Follow-ups 12/9/09 Reader Megan brought this to my attention: a
mutant parakeet - the opposite of the bald parrot pictured in this post! And just for good measure, here are a few more oddities: birds in
sweaters (
scroll down),
diapers, a
flight harness, and
fancy dress.
Hermits - 2 scenarios 12/8/09 An unidentified
couple from Indiana have been selected from 250 individuals or families who offered to adopt 2 pugs -
Harry and Sally - who had fed on the flesh of their owner after he died.
Happy Thanksgiving! 11/26/09 I mentioned in an e-mail to my previous next-door neighbor Steve that we were going to save ourselves the trouble and order a boxed turkey dinner from the local grocery store this year, and I just have to share his response: "
I hear them kind of turkeys are the ones that died in the truck - the brown part of the skin is really broom marks." When I told him we were doing the same thing for Christmas, he responded, "
Christmas boxed turkeys are the ones that the homeless shelters rejected on Thanksgiving for smelling worse than the people there to eat them." I hope that doesn't offend anyone. It left me giggling!
Docking cow tails 10/27/09 A
jumping cow made the news in Blagdon, Somerset, U.K. In news somewhat related to this post, the RSPCA reports that a "
caller was distressed about a 'tumour' hanging off the back of a sheep. When an inspector attended, he found the 'tumour' was, in fact, a tail."
Shackleton 10/28/09 Word of another treasure found in an Antarctic hut - this time the oldest supply of
Kiwi butter found near a shelter of Robert F. Scott.
Dinosaur eggs 10/3/09 Every new dinosaur discovery is said to threaten the current knowledge of paleontology. Here's another discovery that promises to "
shake the dinosaur family tree."
Pig butchering 9/1/09 Investigations by the U.S.D.A. are underway in Florida to root out
unlicensed slaughterhouses.
Human hybrids 8/22/09 Like the artist of this procative sculpture, Australian artist
Sam Jinks creates very realistic sculptures like the one pictured above. It reminds me - as it is surely meant to - of the
Pietà.
Surviving rabies 8/18/09 An Arizona man was set upon by a
rabid bobcat last week and managed to strangle it with his bare hands.
Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 An instrument - the
harpsichord-viola - has been reconstructed from the sketches in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.
Ripley's Seeing is Believing 8/14/09 In this post, I link to a video of a pelican swallowing a pigeon. Here is a report of
2 herons whose eyes were bigger than their stomachs - with fatal results.
Pangolins 7/20/09 My sister brought to my attention the recent rescue of some pangolins destined for the Black Market, and I found a number of recent recoveries:
130 and another
31 in December and
98 in August in Malaysia, and
66 in December in Thailand.
Green eggs and ham 5/11/09 Wild pigs are a
hazard at the international airport in Harare, Zimbabwe. Dressing as a wild boar while
hunting proved fatal in Greece. And walkers in Germany were
terrorized by wild boars. (Plenty of weird wild boar news to form a future post about "Hogzilla" and his kin.)
Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 California animal shelters report an
overabundance of chihuahuas and have begun to ship them out of state.
Frozen baby mammoth 4/26/09 "
Lyuba" has been preserved and insured in preparation for an international museum tour.
Bears in the news 4/24/09 India's last
performing bear has been set free to live out its remaining days in a sanctuary in Bangalore. A zoo in Georgia houses
a lion, a tiger, and a bear together in a single habitat.
Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 The
Georgia centenarian mentioned by President Obama in his election night speech has died at the age of 107. Meanwhile, a
man in Maine has turned 108. And on the darker side, a Massachusetts centenarian has been
killed, purportedly by her 98-year-old roomate, and a 100-year-old sex offender has been
released from prison in New York.
Big bunny 2/24/09 Here's a story about a
giant pet rabbit who has patterned its behavior after the family's cocker spaniel.
Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 Monkeys trained in the
martial arts revolted and turned on their trainer in China.
Marine creatures 2/15/09 An aquarium in Norfolk, U.K., has lowered the water levels in the
turtle tank so the creatures can be given their seasonal and vitamin-rich treat of brussel sprouts without their resultant gassiness triggering overflow alarms. And since we're talking about turtles,
here's one with 2 heads and 6 legs.
Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday 2/12/09 The body of the
former president of Cyprus has been stolen from his tomb.
Hedgehogs 1/8/09 Here's an
overweight albino hedgehog on a swimming regimen to lose the ounces...
Rats! 12/20/09 A
capybara - the world's largest rodent - has been accidentally crushed to death in a Canadian zoo.
Birds and dogs 12/15/08 In December, in Apalachicola, Florida, a man saw a medium-sized poodle
snatched up by what appeared to be a chicken hawk, and a Pomeranian was
carried off by an owl and dropped 2mi away, breaking her tail. Also in December - speaking of big birds - a hawk or falcon
gots its talon stuck in the escalator of a metro station in Washington, D.C. and a hawk
spent the night in a Wellington, Florida, hardware store [note that the manager's name is Quigley!]. Last year, professional golfer Tripp Isenhour got a lot of bad press and a fine for
deliberately killing a red-shouldered hawk with a golf ball because it was interrupting the video he was shooting on an Orlando, Florida, course.
Space chimp 12/5/08 Russia's Cosmonautics Agency is in talks with an institute in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia to send one of their 350 apes on a
mission to Mars, looked after by a robot.
Yellowstone 11/21/08 Scientists have revealed that the seismic "
plumbing" beneath Yellowstone National Park runs an astonishing 410 miles deep!