Albinos

People with albinism are being targeted in Burundi and Tanzania because of the superstitious belief that their body parts can be used by witchdoctors to make magic potions. This has sparked a lucrative trade in albino limbs, hair, and skin, and has caused albinos to abandon their homes or live in fear. Dozens have been killed, many of them children. One woman had her legs hacked off and died afterward; another woman's hand was cut off, but she survived. Most recently, a family had just returned to their home after fleeing to a provincial center in Ruyigi, Burundi, when attackers tied the parents up, shot their 6-year-old albino daughter in the head, dismembered her body, and took away her limbs and head. Albinos have long suffered discrimination in Africa, but an albino woman appointed to Tanzanian Parliament hopes to change that.

Aiming for the albino

While a hunter in Indiana happened to trap an albino raccoon this month, a hunter in Missouri deliberately took aim at an animal that for years had been a sort of local mascot. Others had avoided taking down the albino buck in the past, but this guy shot it with a bow and arrow on private land just north of Cape Girardeau. After the kill, Jerry Kinnaman (IMAGE ABOVE) commented, "I'm sure this is gonna stir some people up." And it did. In an attempt to appease them, he donated the deer's meat, but plans to have its body mounted and possibly put it up for sale, rather then keep it as a trophy. Kinnaman has no regrets: "This is the oldest and most unique deer I'll probably ever take. This is the buck of a lifetime."

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Follow-ups

NATURAL

Rhinoceros: rhino airlift (pictured) | Bears: interrupted safety lecture, electrocuted hunter, punched by pet-owner, woman eaten while on phone, vs. wolves, cows battle bear, bear and bicyclist collide, bear vs. vehicle, killer grizzly allowed to live | Runaway animals: ferret, baboon, another baboon, Czech kangaroo steals undies, rogue kangaroo attacks woman, mountain lion killed on porch, drunken moose, albino ostrich on the loose, zoo wolf loose, herd of cows, wayward wallaby, chimp on the loose, how did a kiwi get to Russia? | Elusive animals: rainbow toad, transparent frog, snow leopard, unshorn sheep, horse caught on speed camera, pony in pub, shark jumps aboard ship, gibbons in Vietnam, "living fossil" mouse, skink saved from extinction, new shark, giant squid, military studies squid camouflage, blind snake rediscovered, rare toads, tree rat reappears | Service animals: kangaroo, rat, unlicensed monkey | Robo-animals: orthodontist fixes turtle, tortoise, wheeled tortoise, elephant, dog's wheelchair stolen, 3-legged dog | Hero animals: dog submerges to survive fire, chihuahua thwarts robbery, Greyfriar's Bobby a scam?, snails survive digestion by birds, hurt dog locates owner after storm, dog and owner survive 200' drop, world's oldest captive orangutan relinquishes record, longest living 2-faced cat | Animal births: aardvark, tortoise hook-up, double-snouted pig, 2-headed calf, albino kiwi, 3 albino raccoons | Spiders: silk-spinning tarantulas, why we fear them, poison pizza, giant web, silk textile travels, supermarket shutdown | Alligator: in the house | Octopus: crawls on dry land | Snakes: in dress shop, charmed, python swallows deer, teenager saves snakebite victim, sanctuary owner killed by one of his snakes, snake-infested house | Tasmanian tiger: more like cat or dog?, strength of jaws, zoo or church? | Elephants: in a pool, on the loose in Germany (photo here) | Birds: cadaver vultures?, eagle dropped dear | Foxes: hydrotherapy | Zebras: zebra thinks it's a horse | Aesop: rude chimp

HISTORICAL

Old eats: bog butter, Washington's whiskey | Disasters: Alaskan volcano, volcano from orbit, meandering Mississippi, tree ring analysis | Accidents: drunk drives through occupied house, SUV crashes through attic, driver crashes into DMV, hit and run (with body), Titanic II sinks on maiden voyage | Mummies: ancient parasite, in Vietnam museum, collecting Social Security, kept Grandma's corpse, father of cryonics movement dies | Archaeology: Utah fires state archaeologists, Blackbeard's ship and anchor, Roman-era shipwreck, decode ancient papyri, clay head effigy, pyramids by satellite | Venus: cache of 1,000s | Skeletons: photos from Empire of Death, bones of witch, slave graveyard, death goes unnoticed for 8 years, repatriated Inuit remains, human heads | Fossils: giant prehistoric birds, "Frankenstein" insects, colorful beetles, sea turtle, man's best friend - fossilized, "Eve" mammal, giant prehistoric wombat | Genealogy: ancestor found on wall of Cracker Barrel | Exhumation: Shakespeare? | Cave art: in Britain, underground passages in Bavaria, rock art at risk, aurochs, Pakistani petroglyphs (pictured) | Teeth: Viking markings | Library books: 200-year-old book returned

UNUSUAL

Progeria: Leon Botha has died (pictured) | Conjoined twins: adults in New Jersey | separated, another separation, 2-headed baby born in China | Polydactyly: 34 digits, Cuban man with 6-fingered hands | Androgyny: Andrej Pejic | Transplant: Charla Nash now | Amputation: police attach ankle monitor to removable limb, hovercraft decapitation, Great Dane bites off nose, regrowth of leg, headless body, beheading, prosthetic demo, severed finger identifies attacker | Impalement: pruning shears | Surgery: exploding eyeball, steering with tongue | Smuggling: leopards, tarantulas, turtle confiscation, trafficking in walrus tusks | Photography: suicide stopped, leopard attack, tiger v. bear, 1st x-rays auctioned, 1st photo of fish using tools, mountain lion and housecat | Deaths: by cow, by meat grinder, bus driver while on duty, spontaneous human combustion, SHC in Ireland, dead owner eaten by pets | Centenarians: prisoner released at 108, Brazilian dies at 114, another alive at 120?, Englishwoman dies at 109, last WWI veteran dies at 110, 100 in New Hampshire, another in Ohio, a third in Oregon, 115-year-old in Georgia, 100-year-old newlywed | Fads: pointy boots, yarn bombs stolen, yarn bombing Wall Street and Astor Place, humans wear flea collars | Sports: freak golfing accident, posthumous cheer, shark jumps surfer, fisherman's tug-of-war with sea lion | Mt. Everest: 21st summit | climber finds body of friend | Xenoglossia: dental surgery bestows British accent, ancient language dictionary | Adventurous eating: cooking the odd bits, Brooklyn bushmeat, live rat in bread, mutton siezed, elk lips, raccoon meat for sale at car wash smuggling dried turtles | Labor: during driving test, twin from each uterus | Gardens: flowers bloom twice in a season, corpse flower, buried alive | Hobbit houses: homemade | Space: diamond planet discovered | Hoarding: chihuahuas, skunks | Captives: another case in Austria | Roadkill: well-traveled mountain lion, neighborhood cockerel murdered, assaults with frozen animals | Popemobile: going green, Wienermobile: riding to the prom | Music: aeolian harp of sorts

PERSONAL

Games: Quigley crossword (no relation) | Mummies: recent contact Maaza Mengiste wrote about Sicily mummies | Mike Rowe: one of my heroes testifies before Senate committee about jobs (transcript here) | Lewis Hine: An anonymous reader pointed out that the photo at the top of this post was not taken by Hine, but by Charles C. Ebbets, and includes his or her great uncle Francis Michael Rafferty (4th from right) and Rafferty's lifelong friend Stretch Donahue (3rd from right). | Illamasqua: Charles Cowling wrote to say, "I was so pleased to see your eyes lit up by the Illamasqua partnership with Levertons – the Royal undertaker," and suggested watching this slideshow of a Harlem funeral home. | Mütter Movie: My friend Deb. pointed out that the Quay Brothers were interviewed on NPR. Designer Laura Lindgren informs me that the 2012 Mütter Calendar is out, and wrote to me after this Quay Brothers post, "If your ears were ringing yesterday afternoon, by the way, it would be because Ken, my husband and publishing partner (when he's not at his day job managing a law firm!), and I were sitting at my computer and reading through your blog and kept on saying how fantastic it is, which is of course to say how fantastic you are. The way you think and write about things and the things that draw your attention is so completely delightful and engaging and smart. Bravo!" | PSA: About the world's greatest public service announcement, marketing coordinator Donna Williams responds, "We understand that our ads are very graphic and may make some viewers uncomfortable, but professional studies show that they are extremely effective in helping at helping motivate people to quit using tobacco and preventing youth from starting to use tobacco. We are glad that you also understand the importance of airing such hard hitting ads. Thank you again and we appreciate your support and recent blog post. Your interest and efforts will help us reach our goal of a Tobacco Free Florida." | Aquaria: Follower L. Lynn Zieber suggested a creative alternative. | Owl imprint: Follower Kimberly K. Walsh shared her photo of a dove imprint (pictured). | Butterfly surgery: Priscilla Moore declares me her favorite blogger and suggests this website that reports on mishaps with glue. | Promession: Follower Michael Smith pointed me to this article about alternative disposal methods. | High altitude: Follower Fiona Richardson sent a link about a WWII pilot found by climbers. | Silly: My friend Sue circulated a poem by Shel Silverstein: "There are kids underneath my bed," / Cried little baby monster Fred. / Momma monster smiled. "Oh, Fred, / There's no such things as kids," she said. Also this candidate for the strangest headline of all time, this video of Capt. Sully landing flight #1549 in the Hudson River, and the news that the rights to the "Frozen Dead Guy Days" festival are for sale. I forgot to mention earlier, with regard to Shakers, that Sue met some of the last surviving members of the Canterbury Shaker Village, and describes: "The last living Eldress was Bertha Lindsay and Ken and I had a chance to meet her one day when we visited the Village. She was blind but looking forward to her lunch of hot dogs and baked beans. I remember her as a tiny lady in traditional Shaker garb. Sister Gertrude Soule was quite reclusive and lived in a private building in the middle of the busy museum grounds. She was not an Elderess, only a lay member of the church. Their cemetery was near the Village and the Shaker tradition was that graves were not marked. That was also true for some Quaker cemeteries." | Little people: When we conferred about the death of another Munchkin, my friend James Taylor asked, "You do know - no? - that Karl once sent me hate mail, making one of the few folks on Planet Earth who ever got hate mail from a Munchkin. Seems that after I got him a gig on Jerry Springer (which treated him very well and paid him some ok money), he blamed me for Springer's people titling the segment 'I Worked as a Sideshow Freak,' and, of course, Karl never did that: He worked in a midget village. On carnivals and world's fairs. Nah, no sideshow there. I should probably frame that letter." | Home sweet silo: My former boss Jim Schaefer sent along this link. And when I thanked him for sending blogworthy information on Spoonerisms, he responded, "You should reap me on a container!" | Blossom: I received a positive response from Dr. Siegel when I contacted him about using his photos: "Dear Chris - Awesome! Thanks for the posting and attribution. I love it....Keep up the good work and best of luck in the future. Poxicologically yours, Robert." | E. Sherman Hayman: The artist writes, "Wow Chris, that was incredible! Thank you so much, you made my day!....Your blog and topics really grabbed me....I wish I had known about it a couple of years ago when I was still working on that series." | Cello passenger: Things have only gotten worse says Robert Bersin, who is quoted: "Thanks for the mention! That article was written for Strings Magazine in 1990. The hassles of flying are much worse now. I drive. That, of course, rules out trips to Europe or the Far East." | Eating rocks: The dog's owner commented, "I can't tell you how or why he did it. He's never eaten rocks before. It was very scary. But he recovered and didn't need surgery. I can't believe how Harley's story has spread all over the internet." | Many of the links follower Chase has sent me have become or will become blog posts. Others were in response to these... Fabergé: royal boxes, Arcimboldo: cabbage girls, Big bugs: little bugs, Rediscovered kitchen: time capsule. | Lastly, a thank you to everyone who regularly reads and comments on Quigley's Cabinet, including my sister Melissa, Deborah McCann, and Kim Hu!

More follow-ups

Odd animals 11/4/09 An Australian girl is injured attempting to rescue an echidna from a storm drain.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 A portrait of Cosimo I de Medici (not by da Vinci) features the earliest depiction of a watch.

Adventurers Club 8/9/09 Neighbors of a man in Worcester, U.K., object to the multi-level treehouse he built.

Stain 8/6/09 Scientists prove that the ashes of the dead still emit radiation 60 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Weird watercolors 8/1/09 A 10-year-old British piano prodigy has been compared to Mozart.

Cenotaph 7/31/09 A recent article about the measures undertaken to conserve the cenotaphs at Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 A series by Irish photographer Maeve Berry takes as its subject the reduction of the human body in the crematory retort.

Bog bodies 6/19/09 The preserved remains of 17th c. Gunnister Man are returned from the National Museum of Scotland to Shetland, where he was discovered in 1951.

Birthing and hoarding bunnies 6/18/09 It's not hoarding yet, but a 20-year-old British woman has acquired 24 of these pygmy hedgehogs.

"Seven Pounds" 6/14/09 A blood-red jellyfish that has recently come to the attention of scientists.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Three new species of caecilians - something between a snake and a worm - have been discovered in India. Some 850 new invertebrates have been found in the Australian outback. And 40 new species are discovered in a remote volcano in Papua New Guinea.

George Gaylord Simpson 5/25/09 An independent assessment has refuted the idea that the fossil known as "Ida" is the so-called missing link.

The house that May (re)built 5/23/09 A woman in Lawshall, Suffolk, England, has built an extension to her historic home using human hair.

Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 Nine chihuahua puppies are led down a busy highway to a Texas animal shelter by their dad.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 Prosthetics for a calf that lost its hind legs to frostbite.

Fossil fuels 3/25/09 Swedish researchers find that it does not require fossilized animals and plants to generate crude oil and natural gas.

Poisonous fumes 3/17/09 An illustrated list of the 33 deadliest substances on earth.

Spider prey 3/7/09 Biologists have discovered the largest orb weaver spider yet. And British Airways cancelled a domestic flight in late October after a passenger had an unconfirmed sighting of a tarantula.

The Mole People 3/4/09 Like those living in the subway tunnels of New York, people are setting up house in the drains beneath Las Vegas.

Tool use and innovation in wild bottlenose dolphins 2/10/09 Dolphins play, using jellyfish as a ball! Unfortunately, a tourist died while swimming with dolphins in New Zealand in October.

Morbid motorcycles 1/28/09 Like the motorcycle hearses in this post, a psychelic hearse fills a certain niche market. Meanwhile, the family of an avid racing fan arranges for him to make a final lap around the local racetrack in his hearse.

Hedgehogs 1/8/09 In Edinburgh, a pregnant hedgehog wandered into the lobby of a luxury hotel and gave birth to triplets!

Cleaning skulls is a dirty job 12/7/08 Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" has launched a website to help people find work.

Albinos 11/18/08 In September, 3 Tanzanian men were sentenced to death by hanging for killing a 14-year-old albino boy. And a story about a Brazilian woman who has given birth to 3 albino children.

Follow-ups

I've let these pile up again, so here's the 1st segment of 2 or more...

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Piper negrum 9/24/09 Man arrested for sneezing fetish.

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Pig butchering 9/1/09 Another painting has been restored to reveal a surprise.

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World's heaviest insects 8/28/09 A "hotdog-sized" caterpillar found in Florida pool.

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Messel pit 8/24/09 Dinosaur fossils found in China have the earliest known feathers. And feather fossils found in Messel have vivid iridescent colors.

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Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Mona Lisa comes to life in Beijing. A list f Mona Lisa parodies was published a week after my post.

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Victor Noir 8/10/09 The vault above Marilyn Monroe, mentioned in a follow-up to this post, has been sold to the highest bidder.

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Castaways, real and imagined 8/6/09 Treehouses have become a trend in France.

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Strange stories about teeth 7/13/09 A pacu fish, like the one in this post, has been living in the same pet store for 41 years.

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Oscar Mayer dies 7/9/09 Ohio State University graduate hired to drive the weinermobile.

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Two of a kind 6/12/09 Photo of a 1-year-old echidna.

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Pied Piper of Hamelin 5/5/09 The rats have finally been eradicated from Alaska's Rat Island.

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Prosimians 4/25/09 Lemurs killed as bush meat.

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Vlad the Impaler 4/11/09 A sequel to Dracula by Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew has been published.

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Robo-animals 4/9/09 A box turtle gets substitutes for its missing legs. A duckling that had fractured its leg was given a sandal, but has since died.

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Kunstkammer 3/21/09 More dentistry: the dentures of George Washington.

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Camelopard 3/6/09 Art project to collect 1 million handmade images of giraffes.

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Snake handlers 2/21/09 Snakebite victims in India die because they do not seek treatment in time, believing that charmers can counteract the toxin.

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Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 The defense tactic in the lawsuit about the chimp attack in Connecticut.

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Corpse flower 1/30/09 Scientists measure the cost and benefit of the diet of carnivorous plants and analyze the chemical contents of the pitcher plant's fluid.

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Birds and dogs 12/15/09 Maori legend about a man-eating bird has been proven true.

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Albinos 11/18/09 Trainer gets in the water with albino alligator. A photo of the strange-looking axolotl - this one an albino - that is nearing extinction.

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Animal extinction 11/9/09 Biologists discover 163 new species in China, all at risk of extinction, and paleontologists wonder if we will ever run out of new dinosaur species to discover.

Follow-ups

Creative cremains The company that makes diamonds out of human cremains can also make them out of human hair, and has announced plans to produce and sell diamonds from a lock of hair that belonged to the recently deceased Michael Jackson.

Maps featured in paintings I received an e-mail reply from Jonathan Janson after featuring his site in this post. He thanked me for the citation and words of enthusiasm, and mentioned that his own work will be in a show at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York in October. In other map news, Danish experts have declared that the Vinland Map , the first known map to show part of America before Italian explorer Christopher Colombus (c. 1451-1506) landed on the continent, is genuine.

Steampunk design Follower Carrie Hoggan loved this post and was pleased to link me to this site by a man who does impressive steampunk modifications and breeds cuttlefish! (Like the octopus, the cuttlefish is a cephalopod.)

Pangolins Reader Kathleen Kotcher visited China in 2008 and reports that she did not see anyone eating a pangolin. She sent along this photo and writes, "It would be difficult to eat this pangolin...but I too share the love."

Oscar Mayer dies In a follow-up to this post, I noted that the wienermobile had been in an accident. Less than a month later, Oscar Mayer has made the news 3 more times! The company violated a state ban on vehicular advertising when they sent the wienermobile to Hawaii for 2 weeks. They were named in a lawsuit by the Cancer Project, a vegan advocacy group that wants warning labels placed on hot dogs. And they have received a letter from PETA encouraging them to bury the wienermobile with Mr. Mayer...

Madame Tussaud Members of the African-American sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha are suing to oust their president Barbara McKinzie for misappropriating funds, including commissioning a $900,ooo wax figure of herself. This amount seemed excessive to me, and I was right - Madame Tussaud's wax figures cost between $200,000 and $300,000 each to produce.

Believe It or Not! Readers may not be aware that there is an on-line contest called You Bet Their Life, in which participants win a share of a cash prize based on the celebrities they correctly guess will die during the coming year.

Happy Father's Day! Since hanging up the birdfeeder I sent my Dad for Father's Day, he hasn't seen any finches. He references this story about the bust of a finch-fighting ring and the siezure of as many as 150 birds, and asks, "Maybe that's where my finches are?"

OldtimerHenry Allingham, featured in this post, passed on his title of "World's Oldest Man" when he died earlier this month. The honor now goes to Montana resident Walter Breuning, age 112.

Elusive animals The New York Times reports that although humans are the cause of mass extinctions, we are also in the middle of the age of discovery for mammals, with 400 or so new species described and added to the list just since 2005.

Clown's funeral Members of the San Francisco Clown Conservatory have posed in the nude for a calendar that is being sold to help fight Multiple Sclerosis (the disease that I have). They hope to raise $1 million.

Whales, articulated and dismantled This story of a cruise ship docking in Canada with a dead whale pinned to the bow was all over the weird news last Sunday, but I have found 2 other incidences in Alaska - one a cruise ship and the other an oil tanker - plus the statistics of whales being struck by ships.

Scrabble creator When I was looking at these creative gravestones, I thought that a similar Scrabble marker (pictured) ought to mark the grave of the game's inventor, Alfred Butts (1899-1993). Note that there is also a gravestone with a crossword puzzle theme.

Chihuahuas in the weird news Yet more chihuahua news to report... "Gidget," who became famous for her appearance in a series of Taco Bell commercials, has died at the age of 15. Her trainer said, "She always knew where the camera was." And in Dearborn, Michigan, 112 live chihuahuas were rescued from the home of a hoarder, who had 150 dogs in his freezer.

Accidental fossil discoveries A flurry of fossil news: Researchers have identified a 260 million-year-old fossil found in Russia in 1994 (pictured) as the earliest tree-dwelling creature. Scientists studying the Yangtze Gorge in China have determined that the oldest fossils are found in lakes, rather than oceans - where lifeforms were believed to have evolved. Fishermen trawling off the coast of the Netherlands hooked a bone that came from the forehead of a caveman. And the fossils of extinct birds have been found in Hawaii.

Animals and lightning I received a viral video of a group of musicians simulating a thunderstorm and was very impressed, but the performance was not identified in any way. I managed to find the entire video and information about the choir, Perpetuum Jazzile, which is from Slovenia.

Robo-animals An orphaned baby Asian elephant named "Chhouk," crippled by a poacher's snare, has been outfitted with a prosthetic foot and can now walk again because of his discovery and care by a Cambodian rescue center.

Big fish, big snake A snake named "Ann" - who was fed a whole hog every 2 or 3 months - has died at the Memphis Zoo. Her feedings drew many visitors during her 10-year tenure. Ann was a reticulated python captured in Indonesia.

Stonework I love environmental art like that of American artist Andy Goldsworthy. Here are some beautiful works created at the beach in San Francisco by another American artist Andres Amador.

Disturbing decapitations It was reported earlier this month that the Dutch have repatriated the severed head of a Ghanaian chief. Leader of the Ahanta tribe, King Bada Bonsu II had been decapitated 171 years ago by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in retaliation for the killing of 2 Dutch emmissaries.

Auroras Norwegian researchers have proved by examining NASA images that the Aurora Borealis and the Aurora Australis, which were thought to be mirror images of one another, can be completely assymmetrical.

Birds and dogs Joggers on holiday in Helmsford, Cornwall, U.K. - 36-year-old Stuart Urquhart (pictured) and 19-year-old Eleanor Dennis - have been attacked by a buzzard while on their runs. In other big bird news, India has become the first country to successfully breed the endangered slender-billed vulture in captivity.

Happy Thanksgiving! The look of this rare albino turtle found on the shore of China's Yellow River has been compared to a plucked turkey. Unlike in parts of Africa superstitious and discriminatory toward albinos, they have a special place in Chinese culture. Meanwhile, some of the albino-murderers in Burundi have received prison time.

Italy itinerary If you follow the link to La Specola on this post, you will see the most famous collection of anatomical waxes. In this audio slideshow, you will see and hear about the anatomical wax models and moulages in the Wellcome Collection in London.

The Raft of the Medusa If you have a weak stomach, read no further. Cannibalism is supposedly the newest trend to sweep across Japan. This goes beyond shaping food into a body that can then be eaten and involves preparing meals that include human tissue obtained - with the government's stamp of approval - from hospitals.

Nadar and the Paris Catacombs The Exeter City Council in Devon, U.K., identified the catacombs at St. Bartholomew's Cemetery - a popular tourist attraction - as a potential temporary mortuary for victims of the H1N1 virus should the need arise.

Follow-ups

Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin wearing one of his designer prostheses.

I want to follow up on my posts, but the news items and comments are coming so fast and furious that I have opted to discontinue my time-consuming practice of many small illustrations in favor of the one I consider the best, so be sure to check all the links for associated photographs. Enjoy!

The narwhal 8/19/09 Here are some extraordinary images of an ocean photographer's encounter with a 50' humpback whale in the South Pacific.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 Relating to my post about Leonardo da Vinci's inventions is this Smithsonian slideshow of the instruments of discovery used and improved upon by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), including another of my favorite words to say - the astrolabe.

Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Among these replications of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting, I forgot to include the work of Scott Wade - Mona Lisa's image on a dirty window.

Victor Noir 8/10/09 Speaking of sex symbols, Marilyn Monroe can be your postmortem bunkmate. The woman whose husband's body is entombed above hers at Westwood Village Memorial Park in L.A. is moving his body and auctioning off the crypt on e-bay to settle her Beverly Hills mortgage. (Thanks to reader Elena for the link!)

Jaws in 1916 8/8/08 Thanks to reader Michael Keighery for this link to an Australian mystery from 1935. The Shark Arm Case followed 3 shark deaths off the coast of New South Wales. A 3.5M tiger shark was caught and put on live display at the Coogee Aquarium Baths. The visitors who flocked to see the man-killer were not disappointed - it disgorged a tattooed human arm. But the owner of the arm was the victim of a murder rather than the shark...

Eunuchs 8/7/09 In India, thousands of male members of a cult devoted to Radha dress as this female lover of Krishna, baffling religious leaders.

Stain 8/6/09 My former boss Jim Schaefer sent me this link to an incredible story and slideshow of photographs of Hiroshima taken by the Physical Damage Division of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and accidentally rediscovered in a pile of junk on a Watertown, Massachusetts, street. On this year's anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, a piano that had survived Hiroshima was played at a performance in Tokyo.

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Death worm and bloodworm 8/5/09 Follower Kent Schnake liked the worm post and recommended the film Dune. He also points out that the guinea worm and similar parasites common in Africa are - even though they don't spit acid and shoot lightning out of their ass - horrible in their own way.

Weird watercolors 8/1/09 This post mentions the painting Rembrandt did as a child. Here you can listen to a piece of music written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) at the age of 7 or 8.

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Hummingbirds 7/28/09 Follower Megan McCabe said this post reminded her to tell me about the work of graffiti artist Dan Witz, who paints lifelike hummingbirds in public spaces.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 I heard from a reader who offers another creative alternative to stashing ashes in a columbarium - adhering a small portion of them to a photograph - an "ashprint," as she calls it on her blog Final Photograph. In other ashen news: Earlier this month, a man in Vershire, Vermont, borrowed a wheelbarrow, disinterred the cremated remains of his father, and brought them - along with the man's headstone - home with him, a crime punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Happy Father's Day! 6/21/09 In a follow-up to my Father's Day post, I referenced this story about fighting finches. I just learned that partridge-fighting is a popular gambling sport in Afghanistan.

Placing of rocks 6/20/09 I had not heard of the Durdle Door in Dorset, England, until I researched this post, but once seen, it is most recognizable. It has been used, however, to lure tourists to a resort in Dubai.

Bog bodies 6/19/09 Workers at Gilltown bog in Co. Kildare, Ireland, uncovered a 3,000-year-old oak barrel of butter. Museum director Padraig Clancy calls the Iron Age practice of sinking the butter in the bog "piseogary."

Obama likeness 6/5/09 A similarity to Michael Jackson is seen in this Egyptian statue at Chicago's Field Museum.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Researchers have just discovered that the Tasman booby is not extinct after all - it has been masquerading as the masked booby for years!

Barnacle geese 5/30/09 A sea monster with writhing tentacles that washed up on shore in Wales turned out to be a seething mass of goose barnacles attached to a log!

Cave paintings at Lascaux 5/25/09 Archaeologists believe they have identified the earliest map - a 14,000-year-old representation of the area landscape found on a tablet in a Spanish cave.

Birds! 5/21/09 Like the goose flying upside-down in this post, here is a remarkable photo of an eagle (unsuccessfully) attacking a goose larger than itself in mid-air.

Mortsafes 5/20/09 My friends Valerie and Roger were vacationing in Scotland recently and send me this snapshot from one of the graveyards indicating how the caretakers have responded to a gravestone that apparently fell over on someone.

Species named after Stephen Colbert 5/8/09 Related to this post only because it's about a bug, here's a story about the discovery of the rarest insect on earth, not seen in 70 years - the 6" Lord Howe Island stick insect, also known as the "land lobster." The article was written by fan Dylan Thuras of Curious Expeditions and Atlas Obscura.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 There have been numerous stories in the news of bears being struck and killed by cars, but here is a more uplifting item (with video) of a bear that took a swim in a residential pool in San Dimas, California.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 A duck with a fractured leg that healed badly has been outfitted with a sandal. A Thai elephant that stepped on a landmine 10 years ago now has a prosthetic; here's another article about "Motola" with a few more photos. An elephant suffering from abscesses in an English zoo has received a pair of slippers. And a wetsuit has been tailored for a featherless penguin.

Flannery O'Connor 4/9/09 After roaming free for 6 weeks in the town in which I grew up - Springfield, Illinois - 2 peacocks have been reunited with their owner.

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Taxidermy art 4/6/09 I recently made the on-line acquaintance of artist Lisa Wood - check out her wonderful website here.

Poisonous plants 3/30/09 A German supermarket has removed all bags of mixed salad after a customer found a poisonous weed called groundsel in with the greens.

Rosamond Purcell 3/22/09 I have attached this story to my post about Rosamond Purcell because she photographs such collections. Almost 300 rare tropical birds have been stolen from cabinets in the Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertsfordshire, England. Police believe the irreplaceable specimens may be ripped apart so their colorful feathers can be used to make jewelry and fishing lures.

Designer legs 3/15/09 Like amputee Aimee Mullins, who owns several pairs of designer legs, Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin has more than a dozen attachments for his prosthetic arm.

Seahorses and sea dragons 3/14/09 Researchers at the University of Zurich found that male seahorses choose the largest females as mates, which contradicts earlier assumptions that the females do the choosing.

Footprints 2/28/09 Paleontologists from the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland, have discovered - halfway up a mountain in the Alps - the largest dinosaur footprints to be found to date in Europe. My Dad and stepmother Sarah recently happened on a dinosaur museum while traveling through Blanding, Utah, so I have uploaded them here.

Preserved in amber 2/24/09 A new species of an ancient gecko was found in the forest of Myanmar (Burma) preserved in amber in 2008. The amber preserved its toes, with their characteristic sticky hairs, and part of its tail. Here is another article about all of the new species discovered in the Himilayas.

Man on Wire 2/23/09 A priest dressed in traditional garb took part in a daredevil stunt in East Sussex, England, to raise money for charity - he walked a tightrope 80' in the air with no net and no training.

Corpse flower 1/30/09 I haven't specifically blogged about carnivorous plants, but here's a story too good to pass up: a newly discovered species of pitcher plant large enough to eat a rat!

Ancient animals 1/19/09 "Billy," a 110-year-old Galapagos tortoise, has finally mated with 47-year-old "Tammy" after spurning her advances for 15 years! Their 7 eggs are due to hatch in 8 to 12 weeks.

Follow-ups and followers 1/9/09 In the follow-up to my frozen reindeer post, I added the photo of the moose that got strung up on a telephone pole. In the weird news recently was the story of a live ram that was rescued from a telephone pole in Norway when his horn got caught and he abseiled down the wire!

Internal decapitation 12/28/08 Chris Stewart, a 14-year-old boy from Hampshire, England, is the first person to completely recover from (and only the 6th to survive) having his skull separated from his spine, and is back on the track - but in a go-kart rather than a racecar.

Albinos 11/18/08 More albino animals: A porcupine named "Blondie" lives with her sister at the London Zoo. A rare albino swallow made an appearance in Aberdeenshire, England.

Fatal tiger maulings 11/10/08 The 2 brothers who survived the Christmas Day 2007 tiger attack described in this post were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and giving false identification to police after they were stopped when swerving on the highway and found with an open bottle of vodka in the car.

Zeppelin 10/26/09 Here is a great slideshow of the construction and destruction of the dirigible Hindenburg.

Amputation 10/19/08 Riam Dean of London has won an employment suit against Abercrombie & Fitch. The 22-year-old amputee had been taken off the sales floor and made to work in the stockroom because her prosthetic arm did not meet with the store's image.

Alive! 9/25/09 The survivors of the plane crash in the Andes, whose survival cannibalism was documented in books and films, are urging fellow Uruguayans to sign up for a government-run organ donation program.

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Phew, I've got to do my follow-ups more often...