In order to make lunge-feeding work, you have to have a really big mouth to capture enough water in one gulp. But in order to have a big mouth, you need a big body. And in order to keep that big body running, you need to get a lot of food. And in the very act of getting that food–diving deep, lunging open-mouthed, and then pushing a school-bus-sized volume of water forwards–requires a lot of energy on its own.

This type of feeding might explain the size of whales.

If the scientists are right, they may have discovered one of the big ironies in evolution. Lunge-feeding may have allowed whales to become the biggest animals ever to roam the planet. But this was not an open-ended invitation.r. Once whales got large enough, lunge feeding itself became so costly it prevented them from getting any bigger.

Link

Hapless police didn’t have a clue how to herd the goats back to their farm and so cuffed them until owner Uwe Stiller, 50, arrived in Bielefeld, Germany, to collect them.

No word on whether the ringleader goat will have to face charges. Link -via Arbroath

Link Image Via Daily Mail

Howard, the kitten whose front paws were amputated after an assumed encounter with farm machinery, has a home. The kitten was adopted by the family of Kyle and Bryce Billingslea, the two boys who originally found the kitten in a ditch and sought help for his injuries. A video from the Lansing State Journal shows Howard adjusting well to house cat life. Link -via Arbroath

YouTube Link

In 2007, Tillman the bulldog amazed the world with his video of him riding a skateboard around a park, just as naturally as you please.  Apparently the dog is still refining his moves, via Tony Hawk’s video game.  (Obviously, he’s not playing the game, but he’s definitely into it.)  More videos of Tillman snowboarding, surfing, and of course, skateboarding can be found here.  Tillman’s website.

A cat spruces up a fennec fox. -via YesButNoButYes

So, wearing a lifejacket, Miss Hughes jumped out of the boat, carrying the nine Rottweiler puppies ‘African-style’ by balancing the crate on her head and holding the side with one hand while swimming with the other.

Mr Cochrane and the two adult dogs also jumped off the boat and swam to the nearest beach at the Greek resort of Lalissos about 100 metres from their boat.When they got to the shore, exhausted, they were helped by German tourists from a beach hotel and members of the emergency services.

The British Embassy found Laura and John a hotel room for the night – and the puppies spent the night at a local Greek police station.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: KNSNEWS)

Behold the Dramatic Chipmunk Messenger Bag, made from thick faux canvas, with adjustable nylon strap. From the Neatorama Shop: Link (At a distinctly non-dramatic price of $11.95!)

For instance, the rodent-like RatCroc had buckteeth for rooting through the ground after tubers or simple animals.

The flat-bodied PancakeCroc was the “ultimate sit-and-wait predator,” Sereno said. The animal would lie motionless and “wait for something stupid” to swim into its rail-thin, 3-foot-long (0.9-meter-long) jaws, which were lined with rows of spiky teeth.

DuckCroc had a long, smooth, sensitive nose to poke through vegetation as well as hook-shaped teeth to snag frogs and small fish in shallow water.

And the plant-eating DogCroc had lanky legs that meant it was likely spry enough to run into the water if threatened.

By far the mightiest of the lot, BoarCroc was a 20-foot-long (6.1-meter-long) “saber-toothed cat in armor” that ate dinosaurs for dinner.

DuckCroc and DogCroc were previously known to scientists, and the rest are new discoveries by a team headed by Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago. The expedition found fossils of all five in Niger and Morocco. Link (with video) -via Digg

(image credit: Mike Hettwer/National Geographic)

YouTube link

A crimson-crested woodpecker battles an olive whipsnake on Peru’s Yarapa River.  One presumes that the snake was stealing eggs or attacking chicks in the woodpeckers’ nest.  The battle ends by the 3:00 mark.

Thier glee turned to horror as the 300lb lion firmly took the rear door handle with his teeth and pulled it open in one deft movement.

For several seconds the car remained still while the occupants digested the shock of what had happened before finally hitting the accelerator and driving off.

As they fled, the lion followed in pursuit until it reached the gates of the enclosure. There it was finally held back by a warden who hurled stones to shoo it back.

Richard Holden was in a car behind the Toyota and managed to take pictures of the incident. Link -via Arbroath

You can debate the wisdom of making an otter into a pet, but you have to agree that Sidney is adorable. -via Buzzfeed

Every once in a while, political parties or local groups will put an animal on the ballot for public office. Every once in a blue moon, that animal will be elected! These eight stories include three critters who actually served (although how well they served is a matter of opinion). Pictured is Clay Henry III, the beer-drinking goat who was once mayor of Lajitas, Texas. Link

If you have a cat or you just like cats, here are seventeen facts about them that you might find interesting from that fountain of strangeness, Matthew Inman. Who knew Abraham Lincoln was a cat lover?

Link – via artsyspot

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by sanela.

Transit officials have been touting the benefits of public transit for years and apparently these goats got the message. But when they tried to board the C-Tran bus in Vancouver (update 11/18/08 – that’s Vancouver, Washington, by the way, as pointed out in the comment – Thanks John Milligan!), they were turned away, as you can see in this surveillance video.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – Thanks Tiffany!

Let’s have a little fun: punniest comment will win a free Funny T-Shirt from the Neatorama Shop. One entry per comment, please. You can enter as many as you’d like. Good luck!

From Totally Absurd Inventions, which lists "America’s Goofiest Patents," here is the Gerbil Shirt:

The Gerbil Shirt wraps your torso in plastic tube passageways, making your bod a super highway of fun for Binky and Bart. The interior surfaces are textured for traction and have air vents for easy breathing.

The inventor suggests you can clean the Gerbil Shirt by attaching it to a faucet (remove pets first please), and you should avoid collisions and falls that could cause pet panic.

Link – via TYWKIWDBI

For some reason, the good people of Spain really like horned, charging mammals involved in their sports.  From the classic (yet controversial) bullfighting matches to the Running of the Bulls, and now an old tradition revived- Bull Leaping!  At Oddity Central, Spooky writes:

Teams of 5 to 7 bull leapers gather each year in cities like Valencia or Barcelona, to take part in a performance that many compare to the Russian roulette. Each team may face up to three bulls in the ring, at once, taunting and jumping over them just when the beasts prepare to impale them.

And, as he points out, no animals needlessly die during the events.

Video of the action.  Link to story/more pics.  | Photos by Ojodigital.

The scientist described Crikey steveirwini as “a colourful snail, with swirling bands of creamy yellow, orange-brown and chocolate giving the shell an overall khaki appearance”.

“It was the khaki colour that immediately drew the connection to the late Crocodile Hunter,” Dr Stanisic said.

Link -via Arbroath

National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen is one lucky man. Not only did he get to swim and take photos of a 12-foot leopard seal in the Antarctic (and didn’t get eaten), he was actually "adopted" by it!

I slipped into the water, terrified of what might happen, and I swam up to this leopard seal. My legs were shaking and I had dry mouth. Right away she dropped the penguin. She came up to me and she opened her mouth … and her head is twice as wide as a grizzly bear’s head. She’s huge. She took my whole head and my camera inside her head and did this threat display.

But then the most remarkable thing happen. She went off and got me a live penguin. She came up and she started to feed me a penguin. She kept letting these live penguins go and the penguin would shoot past me and she’d look disgusted as she go by me. She did this over and over.

And then I think she realized that I was this useless predator in her ocean, probably going to starve to death and I think she became quite panicked and she got me weak penguins then dead penguins …

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]

15 billion years ago the Universe just suddenly was. 5 billion years ago, the Earth and Sun formed a healthy bond.  Then things started getting interesting.  Single celled organisms, coral, and amazing advancements though the millenia are represented here.  600 million years ago was when transfer of genes through sex became the new fad, and diversity took over.  400 million years ago, life started flourishing on dry land.

This is seriously some of the best underwater footage we’ve ever seen.  Highly recommended if you’ve ever wanted to see an octopus eat a same-sized crab.

Link, again apologies if you can’t see this. | Image by Steven Hobbs

It is one of the rarest creatures of the ocean’s deep, and it has been caught on film for the first time ever.  The species, smalleye stingray, is the largest of all stingray species, and is seen off the coast of Mozambique.

– via news

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw it,” Ms Alamaru, a member of the research team, says. “This is definitely unusual. As far as I know no other coral are reported to feed on jellyfish. However, some sea anemones, which are close relatives of corals, are documented feeding on other jelly species.”

Scientists have suspected that coral must eat microscopic baby jellyfishes, but this is the first time they were presented with evidence of the animal eating adult jellies.

Link Image by Omri Bronstein from the Tel Aviv University

In the original Ninja Cat video, the cat only moves when you’re not looking. In this new video, the camera is stationery so we can see how he moves only when his “prey” (a feather in this incident) can’t see him. -via Arbroath

Police then towed the van away, also unaware of its feline freight and it wasn’t until midday on Wednesday that Caesar was returned to his rightful owners, more than 12 hours after his adventure began.

“Caesar is fine. We’re not worried about him,” circus spokesman Laurens Thoen said.

Link -via Arbroath

The city of Andover, Massachusetts has some unwanted guests: invasive species like the European buckthorn tree and the strangling bittersweet vine from Asia are shouldering out local wildlife. To make matters worse, in tight times the city can’t always afford the mowing machines and the manpower required to keep the invaders at bay. That was until they brought in the experts–goats.

The mowing “machines are massive, constantly breaking down, [and they] use a lot of fuel so we have actually had to skip several years of the mowing program because it’s very expensive,” says Bob Douglas, the director of Andover’s Conservation Commission.

Luckily, the commission recently hit upon a neat solution when one of their volunteers spoke to Lucy McKain, who tends dairy goats next to one of the city’s preserves. They worked out an arrangement where her animals get to graze the land and the commission saves a few thousand dollars a year. The fix was a win-win for everyone.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by bizwiz27.

The black labrador bitch was with a joint Australian-Afghan patrol that was ambushed in Uruzgan province in September 2008.

Nine Australian soldiers, including Sabi’s trainer, were wounded in the exchange.

After the battle there was no sign of the dog, and months of searching failed to find her. Sabi was officially declared Missing In Action.

An Australian military spokesman said it would probably never be known exactly what had happened to Sabi in the 14 months she was missing, but the fact that she was in good condition indicated she had been cared for by someone.

Link

Previously on Neatorama: Welcome Home

John Morgan, of North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The family’s pet dog appears to have started the fire by turning on the griddle in the middle of the night. This is why all electrical items not designed to be left on should be switched off at the mains when not in use or overnight.

“The smoke alarm activated and gave this family the opportunity to escape safely. It demonstrates once again that smoke alarms really do save lives.”

The kitchen was badly damaged and there was heat and smoke damage to the rest of the house.

Three-year-old Alfie is a flat-coated retriever, a breed Gregson says is “slow to mature”. Link -via Arbroath

Everyone in the family is happy and excited when a soldier comes home after a long deployment, but who is best at expressing that joy? Right, the dog! Mental_floss posted ten videos of dogs welcoming their soldiers home. I dare you to keep a straight face and a dry eye while watching these. Link

This is the REAL “Odd Couple”! When the cat went for the bird’s foot, I thought for just a second that he was going to start eating, but no, the emotion is apparently reciprocal. -via reddit

The fishy aroma attracted a passing grizzly bear who, clearly frustrated at not being able to see the lovely “noms” it could smell, took the plane apart in an effort to find it. Aircraft fabric is no match for bear claws. The bear also chomped both tyres for good measure, then departed the scene.

Alaskans are a hardy bunch, however – as tough as the aircraft they fly. The pilot radioed for two new tyres, three cases of duct tape and a couple of rolls of cellophane to be flown in so he could repair his craft and get home.

Duct tape: is there anything it can’t do? The story includes a picture of the plane after repair. Link -via Fark