Archive for the ‘animals’ category

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“We’re All Mad Here…”

December 16, 2009

– – I confess that I’ve always loved Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, and especially had a soft spot for the Cheshire Cat…well, said feline has never looked better or toothier than in the upcoming March of 2010 version by Tim Burton!–Who better to capture the notes of madness, darkness,  and menace in the piece than Tim Burton, especially with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter?!  Stephen Fry plays the Cheshire Cat.

It’s very hard to do justice to Alice In Wonderland, and many attempted adaptations have fallen short of the mark and been disappointments; the recent SyFy Channel’s adaptation comes to mind, while it did have its moments.– This could well be the definitive version!– The Cheshire Cat looks ten times creepier than in all previous versions!!!

…It’s gonna be a weird, wild Wonderland in amazing 3D…March 5th, 2010 can’t come soon enough for this fox!




Categories: animals, Brilliant but twisted, cool things, furries, furry, furry heroes, furry spirits, movies
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Octopus Goes Coconuts!

December 15, 2009

– – Having taken Invertebrate Zoology , I for one have long thought that some invertebrates are smarter than what we usually give them credit for being, especially higher mollusks like cephalopods.–Well, Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that gathers coconut shells for shelter, behavior which researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal!–Yeah yeah, I know about SpongeBob, but he doesn’t count…plus I find him annoying!

The scientific community has long debated about how to define tool use in the animal kingdom, being as how they don’t ordinarily have access to Black and Decker equipment.  The Australian researchers defined a tool as an object carried or maintained for future use, and the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selected halved coconuts from the ocean floor chucked there by humans, emptied them out, carried them under their bodies for up to 65 feet, and then assembled the two halves together to make a spherical hiding spot!–Isn’t that totally cool?!–One biologist described himself as gobsmacked, an expression I’d like to see re-integrated into the popular culture…

This is different from what hermit crabs do as the octopus is collecting the shells for later use, showing a capability for complex behavior.–Respect your local octopus!

Categories: animal occurrences, animal oddities, animals, cool things, Invertebrates
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Comments: 4 Comments

Supersize that Rodent?

December 14, 2009

– – Where some see only a hog-sized jungle rodent, others see economic opportunity…or perhaps a sandwich!

Bolivia is planning to export dried meat of the capybara, the world’s largest edible rodent, to Venezuela.  The capybara regularly grows to 145 pounds, and grazes on the banks of rivers and lakes.  It is a shy, short-haired creature with a blunt snouth and no tail that is widely consumed in Venezuela.

Plans to export the meat of between 200 to 500 capybara a year from Bolivia to Venezuela are considered environmentally sustainable, but the meat must sell for $4.45 a pound to be profitable…

Foxes do eat rodents, but this one’s out of my size range, thank you very much…

Categories: animal oddities, animals, furry
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Grow Your Own!

December 11, 2009

– – Chickens, that is…we’re not talking about wacky weed!   It seems that a growing number of  city-dwellers are experiencing the wonders of raising and farming backyard chickens.  Anyone with a space the size of a patio can keep a few hens, each of which will produce up to an egg a day throughout the year, save for the two months when she’s molting (usually in the fall).

Those who raise them say that chickens can be just as much pets as dogs or cats, are cleaner if properly maintained than most people imagine, and can even be sweet-natured; in its natural state, the chicken is a strangely beautiful bird.

I don’t speak from personal experience here, as you know what they say about leaving a fox in charge of the hen house…

Categories: animals, trends
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Comments: 5 Comments

Lizards In The Underpants…

December 10, 2009

– – I, for one, do not pack skinks in my underwear.  I’ll even resist the temptation to mine that remark for other comic possibilities, ’cause this is a semi-classy place…

A German tourist, however, was caught by airport security attempting to leave New Zealand with a total of 20 skinks and 24 geckos of various species hidden in a small box concealed amidst his underwear.- – One gecko was even rolled into a sock!  The Geico Gecko would be appalled…

Now the geckos had an estimated black market value of $35, 850; the value of the skinks was unknown.  The tourist admitted to taking the reptiles from the wild, and trading and transporting them without a permit…

Skinks have no pronounced neck, and sport relatively small legs, with several genera having no legs at all!  They usually have long, tapering tails that can be shed and regenerated.- -That’s a neat trick if you can pull it off…ROTFL!    😉

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(BTW, Happy International Animal Rights Day!–Bite the Power!!!)

Categories: animals, deplorable practices, rare animal, scalies, things humans do
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Rabid Raccoons in Central Park!

December 9, 2009

– – Be afraid, be very afraid…of the rabid raccoons in New York City’s Central Park, that is!  You may also want to stay away from skunks, bats, and stray dogs and cats…(hey, I rhymed!)

The advisory was issued by health officials Monday, who believe that rabies is being transmitted among raccoons in the park.  Three rabid raccoons have been discovered at Central Park, two of them in the past week!   While rabid raccoons are rare in Manhattan, four have been identified so far this year.

Rabies is a viral disease that is usually transmitted from a bite or scratch by an infected animal; if not treated promptly, it can be fatal.  There hasn’t been a human rabies infection in New York City since 1953…

Categories: animal occurrences, animals, anomalies, science, strange happenings, unexplained
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Zhu Zhu Pet Rampage!

December 8, 2009

– – You’ve almost certainly heard of Zhu Zhu pets unless you live in a cave…I live in a hole in the ground, and I’ve heard of them! The hot kid gift of this season, these basically robotic hamsters do much of what a real hamster does, except eat, poop, and die.

A consumer group’s report that Zhu Zhu pets were unsafe due to dangerous levels of tin and antimony was met with a rebuke from the manufacturer Monday.  The consumer protection group GoodGuide has admitted that its testing methodology does not measure these metals in the same way that American and European guidelines dictate.  GoodGuide says that it found 103 parts per million of antimony on the nose of Mr. Squiggles, one of the most popular hamsters…I, for one, do not intend to put Mr. Squiggles in my mouth, as a child might do….you may do as you wish, ’cause we don’t judge people around here for that kind of thing, and diversity made this country great, right?–Well, at least passably mediocre…

Imagine going to your doorstep in the middle of the night, and finding several hundred of these things lying in wait for you?–Kinda The Night of the Living Dead Hamsters?!    😉

Categories: animals, trends
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Mighty Mite!

December 5, 2009

– – It’s about the size of a peanut, but its sting can kill you…the Irukandji jellyfish, that is.– Well, it seems that a 29-year-old Australian man was in the waters Thursday off northeast Queensland state, and as a precaution was wearing a full-length “stinger suit,” which protects everything but the hands, face, and feet.   Naturally, the jellyfish immediately stung him in the face! A relative of the widely-feared box jellyfish, the sting of the Irukandji can kill an adult within two minutes, is virtually impossible to see, and is tiny enough to pass through nets meant to keep jellyfish away from popular swimming spots.

There is no antivenom, and the sting can cause blood pressure to soar to 280 over 180, leading to heart failure.   Other symptoms of “Irukandji syndrome” include shooting pains in the muscles and chest, vomiting, restlessness, and anxiety.   Symptoms can last for more than a week.

The swimmer is in serious condition at a hospital intensive care unit…



Categories: animal occurrences, animals, rare animal
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Gollum-Like Creature Found…

December 3, 2009

– – Here at  Foxsylvania, we spend much of our time looking for disgusting and unidentifiable creatures washed up on the shore which might be aliens, monsters, cryptids, or perhaps my old supervisor. It was then regarded as quite a find when this loathsome-looking thing was found by teenagers last September feebly crawling out of a cave in a town while they were playing in  Cerro Azul north of Panama City.

–Well, they did what kids anywhere would do, namely beat it to death with sticks and then threw its lifeless body into a pool of water!   This neatly does away with the need for health insurance or a retirement plan for unidentified life forms.

Regarded by some as a cousin to the Montauk Monster, the creature was later pretty conclusively identified as a hairless sloth, whose last impressions of humans were probably not favorable…and what will those kids say when Santa asks them if they’ve been good?


Categories: animals, strange happenings, things humans do
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Poaching Goes On…

December 2, 2009

– – I’m not talking about cooking eggs here, but rather the illegal hunting of rare and endangered animals protected by law, often just for a body part such as their hide or the ivory of elephants.

In a three month operation, African authorities in Nairobi, Kenya seized over 3,800 pounds of illegally-taken elephant ivory, together with leopard, crocodile, and snake skins.   Poaching has increased in Kenya in the past two years, with more than 216 elephants killed illegally this year compared to 47 in 2007.

The elephant populations of many African nations were being decimated until a global ban on the ivory trade was implemented in 1989.   In 1973 an estimated 167,000 elephants roamed Kenya, with their population dropping to 16,000 in 1989.  Since the ban on the ivory trade, the Kenya elephant population has grown to 35,000 this year…

Categories: animals, deplorable practices, furry
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