Instructables has a detailed set of how to's to let you convert your computer case into a taxidermy beaver. Nothing says quality technology like dead animals. It's pretty easy, just look at step one:
Purchase a beaver of your very own There are lots of old taxidermy mounts out there - garage sales, antique stores, ebay are all good sources for older pieces. You'll probably want a high quality mount since you'll be removing the bulk of the internal structure, so better quality (ie not falling apart) probably means stronger.
When rare red pandas in China were abandoned by their mother, zookeepers looked high and low for a wet nurse. The farmer's dog pictured was one of three candidates for the wet nurse position.
“No one knew she was pregnant. Her plump body and bushy hair disguised her protruding belly until the babies were born,” said Ha.
Artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster have taken piles of trash and turned them into interesting abstract artworks depicting people or animals. The piece above is called White Trash (With Gulls), it is comprised of six month's worth of trash and two dead sea gulls. The image portrayed is a self portrait of the artists relaxing with a glass of wine.
Ever wonder where the zoo critters get their names? Well, most of them are named by the keepers, but if you've ever wanted to name one yourself, particularly the baby tapir shown above, here's your chance. The Belfast Zoo is holding a naming competition for the little babe born on June 22, 2009.
All you have to do is send us your chosen name and up to 100 words explaining why you think it would suit our new tapir to namingcomp@belfastzoo.co.uk
This little guy was found with a broken leg, but vets couldn't convince themselves to put it down, so instead they gave it a bionic leg made with steel pins, nuts and bolts so she could start walking around on her own.
Cathy Jackman, a diver, spotted the tiny blue bird struggling to keep afloat off Brixham in Devon.
She plucked the distressed budgie – nicknamed Captain – from the sea and looked after him until they returned to shore.
She said: "When I first saw him he was flapping and disappearing under the water. He nearly drowned as he couldn't take off or swim.
Ever wonder just how much that meeting will cost your employer? By entering the estimated average salary of everyone in the meeting, the number of employees and when the meeting started, you get to watch just how much money is wasted on these pointless get togethers. I can't wait until this becomes an iPhone app you can stealthy bring to the meeting with you.
Movie fans everywhere should appreciate this once in a life time eBay opportunity -the chance to buy the original Ecto-1 ambulance from the Ghostbusters films. The auction's over now, but how many of you actually had $45,000 anyway? Personally, I wish I did.
An animal rescue helped save three baby bunnies that were attacked by a dog and orphaned. The clinic workers noticed that a one-legged homing pigeon that also resided at the clinic began watching the babies through their cage and even sleeping just outside the cage door.
”Then suddenly, there were only two bunnies in the cage. To everyone’s surprise there was the tiny bunny under Noah’s wing sound asleep! That little bunny rabbit had crawled through the cage, preferring a featherbed!”
Now Noah, the pigeon looks after the bunnies and makes sure they are warm and well-cuddled.
While the horseshoe crab orgy is just a fun and cute animal affair, the turtles from Jamaica Bay are a different story. A group of 78 swinging diamondback terrapins held up one of the most busy runways at JFK on Wednesday. It took authorities half an hour to get the turtles off the runway.
He said that the turtles were perhaps attracted to the sand along one side of the runway, which juts into the water. "They tend to look for sand while they are mating," he said. "Presumably, all these turtles were feeling amorous." It is unclear whether the turtles pair off, or if the numbers indicated it was a group activity, he said.
Some of the delays lasted up to an hour and a half -but hey, at least the turtles got their sexy on, which is a much better excuse for a delayed flight than most of the ones we hear.
If you've ever lost your wallet, you know what a pain it is to cancel all your cards and get them reordered. You know how annoying it is to go to the DMV and get a new driver's license. You probably also know how much of a bummer it can be to lose important phone numbers, photos, tickets stubs and cash you had in there too.
Fortunately, scientists have come up with a great way to increase your likelihood of getting your wallet back -put cute kids pictures in it. Adorable images of children trigger a person's empathy and their "compassionate instinct towards vulnerable infants that people have evolved to ensure the survival of future generations."
Wallets with a cute baby pic were sent back 90% of the time, whereas those with no images only had a one out of seven chance of reuniting with their previous owner.
Long has the platypus been referred to as a “freak” or a “joke by God.” But darn it, these critters are awesome, interesting and unique. If anything, they’re really super animals and everyone else is just jealous. After all, they take a little bit of all kinds of good animals and make one excellent and one-of-a-kind family of animals.
The Platypus Is Not A Fake Many of you have likely never seen a platypus in your local zoo. In fact, because most zoos only like to take animal species that are 1)native, 2)endangered or 3)can be successfully bred in captivity, few zoos actually have these weird critters. Platypuses are only native to a small area of the world, are completely not endangered and only a few platypus babies have been born under human-induced conditions. Given its sparse appearance in zoos and its truly bizarre appearance and features, it’s not entirely uncommon to hear people jokingly refer to the platypus as an imaginary creature.
Now just imagine you’re living back in 1798, when Europeans first discovered the creature. The first things they sent to the UK to prove its existence were merely a pelt and a sketch of the animal. Is it any surprised that most British scientists believed the creature was fake? Scottish zoologist Robert Knox was so certain that the dead animal was a fake that he actually took scissors to its skin to look for stitches.
It’s Named For Its Flat Feet and Bird Snout This is one critter that is very adequately named. Most of us know the platypus by its common name, which is Greek for “flat foot.” This title was the original name of the creature, but couldn’t be used for its genus name because it turned out that the ambrosia beetle already had the title in its Latin name.
In 1800, physiologist Johann Blumenbach described the platypus as Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, meaning “paradoxical bird snout.” His name later developed into the official title for the animal, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, or “duck-like.” This is why you so often hear the term “duck-billed platypus,” even though there is only one species of the animal.
Plural Problems You may have noticed this article has so far only mentioned the animal in its singular form. That’s no accident, pluralizing the creature has proven to be quite a problem not for just laymen, but even to scientists. There is still no universally accepted plural to the word. Most people believe the plural form should be “platypi,” but the real Greek plural would be “platypodes.” Scientists stay away from both of those terms and prefer to use “platypuses” or just “platypus” no matter how many in question.
If you ever get in a heated debate with someone about the subject, just remember –you’ll probably be right no matter what you say.
Watch Out, They’re Poisonous Yes, on top of being one of only five mammals to lay eggs, the platypus also had to distinguish itself by being one of the few mammals to be venomous as well.
While both male and females are born with spurs on their rear ankle, the female's will fall off within her first year. The males will begin to produce a venom mix in a kidney shaped-area behind their spur. This venom contains three proteins that are only found in the platypus and is powerful enough to kill small animals, including dogs. The venom is not lethal to humans, but may cause severe pain that lasts for weeks.
Because the males are the only ones with venom and the poison production rises during breeding season, it is believed that the main function of the venom is to help the animals assert dominance over one another.
Platypus Women Are All Funky The males have poisonous barbs. That doesn’t make the female any less strange than the males. The platypus females are lacking teats of any kind and though they have two ovaries, only the left one is functional. In order to feed their young without any nipples, the female platypus secretes its milk through pores in its skin that are collected in grooves on her abdomen, where the babies lap it up.
How their chromosomes choose the animals sex in the first place is also strange. Whereas most mammals have only two sex chromosomes, platypuses have ten! While they are mammals in most ways, these chromosomes seem much closer to the sex chromosomes of birds. Scientists still don’t know how their sex determination system works.
It’s Electric! Ok, that’s a little misleading. The platypus isn’t electric, but it does hunt using electric fields generated by the muscular contractions of its prey. These animals and echinadas are known as monotremes and are the only mammals known to hunt by electric current.
The platypus has electroreceptors in the skin of its bill that can be used to help it search for fish while underwater. When they are hunting, they close their eyes, ears and nose completely and dig in the bottom of a stream with their bill. They then load up their cheeks with food until they get back to the surface. Unlike many other semi-aquatic mammals, platypuses cannot hold their breath very long –only about 30 seconds or so.
They’re Quite Popular in the Media The general public didn’t really know much about platypuses until 1939, when National Geographic published an article about the challenge facing scientists who were trying to raise the animal in captivity.
Since then, many people have fallen in love with the creature and its become a popular mascot for a variety of different things, including Mac OS X, the Brisbane Expo ’88 and the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It also is featured on the back side of the Australian twenty cent coin. Green Day and Mr. Bungle have songs about the animal and it is also a popular characters on children’s TV shows including Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
I've always been obsessed with tree houses, probably because I never had one. That being said, I couldn't stop looking at these bizarre structures at the very tippy-top of the trees. For more cool tree houses, check out the rest of those on the Now That's Nifty post of Amazing and Awesome Tree Houses.
I love Mark Velasquez's portrayal of Little Red Riding Hood in this photo. His gallery has a variety of other amazing images. Stop by and enjoy them all.
Netherlands residents now have a place to watch their fish when they go on vacation. It's the world's only fish-resort. My question is how can they stop the fish from fighting each other?
A family in Bristol has decided to take an unusual approach to getting their lost dog back -by spraying their urine around their neighborhood. An animal behaviorist gave them the idea.
Of course, my first suggestion might be putting up lost dog posters and checking the local shelter, but I'm no animal behavior expert.
