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When it comes to “discovering” new species of animals, I think it’s more about having found where they’ve been hiding themselves from humanity and less about discovering brand new species.
I mean, most of the animals in this gallery look like the result of genetic evolution and adaptation, not some brand spanking new little critter.
But they are cute, and great fun to read about, considering that they’re so rare to see in nature. So take a look at this gallery and see what the animal guides were missing up until last year.
Link image credit: Indraneil Das
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We all know that Animal from the Muppets likes to rock out on the drums, and occasionally he likes to destroy things at random, so posing as Iron Maiden cover mascot Eddie was a no brainer. The only thing missing is a hapless victim and a heavy metal soundtrack!
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Neatoramanaut Paul Thomas saw our post on the Dogphabet and pointed us to this neat project by Patrick O'Toole and his wife: the Alphabetimals, where all the letters of the alphabets are illustrated by the corresponding animal species.
Very neat (My favorite is the Octopus!) Link - Thanks Paul!
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Did
animals know that the 5.8-magnitude earthquake was to hit the East Coast
before it happened? Maybe so, according to zoo keepers:
Behavior ranged from jumping into trees and "vocalizing," to banding together.
Red ruffed lemurs sounded a distinct high-pitched barking about 15 minutes before the quake, and then again after the shaking stopped.
Apes, including the orangutan Kyle and the Western lowland gorilla Kojo, abandoned feeding-time chow seconds before humans felt the quake and climbed to the top of a "tree-like structure."The easy-going pandas "did not appear to respond to the earthquake," zoo officials said. Also in the Great Ape House, the orangutan Iris began what zoo keepers describe as "belch vocalizing" before and after the quake. They describe the sound as an unhappy noise normally reserved for "extreme irritation."
And just before the quake, the zoo's flock of 64 flamingoes gathered close together in a "tight, flocking behavior," Moore said.
They looked, he said, "like a big pink ball."
And you call yourself an "animal lover". How could you demean your "companion animals" by continuing to call them "pets". I mean really.
Domestic dogs, cats, hamsters or budgerigars should be rebranded as “companion animals” while owners should be known as “human carers”, they insist.
Even terms such as wildlife are dismissed as insulting to the animals concerned – who should instead be known as “free-living”, the academics including an Oxford professor suggest.
The call comes from the editors of then Journal of Animal Ethics, a new academic publication devoted to the issue.
The editors, Professors Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn of Penn State University, added more offensive phrases of the English language that need to be stamped out:
Phrases such as “sly as a fox, “eat like a pig” or “drunk as a skunk” are all unfair to animals, they claim.
“We shall not be able to think clearly unless we discipline ourselves to use less than partial adjectives in our exploration of animals and our moral relations with them," they say.
There’s a widespread conspiracy to conceal the truly intelligent nature of American animals, but thanks to the True American Dog blog, we now know the truth. How do I know that it’s true? Well, I read it on the Interweb: Link – via Look At This
CarlyB is obsessed with animals, especially those animals that don’t get a lot of press. So she started the blog Featured Creature, which looks at animals you might not know already. One is the adorable spotted cuscus pictured.
When first discovered, scientists believed that this was a kind of monkey due to its prosimian-like movements through the tropical rain forest canopy. However, it is actually the largest possum on Earth, as well as one of the cutest creatures on Earth if I do say so myself. Males are always spotted but females are white or grey with a woolly coat (but no spots).
See the cuscus in action at the post. Link
While there are tips available on how to perform mouth-to-snout resuscitation on a dog, Moriah Deno never learned them. However, she had recently been learning CPR as a lifeguard, and found herself in an emergency situation with her puppy, Vanuchi.
Vanuchi and an older dog, Pumbaa, had gone out on the deck of the Deno home. Moments later…
Deno was inside getting dinner ready when Pumbaa got her attention.
She ran to the deck, where she saw Vanuchi’s leash tangled around the grill, then disappear over the edge.
At the other end, the 5-month-old French bulldog dangled lifeless in his collar.
Check out the feel-good story, and the lesson learned (harness, not choke collar).
Link | via The Obscure Store and Reading Room
(Photo: Matt Perenchio)
Tribbles {wiki} appeared in a 1967 episode of Star Trek: TOS and returned in the spin-off series and movies. Romulan Whore posted this diagram of the inside of a tribble, and attributed it to the Star Fleet Reference Manual. Since there are quite a few such manuals, I don’t know who the artist is. Link -via Buzzfeed
This should counter the hornet massacre from earlier with a more interesting look at animals confronting each other. Anyone know the location? Vietnam? The giggling girl makes me smile big.
via Cynical-C
Believe it or not, there’s a dog under there! Learn about ten strange-looking breeds of dogs you may or may not be familiar with. The dog shown is called a Puli.
The Puli has dreads which are called cords and they start to form when they are 9 month old puppies. This dog requires very demanding grooming as they cords have to be separated to prevent excess matting from occurring. Despite the fact that their coat looks heavy and cumbersome, these dogs are actually very light and agile.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by rale87.
Charles Hedgecoth Sr. and Diane Smith of Locust Grove, Georgia run a charity called Noah’s Ark. Nine years ago, they took in a baby lion, tiger and bear, and the three are inseparable now. Smith says, “They love each other.” Video at the HuffPo, more photos at The Chive.
Update 1/14/09 – by Alex: Story at Telegraph, stolen images at The Chive is delinked.
Artist Reid Peppard makes fashion accessories out of dead animals. Imagine cufflinks made from little mouse heads, a coin purse that was once a rat, or headbands with real wings. Shown is a hair comb made from a guinea pig. Link -via Digg
If you think about it, an elephant’s tusk is a big tooth. And like any tooth, a tusk can break or otherwise get damaged and the elephant would then need to see a dentist (shudder!). That’s exactly what happened in the North Carolina Zoo.
But how exactly does one operate on an elephant’s tusk? Dainty dental equipments surely aren’t enough… Enter Dr. Gary Spodnick and his power tools!
Disclaimer: This version of the video, although no blood is spilled, may be disturbing to some viewers, since the power tools are shown in use on the animal.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by CommentKiller.
The sounds of a cat on bass purr, a loon on lead vocal, two owls, wood stork and cuckoo (solo) are the sole musical instruments in this furry arrangement of the classic, Fur Elise, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.
You can see who is currently singing at the botton of the screen.
– via SwitchZoo
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Tubehead.
In India, a newly discovered color-changing frog has been worshipped as a god. Reji Kumar, the person who found it, keeps the frog in a glass jar at his home where hundreds of people come to see it every day.
Apart from the obvious biological findings this hopping lava lamp can provide, it also gives an additional insight as to how religions and spiritual groups can emerge. I don’t blame them either. Who needs color-saturating hallucinogens for spiritual transcendence when you have a kaleidoscopic animal?
I say this new rainbow frog will become the new symbol for racial equality, just as long as it doesn’t croak (which is actually a concern).
The frog was a dazzling white colour when Reji, who is from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, in south India, first spotted it.
Then it changed to yellow and had gone grey by the time he got it home.
“By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs,” Reji, a life worker, reportedly said.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by robkullberg.
Here is a really neat PSA from the “International Fund for Animal Welfare” from Germany concerning the trafficking and buying of products made from protected and endangered animals such as the Elephant. Air Dumbo now landing!
Hitchhikers in space … wasn’t there a book about that? An apparently injured bat was expected to simply fly away when the spacecraft gunned the engines before take-off but inexplicably clung to the outside of the ship as it made its way up. It is speculated that the bat may have been injured and unable to fly away. There was, needless to say, no sign of the bat when the Discovery docked at the International Space Station.
NASA officials noticed the bat before shuttle’s liftoff and brought in a wildlife expert to look at video images of it. The expert said it appeared to be a free-tailed bat that probably had a broken left wing and an injured right shoulder or wrist.
This has to be one of the most serene/patient feline I have ever seen. Dressed in ridonkulous costumes this cat gets its picture taken for a calendar in Japan and wishes you all a Merry Christmas. What a thoughtful kitty.
via – Tokyo Mango
I’ve certainly heard of training dogs, cats, parrots and almost every other animal under the Sun to do tricks but trained mice is something new to me. This little video presents Brain Storm who has been trained to run through a dastardly tough looking course. However, she prevails with the awesome Olympic Fanfare Theme by John Williams playing in the background to help her speed to victory and glory! Oh, and please don’t get too squeamish over the mouse or the mousey leftovers on the table.
And the judges have their score cards ready: 9.0, 9.0, 9.5, 9.0, 10.0! It’s a new record!
More info on Brain Storm and other mice here – Link
