it in a different way, like caballo/yegua, toro/vaca, ..., serpiente is just masculine for both male and female.

You simply cannot use that rule, there are too many exceptions. I'd say the animals that are closer to us, for some reason, have the possibility to have masculine/femenine, while others don't.

Like you have paloma/palomo, but not perdiz/perdizo/perdiza, or gavilán/gavilano/gavilana or buitre/buitresa/buitreso.

Sorry, Ignacio: here I come again Yes, but mona, as an adjective means 'cute,' not so? Ay, que niña mas mona!

Zorro is a Fox; and una zorra is a vixen. As Ignacio mentions, the latter is used to describe a woman of questionable character (same as in English).
But Vivora always refers to a female; just as Cabrón always refers to a male. But those are not words your daughter should be learning.

So if I call my daughter "mi mona," will that mean "my girl monkey" or "my cutie"?

Either is fine, of course--she IS cute!

I just wanted to be sure I wasn't calling her something bad (she's no vixen, at least not at age 7!).

I understand what you mean, Ignacio, about animals that are closer to us...we also tend to be less specific in English when we refer to an animal we don't know "personally"--in general, we use masculine pronouns to talk about it as "he" unless it's very obviously female (cow/bull, male/female bird, lion/lioness). There is a chipmunk on my porch and I was just describing "him" as "he" to my daughter, though of course he could be a she!

I just figured that animals could be masculine or feminine if we could actually see whether they are male or female. For example, its kind of hard to tell whether a bird is masculine or feminine, or a snake or a fish. Therefore, pajaro, serpiente and pajaro are always referred to as masculine, etc. Is this what you mean by animals that are close to us?

Eddie: Yes to all. But mona is mostly a spaniard expression.

Taravb:

If you say "Mi hija es una mona", you are saying your daughter is a female monkey. Mona is here a sustantive.

If you say "¡Qué mona es mi hija", you are saying she is cute. Mona is an adjective.