Laura Hopkins of Inverness, Scotland found lipstick drawings on a mirror in her home. She confronted her 2-year old son Noel.
Noel knew the truth: his favorite superhero, Batman, had gone bad, broken into their home, and drawn the doodles!
Oh, for shame, Batman!
-via Tastefully Offensive
It's a bummer dogs can't go grocery shopping with us because they'd be great at picking out snacks, although they'd probably force us to buy a cartload of both real and squeaky steaks so maybe we're better off.
But if and/or when grocery stores allow dogs to come along they'll ride comfortably in a cool dog friendly shopping cart, like this one introduced by Gianfranco Galantini in his grocery store Unes.
Now Gianfranco should consider dedicating one entire aisle to Snausages and other dog treats, so his new fleet of furry shoppers can spend their human's hard earned cash.
-Via PureWow
The feline pet population has it way too easy- they're asked to do nothing more than catch mice, eat on the floor, poop in a box and allow humans to dote on them, which is why all the working dogs are so jealous.
But this video by Sho Ko seems to indicate that our cats are actually overworked, and with all they do in a day it's a wonder they have time to squeeze in sixteen hours of sleep!
-Via Cheezburger
You always hear about the beauty and majesty of nature, but it's not always pretty. Sometimes nature is just plain icky. Here are some of the grossest ways animals protect themselves from predators.
Image: Kevin Cole [Wikipedia]
Generally speaking, vomit may be gross, but it's not much of a defensive mechanism. That is, unless we're talking about the turkey vulture. These birds gorge themselves so much that if they have just eaten, they can no longer fly. That's why vomiting is one of their best lines of defense -it not only disgusts a potential predator with the foul-smelling, acidic substance but it also allows the vulture the chance to move way faster and possibly even fly. In fact, the regurgitation is so gross that the vulture will sometimes vomit right in the eyes of its enemies, which causes a horrible stinging sensation. Oddly, bald eagles will happily eat the regurgitated mess because apparently they would rather eat rotting meat covered in stinky stomach acid than hunt for themselves.
Sources: Wikipedia, Nature Mapping Foundation, How Stuff Works and Beauty of Birds
Image: Siman Wagen [Wikipedia]
Another bird that has mastered the art of defensive vomiting is the fulmar. The innocent-looking birds have a nasty talent -the ability to projectile vomit a foul-smelling, oily secretion on anyone that threatens them. They can even spray the junk up to ten feet. The orange oil not only smells like rotten fish, but also will not come off and even sticks to the feathers of other birds, making them unable to fly or swim so they either end up falling to their death or diving into the water only to drown. As you might imagine, the fulmar itself is immune to the sticky oil globbing up its feathers and in fact, it actually uses the secretion as a high-energy food source for both the young and adults.
Image: kinskarije [Flickr]
Hagfish aren't just ugly fish with an appropriately ugly name, they also have one of the most unique defense abilities in the world -the ability to ooze massive amounts of slime. This might not seem like a super helpful defense, but the goo makes it difficult for predators to grip the hagfish and it can also smother their gills, suffocating underwater predators. The slime is so thick that the hagfish themselves sometimes die if they cannot squeeze off the excess slop fast enough -which they do by tying themselves in knots. A typical fish can emit up to 5.25 gallons of the sticky glop.
Sources: Wired, Wikipedia and Sea and Sky
Some cats love bottle caps, while other concentrate on milk rings or q-tips or ink pens or rubber bands. This is redditor jasonripp’s cat Cersei, after he found out where she hid her collection of bottle caps. She looks like she’s terrified he might take them away. My cat Marshmallow collects chopsticks, but when she can’t find any more, she’ll gather hair ties. She puts the hair ties in the cat food bowls, or even the water container, which all the cats share, and it aggravates the rest of them to no end. Continue reading to see more cats who collect things.
Mica is a brush-tailed rock wallaby at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. She’s been doing her job for the endangered species by giving birth. However, the only male wallaby in the zoo was moved away in March of 2015. Mica’s joey emerged from the pouch about six months later. But zookeepers were surprised to find that there’s another baby in there! The new joey recently peeked out from Mica’s pouch, and appears to be about six months old. How did that happen? Wallaby keeper Tony-Britt Lewis explained.
The birth is the result of a phenomenon known as embryonic diapause, which enables certain mammals to extend their gestation period and time the birth of their young.
The reproductive strategy, which is used by a number of marsupial species including kangaroos, wallabies and wombats, usually occurs when adverse environmental conditions threaten the survival of the mother and her newborn.
“It’s an interesting survival mechanism that allows the mother to delay the development of the embryo in drought conditions or if she already has a joey in the pouch,” said Tony.
Read more about embryonic diapause at Wikipedia. -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Paul Fahy/Taronga Zoo)
I'm filing this post under "Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly" even though, Smithsonian magazine informs us:
[...] lore has it that hippos kill more people each year than lions, elephants, leopards, buffaloes and rhinos combined.
Hippopotami can and have swallowed people whole. But that does not deter this worker at the Tennoji Zoo in Osaka from cleaning a hippo's mouth and teeth with his hands and a brush.
-via Gifsboom
Remember that time when the New Zealand SPCA taught dogs to drive to show how smart pooches are and that yes, you can teach an older dog new tricks? Well those crazy kiwis are at it again and this time they're teaching dogs to fly the friendly skies.
The pups spent four months in a flight simulator before trying the real thing and were, of course, always under the protection and supervision of trainer Mark Vette.
In an experimental program, the Moscow Police canine unit will train a group of Welsh corgi puppies to do police work. According to state news agency RIA Novosti, two puppies are in training already, a two-month-old and a six-month-old. Elena Haikova, head of the canine unit, said there is no guarantee the experiment will yield Corgi police dogs.
She explained that the relatively low height of the corgi means they may prove effective in sniffing out objects close to the ground, and move in tight spaces, searching for bombs or contraband goods.
“They still need to grow, be trained and undergo every test,” Haikova said. “The dogs may buckle under the workload.”
We should know within a year whether corgis turn out to be effective for the tasks they are training for. -via HuffPo
(Image credit: Flickr user mr_wahlee)
Swarms of pretty much anything are scary to see swarming, terrifying when the swarm is coming towards you and totally panic inducing when the swarm actually makes contact with your body.
But thanks to this amazing(ly unsettling) footage shot by Jesús Pineda of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) you can just watch the massive swarm of red crabs scuttle along the Hannibal Bank Seamount off the coast of Panama.
This video documents a few significant discoveries- the red crabs had never been seen so far south (they typically hang out around Baja California), and nobody had ever documented red crabs swarming before.
It's almost like the crabs knew Jesús Pineda and his team were coming...
Read about Thousands Of Swarming Crabs Look Like A Horrifying Alien Invasion here
Snapchat is a social media app that lets people share photos. It includes fun filters that let users edit the images, such as giving people animal ears.
Twitter user @twentyonedorks applied them to her hamster, Murphy. Now he's even cuter than before!
Chaco the Owl lives a quiet, domesticated life. But this only conceals his inner cowboy who is ready for wild west adventures. He mounts his trusty steed, which is a singing toy horse, and prepares to battle gunfighters, cattle rustlers, and the lonesome range.
-via Gifsboom
The description at imgur said, “A family went to movie for 3 hrs come back to this.” Whoever left these prints apparently found a stock of ink and had a grand old time.
The evidence leads through the home. Who could have committed such a crime?
The perpetrator didn’t get in the bed, but he obviously thought about it.
I believe we have found the guilty party. The good news is that the floor was fairly simple to clean, and the ink was non-toxic. The bedspread will be a permanent reminder to put the ink away where unauthorized users cannot get to it. There are 11 pictures of the carnage in the imgur gallery.
-via HuffPo
(Photos: Polk County Fire Rescue)
A house in Mulberry, Florida caught on fire. Firefighters put it out, rescuing the man and guinea pig who lived there. Once they got the guinea pig out, the firefighters administered oxygen to it. The guinea pig was reported in adorable condition.
This is Sammy the Seal. He lives in the harbor of Howth, Ireland. Every day, he climbs out of the water to beg for fish at The Lighthouse Seafood Restaurant.
In this video, Sammy rises from the water, patiently waits for a car to drive past, then crawls toward the restaurant. A worker there comes out with a chair to dissuade him. But Sammy is determined. It pays off, as the man eventually gives him fish to eat.
-via Jonah Goldberg
