Weird Beasts (by Chris Perridas)

Geese - Thousands of Geese

2009-11-28T16:52:00.002-05:00

We were out on a trip to the pet cemetery to visit the cats' graves and while we were getting the flowers out of the the car I heard what sounded like geese. That was odd since I didn't recall there being any water around the pet cemetery.

Sometimes geese fly overhead, and we looked around but nothing. The noise got louder and louder, and it sounded like hundreds of geese. Where were they?

Finally, maybe a thousand feet up in the air, we saw these tiny dots like dust specks swirling about and sometimes forming huge v's. These were the geese!

It was not just mesmerizing, but supernatural. Wave after wave of groups of screaming geese swept over us at that thousand feet (or more?) heights. Tens of thousands of geese, each group calling to one another and the sounds drifting down to us. It went on for most of twenty minutes until we finally left the cemetery - but it may have been going on for hours.

One other weird thing, too. Below the geese, perhaps only a few hundred of so feet up, there were at least a dozen turkey vultures circling. It seemed obvious, they were awaiting a tired goose to fall out of the sky so they could pounce on the crushed feathered body. We saw at least one hawk, too.

All in all, this was a weird and powerful experience.

Monarch Migration at Bernheim Forest (KY)

2009-09-14T19:58:00.003-04:00

Mr. Bruggers, I apologize.
I meant no disrespect, and here is the link. I have removed the rest of the text and images.
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090913/GREEN/909130344/1008/NEWS01

Please visit Mr. Bruggers article.

Volunteers track monarch migration as population shrinks
By James Bruggers • jbruggers@courier-journal.com • September 13, 2009

Monarch butterflies glide and soar like hawks ... more ...

Is the Loch ness Monster a Real Eel?

2009-09-14T15:04:00.002-04:00

Steve Alten, a native of Philadelphia, holds a Bachelors degree in Physical Education from Penn State University, a Master in Sports Medicine from the University of Delaware, and a Doctorate degree in Sports Administration from Temple University. His first book, MEG; A Novel of Deep Terror was a N.Y.Times bestseller and was sold in more than a dozen countries.

I had no idea about any of his Loch Ness (real life) theories until I heard him on George Noory the other night. He's spent much time and money trying to figure out the Loch Ness mystery.

His opinion is based on a theory that Sargasso Sea species of eel has for millenia been carried by sea currents into inland water systems of Great Britain. It's true and many specimens have been found. Steve himself apprently posted a bounty for evidence, and a tooth of an eel was found in a half-eaten deer carcass on an island of a small lakelet. That tooth was huge, and allegedly this model is based on that tooth or one like it.

Eels do not die unless they spawn. However, lake-locked eels cannot spawn unless they can escape and swim back to Sargasso spawing grounds. Otherwise they live much over 100 years, and continue to grow as they eat.

They love dark, deep, cold water - and thus Loch Ness is an ideal area - plenty of food, lenty of deep, dark, cool water.

And they have teeth. And they are amphibious and can not only crawl on land, small eels can climb trees like a snake. There is no escape once they latch onto "food" which could include peoples. Eek.

These are images that folks associated with Alten have found and formed. Be afraid of the dark waters - be very afraid.

Weird Pink Grasshopper!

2009-09-13T16:57:00.001-04:00

11-year-old boy finds pink grasshopper
A rare pink grasshopper has been found by a schoolboy taking part in a nature trail.

By Richard Savill
Published: 7:00AM BST 11 Sep 2009

Pink grasshopper: The insect was identified by wildlife officers as an adult female common green grasshopper, which has been born pink. Photo: APEX
The insect was found by 11-year-old Daniel Tate who thought it was a flower until he saw it jump and then he realised it was a grasshopper.

The insect was later identified by wildlife officers as an adult female common green grasshopper, which has been born pink.

Daniel, who attended the wildlife event at Seaton Marshes, near Sidmouth, Devon, with his great grandfather, said: "I was looking for grasshoppers when I saw something pink.

"I thought it was a flower but I saw it moving, so I tried to catch it. It jumped and then I knew it was a grasshopper."

He added: “I was really excited to hear that no one else had found a pink grasshopper at that place before.”

Fraser Rush, nature reserves officer for East Devon District Council, said: “There are millions of common green grasshoppers but I have never seen a pink one. The female comes in a variety of colours, normally different shades of green and brown. Occasionally it tends towards purple, but this is a leap beyond that to pink.”

He added: “Pink grasshoppers are unusual but not unheard of. However the intensity of the pink in this case must make it highly unusual.”

Mr Rush said the pink grasshopper was “a natural variety of the species, albeit a rare one. It has not been caused by any mutation, or any environmental effects.”

He added: “There is a chance it will have bred already and will pass on its pink gene.”

After being studied the grasshopper was released back into the reserve.

Giant Worm of Moscow, Idaho

2009-07-12T23:20:00.002-04:00

Searchers shovel Northwest dirt seeking giant worm
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS (12 July 2009)

MOSCOW, Idaho (AP) — The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle — its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from "Dune" or those vicious creatures from the movie "Tremors."

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.

But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.

The worm may be elusive, but there's no doubt it exists, said Jodi Johnson-Maynard, a University of Idaho professor who is leading the search for the worm. To prove it, she pulled out a glass tube containing the preserved remains of a fat, milky-white worm. One of Johnson-Maynard's graduate students found this specimen in 2005, and it is the only confirmed example of the species.

The worm in the tube is about 6 inches long, well short of the 3 feet that early observers of the worms in the late 1890s described. Documented collections of the species, known locally as GPE, have occurred only in 1978, 1988, 1990 and 2005.

The farmers who work the rich soil of the Palouse — 2 million acres of rolling wheat fields near the Idaho-Washington border south of Spokane — also have had little experience with the worm.

Gary Budd, who manages a grain elevator in Uniontown, said no farmer he knows has talked about seeing the worm. He compared the creature to Elvis.

"He gets spotted once in awhile too," Budd joked.

Johnson-Maynard and her team of worm hunters are working this summer at a university research farm and using three different methods to try and find a living worm.

One involves just digging a hole and sifting the soil through a strainer, looking for any worms that can be studied.

The second involves old-fashioned chemical warfare, pouring a liquid solution of vinegar and mustard onto the ground, irritating worms until they come to the surface.

The third method is new to this search, using electricity to shock worms to the surface.

"The electro shocker is pretty cool," said Joanna Blaszczak, a student at Cornell who is spending her summer working to find the worm alongside Shan Xu, a graduate student from Chengdu, China, and support scientist Karl Umiker.

The shocker can deliver up to 480 volts. That makes it dangerous to touch, and it could potentially fry a specimen.

On a recent day, Umiker drove eight 3-foot-long metal rods into the ground in a small circle and connected them to batteries. Then he flipped the switches. The only sound for several minutes was the hum of a cooling fan.

"I'm kind of bummed we haven't seen anything yet," Umiker said.

Eventually, a small rust-colored worm dug its way to the surface. It was not a GPE, but it was collected for study anyway.

The search for the giant worm is reminiscent of efforts in Louisiana, Florida and the swamps of eastern Arkansas to find the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. The large, black-and-white bird was believed to be extinct until a reported sighting five years ago stirred national experts and federal funding to launch a full-blown campaign to verify its existence. Search efforts later dwindled after biologists and volunteers were unable to find the evidence they were looking for.

The GPE was described as common in the Palouse in the 1890s, according to an 1897 article in The American Naturalist by Frank Smith. Smith's work was based on four samples sent to him by R.W. Doane of Washington State University in nearby Pullman.

Massive agricultural development soon consumed nearly all of the unique Palouse Prairie — a seemingly endless ocean of steep, silty dunes — and appeared to deal a fatal blow to the worm.

They were considered extinct when Idaho graduate student Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon in 2005 stuck a shovel into the ground to collect a soil sample and found the worm that now is in the tube in Johnson-Maynard's office.

Conservation groups quickly petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the worm as an endangered species, citing as proof the lack of sightings. But the agency said there simply was not enough scientific information to merit a listing.

Conservationists recently filed a second request, saying they had more information. They are also hoping the Obama administration will be more friendly than the Bush administration. The GPE would be the only worm protected as an endangered species.

Doug Zimmer of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Seattle said the agency isn't ready to comment on the petition.

"It's always good to see new information and good science on any species," Zimmer said.

Farmers are keeping a wary eye on the process.

"The concern is whether a listing is going to end up curtailing farming activities," said Dan Wood of the Washington State Farm Bureau. "I don't know if people plan to stop all farming for the possibility of a worm being somewhere."

Most earthworms found in the Northwest originated in Europe, arriving on plants or in soil shipped to the New World. The giant Palouse earthworm is one of the few native species, and has become quite popular with the public.

While it's tough to come by a live GPE, visitors seem happy to take a picture with a dead one. Johnson-Maynard said she has received calls from tourists who want to come to her office and be photographed with the specimen.

"A lot of people are curious about it," she said.

two-toned squirrel

2009-06-10T16:14:00.002-04:00

Two-Toned Squirrel

From Coast to Coast AM 10 June 2009

June, 6 2009-- I looked out the window and saw a squirrel unlike any I've ever seen. When I was taking the pictures inside, I thought it was two different species, half and half. When I got outside it almost looked like the squirrel lost all its fur on the front side. and after it climbed the tree a bit, it looked more like a young squirrel that hasn't fully grown into its adult fur and color. I'm still not sure what this squirrel's deal is.

--Petro

Cow that escaped slaughterhouse dies

2009-01-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

Read how the cows gathered around in the last moments as protection, and with their own brand of care.

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Cincinnati leap to freedom won hearts

Cincinnati Freedom, the fugitive cow who drew headlines around the world when she escaped from a slaughterhouse in Ohio in 2002 and eluded authorities for 11 days, has died at an animal sanctuary in New York.

The 2,000-pound white Charolais, "adopted" by internationally renowned artist Peter Max after her stirring escape in Cincinnati, was put down Dec. 29 at the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y., shortly after being diagnosed with spinal cancer.

The quickly spreading cancer, which becomes apparent in cows only when the size of the tumor puts pressure on the spine, caused the cow, who often was called Cinci or Freedom for short, to lose the use of her back legs.

The day before Cinci's death, Farm Sanctuary officials noticed her stumbling, and by the following day she was paralyzed and couldn't walk, said Susie Coston, the sanctuary's national shelter director.

Even so, Cinci, always shy around humans, tried to crawl away when a veterinarian arrived to examine her, Coston said.

Cinci's closest pals in the sanctuary's herd of about 50 cattle -- other slaughterhouse escapees that include Queenie from Queens, N.Y., Maxine from New York and Annie Dodge from Vermont -- were no more thrilled to see the vet and dented her car, Coston said.

The evening before, when her immobility kept Cinci in the pasture, her bovine buddies spent the night with her.

"She had some very good friends who were very protective of her," Coston said.

After the vet determined there was no hope Cinci would recover use of her legs, sanctuary officials decided to euthanize her.

Again, the herd surrounded Cinci, with one of the oldest steers, Kevin, licking her face, while Iris, an older female, licked her back in her final minutes, said Natalie Bowman, the sanctuary's communications director. They remained with Cinci until she was buried after initially chasing a worker, who had arrived to handle the task, back to his tractor.

"It was very moving," Coston said. "I've never seen anything like it. You really saw all those basic emotions at work."

Cinci became a folk hero in February 2002 when, moments before she was to be slaughtered, she jumped a 6-foot fence at Ken Meyer Meats in Cincinnati and evaded police and officials from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for a week and a half while foraging in Mount Storm Park.

News outlets from Canada, England, France, Germany and Australia covered the saga, which also repeatedly made the national news. Then-Mayor Charlie Luken pledged to give her a key to the city.

After her capture, Max, saying he was "very touched by this cow's run for freedom, for life," bought the animal from Meyer Meats and paid to send her to the sanctuary in upstate New York, where hundreds of animals rescued from slaughterhouses, stockyards and factory farms receive lifelong care.

Max named the cow Cincinnati Freedom. He also often called her Cindy Woo, Coston said.

Sanctuary officials were not certain of Cinci's age but estimate that she was 6 to 8 years old when she arrived in April 2002.

"That's a pretty good life for a Charolais," Coston said.

At the sanctuary, Cinci apparently found that it was more fun to eat when one did have not to worry any longer about being eaten herself, gaining more than 500 pounds.

"She was a bit of a chunk," Coston said, laughing. Still, to the end, Cinci could clear a 5-foot fence from a standstill, she said.

"It was an amazing thing to see," she said.

Something of a celebrity at the sanctuary, Cinci drew countless visitors familiar with her story.

"People from Ohio were always visiting," Bowman said.

Coston thinks she understands why.

"She symbolized the will to live, to enjoy life and not be messed with," Coston said. "We can relate to that."

Very Old Lobster Drama

2009-01-10T09:11:00.002-05:00

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NYC eatery grants freedom to lobster centenarian

By VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press Writer Verena Dobnik, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jan 10, 2:05 am ET

NEW YORK – A 140-year-old lobster once destined for a dinner plate received the gift of life Friday from a Park Avenue seafood restaurant.

George, the 20-pound supercentenarian crustacean, was freed by City Crab and Seafood in New York City.

"We applaud the folks at City Crab and Seafood for their compassionate decision to allow this noble old-timer to live out his days in freedom and peace," said Ingrid E. Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA spokesman Michael McGraw said the group asked City Crab to return George to the Atlantic Ocean after a diner saw him at the restaurant, where steamed Maine lobster sells for $27 per pound. George had been caught off Newfoundland, Canada and lived in the tank for about 10 days before his release.

Some scientists estimate lobsters can live to be more than 100 years old. PETA and the restaurant guessed George's age at about 140, using a rule of thumb based on the creature's weight.

He was to be released Saturday near Kennebunkport, Maine, in an area where lobster trapping is forbidden.

Purple Squirrel: Weird!

2008-12-27T10:43:00.001-05:00

Teachers and pupils at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, {UK} were amazed when they saw the creature through the window during a lesson. Since the squirrel, now nicknamed Pete, was first seen, it has become a regular fixture at the school but no one has been able to say whether the animal has fallen into purple paint, had a run-in with some purple dye, or whether there is another explanation.

Dr Mike Edwards, an English teacher, said: "I was sitting in my classroom and looked out the window and saw it sitting on the fence. I had to do a double take.

"Its fur actually looks purple all the way through. It's an absolute mystery."

Pupils, staff and parents have contacted vets and even e-mailed television nature expert Bill Oddie to see if an explanation could be found. Lorraine Orridge, the school's registrar, believes Pete's coloured fur looks like a school uniform. She said: "The squirrel has become a bit of a legend among staff and pupils at the school. "He makes an appearance most days and we always look forward to seeing him. We don't think he is a mutant squirrel but he may have had a mishap around the school. The old building where we have seen him nipping in and out is a bit of a graveyard for computer printers. He may have found some printer toners in there. We haven't seen any purple baby squirrels yet."

TV wildlife expert Chris Packham believes Pete will moult and lose his purple fur in time for spring. He said: "I have never seen anything like it before.

"Squirrels will chew anything even if it's obviously inedible. It is possible he has been chewing on a purple ink cartridge and then groomed that colouring into his fur. Alternatively he may have fallen into a bucket containing a weak colour solution that has stained his fur. Underneath there's a normal grey squirrel who has just given himself an unusual hair colour - you would pay a fortune for that in some salons."

Cat Loves Mouse

2008-12-24T13:07:00.000-05:00

Many times on this site, we've shown how mammals will adopt and coexist in harmony with odd species, even natural enemies.

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/sch/cn/video06/4116816_rnd7975f788_18.jpg

cat loves a mouse @ Yahoo! Video

White Raccoon Sightings

2008-12-04T07:49:00.000-05:00

Albino raccoon spotted in Riverside
November 03, 2008 at 08:40 PM
BY JANICE HOPPE

RIVERSIDE—With ghostly white fur and gripping claws, an elusive creature creeping through trees has piqued the interest of a Riverside neighborhood.

Melinda Lehman and Jim Cybul, Lionel Road residents, live on the block where rumors were circulating about a strange, ghostly animal. No one had any clear idea of what it was. They said neighbors had spotted this thing, but no one ever got a good look at it.

“About a month ago, we began hearing about a white creature,” Lehman said. “It became an urban legend—it was seen in the neighbor’s lawn and trees and someone saw it in their back yard.”

Someone said it was not a raccoon or a badger, but it looked familiar, like a fuzzy cat.

”(One neighbor) drew a conclusion that wild cats were mating with opossums and this was now the result,” Cybul said. “Of course, we all laughed hysterically at this.”

On Oct. 23, Cybul was barbecuing in his back yard when he saw something walk down the driveway. It was clearly a raccoon, but it was white.

“We have proof of what it is and researched it,” Cybul said. “Albino raccoons do appear physically different as opposed to the average raccoon.”

Scott Garrow, wildlife biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said it is an unusual animal, but albino mammals do exist.

“It is genetic. The genes for albinism will show up; it is like a recessive gene that normally doesn’t occur,” he said.

Normally, albino animals are not seen in the wild because they don’t survive, according to Garrow.

“It is not something that will persist,” he said. ”(We) won’t see a cluster of raccoons, and it will probably die out.”

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Jan 31, 2007 Morgantown WV

Rare white raccoon captured downtown: Albino, sibling found near Pleasant Street released to woods.

Byline: J. Miles Layton

Jan. 31--An albino raccoon was captured foraging for food this week outside an apartment building on Pleasant Street in Morgantown. The critter is white, has pink eyes with a slightly yellow hue, weighs 7 or 8 pounds, and is about a foot long.

The black mask usually found around a raccoon's eyes was a deeper shade of white. Mike Gray, a professional trapper with 30 years of experience, caught the creature and one of its regularly colored siblings by using marshmallows as bait to bring them inside a cage trap.

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Weird White Raccoon

2008-12-04T07:45:00.000-05:00

This white raccoon lives in the woods near a Rockledge subdivision. Brevard Zoo officials say they cannot capture and display the rare animal because it is healthy.
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Woman fears for albino raccoon's safety
BY RICK NEALE • FLORIDA TODAY • December 1, 2008

The pale-furred mutant likes to munch on grapes and cat food, said a woman who feeds and photographs the elusive animal. Fearful for the albino creature's safety, the woman asked Brevard Zoo officials to trap it and put it on public display. She asked FLORIDA TODAY to withhold her identity so hunters would not converge on the raccoon's territory.

"I'd hate to see him get shot as a trophy," she said. "This is something kids would love to see. He is so unique."

Michelle Smurl, Brevard Zoo's director of animal programs, said the zoo is not at liberty to trap an adult animal that is thriving in the wild. She viewed photos of the animal and confirmed that it is a white raccoon.

"The raccoon looks healthy, and it looks like it's doing well," Smurl said. "I grew up with white squirrels up in New York, and I was worried that someone was going to shoot them."

Raccoons are common across the state and live "everywhere there are trees," according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Web site. These omnivores are about the size of a small dog and are identifiable by "black mask" facial features and bushy ringed tails.

But according to a KFOR-TV report of an Oklahoma white raccoon sighting, only one in 750,000 albino raccoons will survive to adulthood.

Earlier this month, a ghostly white raccoon startled an Illinois man during a backyard barbecue, Prairie State Outdoors reported.

Two ivory-colored raccoons were trapped earlier this year in Tennessee, leading a Memphis Commercial Appeal outdoors columnist to proclaim, "You have a better chance of being struck by a bolt from Mother Nature than seeing an albino raccoon."

Smurl said humans should not feed raccoons because they are wild animals.

Cat Survives!

2008-11-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

While this is not an everyday occurance, it does happen frequently. This is just a more extreme case. Cats tend to find warm, quiet places as it gets cool outside, and cars are a perfect (in their feline minds) place. Then, severe injuries or death can occur. Use care, and don't let your treasured inside cat outside.

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Cat's week under car bonnet (hood). November 2008

An Austrian motorist couldn't work out why his Mercedes car was "purring" along better than normal - until he looked under the bonnet.

Peter Hochberger discovered his neighbour's terrified moggie Luna had been perched on the engine block - for nearly a week.

Lucky Luna had survived more than 300 miles of motoring without food or water before her mewing raised the alarm.

The petrified puss had hidden so deep inside the engine that it had to be dismantled to get her out.

Mechanic Walter Doerfler, 48, said: "I have no idea how she got so far into the engine, it was a major job to take parts off so we could reach her."

Amazingly she escaped with just some minor singes to her fur and is now back with her family in Ruprechtshofen, Austria, counting her eight remaining lives.

Relieved owner Erwin Taurok said: "It is a miracle that Luna survived the odyssey without food or water almost unharmed. We were worried about her after she didn't turn up for a week and had put up posters with her picture - we are delighted to have her back."

Real Life "Bambi and Thumper"

2008-11-11T19:54:00.000-05:00

These images were forwarded in an email recently. Amazing.

The Sad Story of Feral Bees and Hurican Ike

2008-09-22T20:57:00.001-04:00

On Saturday (20 September) my wife and I decided to go on a looooong walk inspecting the damage of beloved but wounded neighboring Park. Ike had stomped it pretty good. Ike had swept in with little advanced warning as to its severity, and we were very lucky. We lost power for 5 days, but so many others suffered more severely.

Anyway, about 2 miles into our walk, since we had to start from the bottom of the park - couldn't drive up - we surveyed the uprooted and mangled trees. The woodpeckers were in Heaven, with so many colonies of carpenter ants and other bugs exposed for the taking.

I digress a moment. Last Spring, we were walking the same area and came upon a hawk sitting in a tree. It was a bit spooked by our approach and flew off. That's when we heard a ferocious buzzing sound and across from the "hawk tree" we saw a mass (like smoke) of honey bees ferreting out a new home. Feral bees.

My friend, Casper, tells me that feral bees are very rare and so we were impressed, a bit nervous, but proud we could witness such a sight. Each time we walked by that area, we looked but saw very little sign of the bees. We suspected that they didn't take, and had moved on. Saturday, we realized we'd misled ourselves.

The "bee tree" was one of the mangled trees, though the "hawk tree" remained intact.

There were a few bees, so I said "Let's look a minute". As my eyes focused, I saw a bit of bee hive laying on the broken trunk, now laying prostrate on the ground. Then I spied the rest. Sadly, it was split into at least two slabs and that one fragment I first spied: Just laying on top of the felled tree. I suppose the bees had nearly a week to die out, but there were survivors still.

We mourned a moment and then walked on through the debris field. We'll always keep fond memories of the "bee tree" and that lone colony of feral honey bees.

Rare four-eared cat's story.

2008-08-23T23:19:00.000-04:00

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Yoda, a smoke-colored feline whose four ears give him the appearance of a horned devil, became the toast of several high-profile Web sites the week of 17 August 2008. The blogosphere quickly pounced on the story of a 2-year-old cat who had been a barroom oddity before he was adopted by a suburban couple. Ted and Valerie Rock found Yoda in 2006 while watching a Bears game at a Blue Island bar with fellow volunteers from the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Patrons were passing the 8-week-old kitten around, mocking his appearance and calling him names such as "Devil Cat" and "Beelzebub." The Rocks took pity on the kitty and offered to adopt him. The establishment's owner, who kept the cat in a cage atop the bar to amuse patrons, agreed.

Weird Cat Law

2008-07-31T13:34:00.001-04:00

Cats in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

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Saudi Arabia's religious police have announced a ban on selling pet cats or exercising them in public in the Saudi capital, because of men use them as a means of making passes at women, an official has said.

Golden Retriever Nurses White Tigers

2008-07-31T13:26:00.000-04:00

Golden retriever adopts tiger cubs at Kansas zoo

Thu Jul 31, 7:27 AM ET

CANEY, Kan. - A dog at a southeast Kansas zoo has adopted three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother. Safari Zoological Park owner Tom Harvey said the tiger cubs were born Sunday, but the mother had problems with them.

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A day later, the mother stopped caring for them. Harvey said the cubs were wandering around, trying to find their birth mother, who wouldn't pay attention to them. That's when the cubs were put in the care of a golden retriever, Harvey said.

Harvey said it's unusual for dogs to care for tiger cubs, but it does happen. He said he has seen reports of pigs nursing cubs in China, and he actually got the golden retriever after his wife saw television accounts of dogs caring for tiger cubs.

Puppies take about the same amount of time as tiger cubs to develop, and Harvey said the adoptive mother just recently weaned her own puppies.

"The timing couldn't have been any better," he said.

The mother doesn't know the difference, Harvey said. He said the adopted mother licks, cleans and feeds the cubs.

The Safari Zoological Park is a licensed facility open since 1989 and specializes in endangered species.

It has leopards, lions, cougars, baboons, ring-tailed lemurs, bears and other animals. It currently has seven white tigers and two orange tigers.

Because whit tigers are inbred from the first specimen found more than a half-century ago, they are not as genetically stable as orange tigers.

The zoo's previous litter of white tiger cubs was born April 23, although one of the three has since gone to a private zoo near Oklahoma City.

Black-crowned night-heron: Rescued!

2008-07-14T18:42:00.000-04:00

Heart warming rescue as reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal

A black-crowned night-heron appeared to have been caught on a piece of kite string or fishing line in a sycamore tree near a bridge in Cherokee Park. The bird had injured its right wing and lost a few feathers.

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Firefighters rescue injured heron
Bird found in Cherokee Park
By Charlie White • cwhite@courier-journal.com • July 14, 2008

A crowd of several dozen people cheered firefighters yesterday after they rescued an injured heron from a sycamore tree in Cherokee Park.
Several people had called 911 during the morning to report that the bird, a black-crowned night-heron, had become tangled on a piece of line near a bridge on Scenic Loop over Beargrass Creek.
The heron had injured its right wing and lost a few feathers, but it was conscious when it was taken away by Eileen and John Wicker of Raptor Rehab of Kentucky.
Nate Paulson and Capt. Kent McCauley of Louisville Fire & Rescue climbed a ladder to reach the heron, then carried it down just before noon. The bird appeared to have been caught on a piece of kite string or fishing line, and it was unclear how long it had been there.
"At the very least, it has a dislocated shoulder," Eileen Wicker said.
The Wickers gave the bird fluid before putting it in a cage in the back of their van. It was the second one they had rescued the same day; another found off Eastern Parkway.
The Wickers were taking the herons to a woman who has worked at the Louisville Zoo and said she would nurse them back to health.
Black-crowned night-herons are common in the St. Joseph neighborhood and in other parts of the metro area. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, they have a wingspan of about 45 inches and produce a loud, harsh squawk.
*****

*****

John Wicker is with Raptor Rehab Kentucky. (By Charlie White, The Courier-Journal / July 13, 2008)
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Firefighters rescue injured heron
Bird found in Cherokee Park
By Charlie White • cwhite@courier-journal.com • July 14, 2008

A black-crowned night-heron was plucked from a sycamore tree in Cherokee Park just before noon today after the bird had become tangled on a piece of line. Firefighters climbed a ladder to reach the heron near a bridge on Scenic Loop, over Beargrass Creek. Several onlookers had called 911 earlier. The bird appeared to be caught on a piece of kite string or fishing line, and it was unclear how long it had been there. Officials from a raptor rehabilitation center also responded, and said the bird was alert and conscious after the rescue, but that its right wing was damaged.According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, black-crowned night-herons have a wingspan of about 45 inches, and produce a loud, harsh squawk. They eat snakes, rodents, fish and lizards.

Finnegan the Squirrel

2008-07-07T23:24:00.000-04:00

Finnegan the squirrel

Debby C-, who plans to release Finnegan, the young squirrel, back into the wild, bottle-fed the infant squirrel after it was brought to her house.

When C- took in the tiny creature and began caring for him, she found herself with an unlikely nurse's aide: her pregnant Papillion, Mademoiselle Giselle.

Finnegan was resting in a nest in a cage just days before Giselle was due to deliver her puppies.

C- and her husband watched as the dog dragged the squirrel's cage twice to her own bedside before she gave birth.

Cantlon was concerned, yet ultimately decided to allow the squirrel out and the inter-species bonding began.

Finnegan rides a puppy mosh pit of sorts, burrowing in for warmth after feeding, eventually working his way beneath his new litter mates.

Now, Finnegan mostly uses a bottle, but still snuggles with his 'siblings' in a mosh pit of puppies, rolling atop their bodies, and sinking in deeply for a nap.

Two days after giving birth, mama dog Giselle allowed Finnegan to nurse; family photos and a videotape show her encouraging him to suckle alongside her litter of five pups.

Finnegan and his new litter mates, five Papillion puppies, get along together as if they were meant to.

Finnegan naps after feeding.

Finnegan makes himself at home with his new litter mates, nuzzling nose-to-nose for a nap after feeding.

This came in an email to brighten up the day! Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get along like Finnegan and the gang? MORAL OF THE STORY: Keep loving everyone, even the squirrelly ones!

Deer at Cheekwood, Nashville, TN

2008-07-02T06:08:00.000-04:00

We were walking on the sculpture tour and when I took a picture of these deer, this eerie optical effect happened with the deer's eyes. It was quite a surprise when I looked at the pictures later.

The deer were barely interested in us and they looked our way occasionally, but they were obviously used to people.

Cheekwood is a beautiful museum and gardens. If you're near Nashville, consider visiting. Click here.

Weird Cat & Rodent Relationship.

2008-05-26T10:08:00.000-04:00

This just submitted by our field reporter Casper Kelly. It's an odd pictorial of a weird relationship. Cat ... meet rodent.

Crazy Raspberry Ants

2008-05-19T19:40:00.000-04:00

"Hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of them are coming in a near-unstoppable zig-zagging insect army intent on making your home, yard and life a living hill," the Houston Chronicle says.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 14, 2008

Filed at 9:10 p.m. ET
DALLAS (AP) -- In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.
The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as ''crazy rasberry ants'' -- crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and ''rasberry'' after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.
''They're itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they're just running everywhere,'' said Patsy Morphew of Pearland, who is constantly sweeping them off her patio and scooping them out of her pool by the cupful. ''There's just thousands and thousands of them. If you've seen a car racing, that's how they are. They're going fast, fast, fast. They're crazy.''
The ants -- formally known as ''paratrenicha species near pubens'' -- have spread to five Houston-area counties since they were first spotted in Texas in 2002.
The newly recognized species is believed to have arrived in a cargo shipment through the port of Houston. Scientists are not sure exactly where the ants came from, but their cousins, commonly called crazy ants, are found in the Southeast and the Caribbean.
''At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant because it is so widely dispersed,'' said Roger Gold, a Texas A&M University entomologist.
The good news? They eat fire ants, the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.
But the ants also like to suck the sweet juices from plants, feed on such beneficial insects as ladybugs, and eat the hatchlings of a small, endangered type of grouse known as the Attwater prairie chicken.
They also bite humans, though not with a stinger like fire ants.
Worse, they, like some other species of ants, are attracted to electrical equipment, for reasons that are not well understood by scientists.
They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner's gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA's Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven't caused any major problems there yet.
Exterminators say calls from frustrated homeowners and businesses are increasing because the ants -- which are starting to emerge by the billions with the onset of the warm, humid season -- appear to be resistant to over-the-counter ant killers.
''The population built up so high that typical ant controls simply did no good,'' said Jason Meyers, an A&M doctoral student who is writing his dissertation on the one-eighth-inch-long ant.
It's not enough just to kill the queen. Experts say each colony has multiple queens that have to be taken out.
At the same time, the ants aren't taking the bait usually left out in traps, according to exterminators, who want the Environmental Protection Agency to loosen restrictions on the use of more powerful pesticides.
And when you do kill these ants, the survivors turn it to their advantage: They pile up the dead, sometimes using them as a bridge to cross safely over surfaces treated with pesticide.
''It looked like someone had come along and poured coffee granules all around the perimeter of the rooms,'' said Lisa Calhoun, who paid exterminators $1,200 to treat an infestation of her parents' home in the Houston suburb of Pearland.
The Texas Department of Agriculture is working with A&M researchers and the EPA on how to stop the ants.
''This one seems to be like lava flowing and filling an entire area, getting bigger and bigger,'' said Ron Harrison, director of training for the big pest-control company Orkin Inc.

Eagles & Clouds

2008-04-09T23:33:00.001-04:00

Casper Kelly sent these to us.

These awesome pictures were taken recently near Comox , BC , Canada . Unfortunately no one knows who the photographer was. This is something few humans will ever be privileged to see.

The clouds are called Mammatus clouds . They don't precede a tornado, or foretell a storm, but are formed when the air is already saturated with rain droplets and/or ice crystals and begins to sink. The worst of the storm is usually over when these kinds of clouds are seen. They are quite rare, but really beautiful.

Weird Lungless Frog

2008-04-09T23:25:00.000-04:00

Bizarre Frog Has No Lungs, By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience, posted: 07 April 2008 ET

The first lungless frog has been discovered lurking in the jungles of Borneo.
The enigmatic amphibian, dubbed Barbourula kalimantanensis, apparently gets all the oxygen it needs through its skin. Scientists first saw one of these frogs 30 years ago, but due to their rarity, just one other specimen had been collected since then and neither had been dissected.
"No one thought to open them up — there was no real reason to believe that they could be lungless," said researcher David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. "Because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one specimen in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!"

The amphibians, no more than 2 inches long, have proven elusive because they live in cold, fast rivers in remote areas of the rainforests of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Also, they are slippery "and can be surprisingly fast for short bursts," Bickford said. "We had a team of 11 people looking for these frogs and it took us almost two weeks before we found any."
He and his colleagues had no idea this frog would be lungless.

"I was just going to be happy if we simply rediscovered the frogs," Bickford said. "It had been 30 years of intermittent searching for this frog until we could put together a multinational team and get to the last remaining areas where it could realistically be found."

As Bickford and his colleagues went snorkeling in the rivers where the frogs live, the water proved so cold that "after just 45 minutes of snorkeling, I would have to stop because I was shaking uncontrollably, my lips were blue, and my breathing became too labored to actually snorkel effectively," Bickford told LiveScience. "This is lowland rain forest in Borneo, just off the equator, and I had hypothermia! That certainly was something I was not entirely prepared for."
"There are so many difficulties in field work, and yet it remains my biggest joy," Bickford added. "Having the undeniable privilege of going out to these remote sites, seeing some of the last and greatest treasures that exist in the wild, and then getting to study them — well, every day I feel lucky."

As the researchers were doing initial dissections of the frogs as they caught them in the field, they were surprised to discover these amphibians lacked lungs. "At first I did not believe that the frogs had no lungs, but then, we just kept on seeing the evidence pile up. I was flabbergasted," Bickford said.

"The thing that struck me most then and now is that there are still major firsts — for example, first lungless frog! — to be found out in the field," Bickford added. "All you have to do is go a little ways beyond what people have done before, and — voila!"

It appears that the rest of the internal organs in these frogs have shifted position to take up the space once filled by the lungs. "So we had the stomach, spleen and the liver up in the area where lungs are normally found," Bickford said. "Interestingly, we also discovered some abnormal cartilage around the area where the lungs should have been that we are still investigating."
The loss of lungs helped the frogs severely flatten their bodies. This in turn increased the surface area of their skin, which helps them absorb oxygen.

The researchers conjecture the loss of lungs might be an adaptation to the cold, fast rivers the frogs live in. Such waters naturally have high oxygen content. Also, the frogs would rather sink than float and get carried away in the water, so getting rid of lungs, which behave as flotation devices, would prove helpful.

Amphibians are also cold-blooded, "so their inherent energy requirements are very small — roughly 10 percent that of a similar sized mammal," Bickford said. "If you don't need as much oxygen anyhow, it might be easier to change, to lose lungs as the primary respiration organ."
More lungless animals

The family of frogs this novel amphibian belongs to ranks among one of the most primitive, if not the most primitive. The more primitive lineages could have an easier time switching to lunglessness, but "at this stage this is all conjecture," Bickford said.

The loss of lungs has been known to occur two other times in all the creatures with backbones that have waddled onto land across geologic time. Each time this loss has happened in amphibians — in a species of caecilian, a limbless beast resembling an earthworm, and in many species of salamanders. How and why this change evolved in these animals has been long debated, and the new frog could shed light on this curious phenomenon.

The closest relative of this frog, which dwells in the Philippines, has lungs.

"We don't even know what they eat, although we have some good guesses from two full stomachs," Bickford said. "How do they locate and attract mates? What do their eggs look like? Do they even lay eggs, or do they have a more derived mode of reproduction where the eggs directly develop into small frogs? Do they have tadpoles? What are their habitat requirements? How many are left?"

The rarity of this frog could hamper further studies into it, Bickford added. The amphibian could become even more rare, given the increasing damage to its environment as the result of toxic metals used in mining and other unfortunate consequences of development on the island.
"The once cool and clear streams have mostly turned murky and warm, contaminated with human pollutants, run-off from agriculture and mercury from the gold mining," Bickford said. "This is an endangered frog that we know practically nothing about, with an amazing ability to breathe entirely through its skin, whose future is being destroyed by illegal gold mining by people who are marginalized and have no other means of supporting themselves. There are no simple answers to this problem."

One of the primary goals of the researchers now is to garner more support for conserving the last remaining wild spots in Borneo, "and I think we have a flagship species in these lungless frogs," Bickford said. "There is so much we do not understand about nature and at least part of the reason to protect it is to protect our own futures."

Bickford and his colleagues Djoko Iskandar and Anggraini Barlian will detail their findings in the journal Current Biology.

Beelzebufo: Largest Known Frog

2008-03-10T21:11:00.000-04:00

Here comes Beelzebufo! The Devil Toad. A Frog the Size of a Bowling Ball.

Here' s the story.
February 18, 2008A team of researchers, led by Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist. The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America. Discovery of the voracious predatory fossil frog -- reported on-line this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- is significant in that it may provide direct evidence of a one-time land connection between Madagascar, the largest island off Africa's southeast coast, and South America.

To identify Beelzebufo and determine its relationship to other frogs, Krause collaborated with fossil frog experts Susan Evans, lead author of the PNAS article, and Marc Jones of the University College London. The authors concluded that the new frog represents the first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living representatives in South America."Beelzebufo appears to be a very close relative of a group of South American frogs known as 'ceratophyrines,' or 'pac-man' frogs, because of their immense mouths," said Krause, whose research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The ceratophryines are known to camouflage themselves in their surroundings, then ambush predators.

"The finding presents a real puzzle biogeographically, particularly because of the poor fossil record of frogs on southern continents," said Krause. "We're asking ourselves, 'What's a 'South American' frog doing half-way around the world, in Madagascar?'" He said that because frogs "are not adept at dispersal across marine barriers, and since the few fossil frogs that are known from the Late Cretaceous in Africa are unrelated to Beelzebufo, one possibility is that there was a land connection between South America and Madagascar during that period."

Some geoscientists have suggested a lingering physical link between South America and Madagascar during the Late Cretaceous Period -- a link involving Antarctica. Antarctica in the Late Cretaceous was much warmer than it is today. "The occurrence of this frog in Madagascar and its relatives' existence in South America provides strong evidence that the supercontinent Gondwana 'disassembled' during the latest part of the Cretaceous," said Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.

Krause and colleagues have hypothesized this connection based on previous discoveries of sauropod and theropod dinosaurs, crocodiles and mammals in Madagascar that were very closely related to forms in South America. Beelzebufo is one of the largest frogs on record and was perhaps the largest frog ever to exist. The size and robustness of its bones and its relatedness to the rotund South American forms indicates it was also probably the heaviest frog to exist.

The size, girth, appearance, and predatory nature of the frog prompted its discoverers to call it the "armored frog from hell." They derived the genus name from the Greek word for devil (Beelzebub) and the Latin word for toad (bufo). The species name, ampinga, means "shield."The largest living frog today is the goliath frog of West Africa, which attains lengths of 12.5 inches and weights of 7.2 pounds. The largest frog alive on Madagascar today, at just over four inches long, "would have been a nice hors d'oeuvre for Beelzebufo," Krause said.

Since the discovery of the first bones found in northwestern Madagascar in 1993, Krause and his team have gathered some 75 fossil fragments of Beelzebufo. Through the accumulation of these fossils, the team has been able to reconstruct the frog's skeleton, including nearly the entire skull.

Not only was the frog huge, it was powerful in design, had a protective shield, an extremely wide mouth and powerful jaws. These features made Beelzebufo capable of killing lizards and other small vertebrates, perhaps even hatchling dinosaurs.

The research was also funded by the National Geographic Society.

Cat survives !!

2008-03-08T08:23:00.000-05:00

Sat Mar 8, 1:22 AM ET

CLEVELAND - A scrawny, black and white female kitten has apparently survived a trip across the Pacific Ocean and North America inside a shipping crate. Cleveland Animal Protective League Executive Director Sharon Harvey says a Cleveland company that received the crate of spooled steel coil Friday found the kitten inside one the spools.

Harvey says the mother cat and other kittens found in the crate were dead. The crate came to Samsel Supply Co. from Singapore. It was sealed Feb. 4 and shipped three days later.
The approximately 12-week-old kitten has been checked by a veterinarian and has responded well to being fed.

Elk on Road Way

2008-02-09T23:13:00.000-05:00

The Hippopotamus and the Tortoise

2008-01-23T20:27:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Casper Kelley for this poignant and heart warming story.

***

The Hippopotamus and the Tortoise ' Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed.' - Rachel Naomi Remen , MD

NAIROBI (AFP) -

A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strongbond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animalfacility in the port city of Mombassa , officials said. The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down SabakiRiver into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shorewhen tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast onDecember 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him. 'It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted amale tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems tobe very happy with being a 'mother',' ecologist Paula Kahumbu,who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP. 'After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized.It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother.

Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond.They swim, eat and sleep together,' the ecologist added.'The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother.If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive,as if protecting its biological mother,' Kahumbu added. 'The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age andby nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with theirmothers for four years,' he explained.

'Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,but by the moments that take our breath away.' This is a real story that shows that our differences don't mattermuch when we need the comfort of another.We could all learn a lesson from these two creatures of God,'Look beyond the differences and find a way to walk the path together.'

Cat Rescued

2008-01-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. - The last time cat-owner Kelly Levy saw her tiger-striped feline was before she took her husband to the airport. The 24-year-old came back to her house late Friday to find the bottom step, where Gracie Mae would usually be waiting, empty.
Levy tore the house apart looking for the 10-month-old tabby who had been spayed just days before. She and her dad took out bathroom tiles and part of a cabinet to check a crawl space and papered the neighborhood with "lost cat" signs. Then she got a phone call.
"Hi, you're not going to believe this, but I am calling from Fort Worth, Texas, and I accidentally picked up your husband's luggage. And when I opened the luggage, a cat jumped out," Levy recalled the caller saying, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Rob Carter, of Fort Worth, told The Dallas Morning News for its online edition Tuesday that he made it home with the suitcase.
"I went to unpack and saw some of the clothes and saw it wasn't my suitcase," Carter said. "I was going to close it, and a kitten jumped out and ran under the bed. I screamed like a little girl."Carter said that he eventually was able to get the cat to come out from under the bed. "In the morning, I got close enough to see its collar and the phone number on it," he said. "So I called the number and got a hold of the crying wife of the traveler."
Gracie Mae had crawled into Seth Levy's black suitcase undetected, been put through an X-ray machine, loaded onto an airplane, thrown onto a baggage claim conveyor belt and picked up by a stranger. Carter delivered Gracie Mae to Seth Levy and the tabby made the 1,300-mile trip home on an $80 plane ticket Sunday night.
Carter said that he considered keeping the cat before he knew she had a home. "If I couldn't have found a good home, I would have kept it," he said. "We were going to name it Suitcase."

Baby Moose Part 1

2007-09-23T16:25:00.000-04:00

Casper Kelly sent this from an email that was making the rounds. Originator is unknown.

Baby moose 12 hours old

This one was not even a half a mile from our house. The mother
picked a small quiet neighborhood and had her baby in the front yard at
5:30 am. We were out bike riding when we came upon the
pair. The lady across the street from this house told us she saw it
being born. We saw them at 5:30 pm. So the little one was 12 hours
old. What an awesome place we live in to see such a site.

Baby Moose Part 2

2007-09-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

Baby Moose: Part 3

2007-09-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

Amazing Deer Rescue!

2007-09-15T23:01:00.000-04:00

This one was sent to me by Casper Kelly from an email received.
***
Last Saturday morning, my buddy Bo Warren and I were trolling for stripers in the Chesapeake Bay. We were 1½ miles offshore in about 80 feet of water contemplating why the fish weren't biting. We looked back to check our gear and saw something odd in the water. Was it a seal?

Can't be, we don't have seals around here. On closer look, it turned out to be a buck that was WAY off course. He was desperate and barely staying afloat. I've seen deer swim a river or bayou before. When you see that, the first thing you notice is that they are powerful swimmers. Their head and shoulders are out of the water and they make surprisingly good headway. This critter was just keeping his nose up and looked like he'd been swimming all night long. In fact, he was so worn out that he swam toward the boat probably thinking it looked enough like land to him. When he got closer though, he wasn't sure what to make of the two dudes on board, and backed of f. So , since the fish weren't biting, we thought we'd give this buck a hand. Turns out Bo grew up around cows and was really handy with a bowline. He lassoed the deer on the first shot!

Bo grabbed his neck, I grabbed the flank, and we barreled over backwards into the boat. Before I knew it, Bo was on top of him and had him tied up just like a calf. We hit the gas and ran him to the closest beach - Kent Point . I beached the boat and we carefully unloaded the deer onto the sand.

The whole time we kept thinking he was going to kick the hell out of us. He never did though, he was totally spent. We untied him and jumped back. Too weak to stand, he just sat there quivering. We even picked him up again and put his feet underneath him, but he still couldn't walk. Don't know if he made it or not, but I think his chances were vastly improved.

Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno)

2007-09-15T22:58:00.000-04:00

The Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), the brilliant bird found in the cloud forests of Central America, was sacred to the Mayans and figures prominently in their artwork and legends. The name "quetzal" is from Mayan quetzalli which means "large brilliant tail feather" Today the Quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala, and name to the Guatemalan currency.
Despite its legendary history, the Quetzal is in danger of extinction, partly due to hunting of the bird for food and trade, but mainly due to destruction of its elevated habitat to clear land for subsistence agriculture. Some countries, such as Costa Rica, have managed to preserve the Quetzal's (as well as other species) habitat by setting aside land for national parks to promote eco-tourism.
The Quetzal, reputed to be the most beautiful bird that exists in the American continents, belongs to the Trogan family. The iridescent color of its plumage appears green or blue, according to the changes of daytime light. It lives in the mountainous, subtropical, humid regions. The vegetation of the territory it inhabits is quite dense and rich in humus. In this habitat, the Quetzal searches for an old tree trunk situated in a tiny forest clearing to make its nest. Finding them together in the jungle is a rare experience as the birds do not make a lot of noise and they sit very quietly on the branches looking for insects. (see photo)
From February through April, the hen lays one or two eggs. Both the hen and cock take turns during the 18-day period of incubation. The male Quetzal enters the nest, always leaving his beautiful tail plumes outside so as not to injure them. The female doesn't have this problem, for her tail feathers are very short. After the birth of the nestlings, their parents feed them with worms, insects, and larvae. The adults will eat forest fruits. The young can fly 20 days after birth, and abandon the nest to fly freely through the skies.

Coatimundi (Nasua nasua )

2007-09-15T22:54:00.000-04:00

The Coatimundi (Nasua nasua ) is a member of the raccoon family (Procyonidae); a diurnal mammal native to South, Central and south-western North America.
The Coati is a raccoon-like carnivore but is more slender and possesses a longer snout. It is a nosy, busy little creature with an insatiable appetite. The Coati is gregarious and noisy as it travels about in groups of from 6 to 24, holding its tail almost erect and chattering with others.
This grizzled gray-brown mammal grows 30 to 55 inches long and stands 8 to 12 inches high at the shoulder. It can weigh from 10 to 25 pounds. Males are almost twice as large as females.
The Coati has a long snout that is white near the tip and around the eyes, which often have dark patches above. The Coati has small ears, dark feet and a long, thin tail (as much as 2 feet long) with 6 or 7 dark bands.
Coatis are diurnal, spending most of the day foraging for food, which includes insects, lizards, roots, fruits, nuts and eggs. They are very fond of fruit, especially the manzanita berry and are very easy to see in the jungle foraging for food.
Coatis apparently mate in early spring and deliver a litter of 4 to 6 young after a gestation period of about 11 weeks. The female educates and feeds the young from the den site, usually a rocky niche in a wooded canyon.
Natural enemies include jaguars, hawks, eagles and humans.

Sharp-nosed bat

2007-09-15T22:52:00.000-04:00

From my good friend Tom Lera:

Sharp-nosed Bat (Rhynchonycteris naso)
These are common bats and fairly easy to see roosting over or beside water during the day. A distinctive feature is the way that they roost in groups of anything from 3 to 45 in a line one above the other about 2 to 4 inches apart.
They roost on the lower side of a large branch, the steep face of a bank, below a bridge or, as in this photo, on the lower side of a leaning tree trunk. From a distance they look like a vine wrapping around a branch, but as you get closer you see that they are bats.
The natural enemies of the Sharp-nosed bat are hawks, falcons and herons.

Python!

2007-09-01T17:27:00.000-04:00

Maybe you got a copy of this email? If not (and whether it is real or photoshopped, it is still scary) here it is.

Seems a sheep farmer was puzzled about the disappearance of some sheep on his farm. After a few weeks the farmer decided to put up an electric fence. About a week later, this is what he found! This is a Python & they're extremely aggressive & have a few teeth that they use to hold their prey while they wrap around them & then constrict. (Note: The wires are 10 inches apart.)

Simmons the Cat: A Poem by Chrispy

2007-06-17T23:15:00.001-04:00

I looked out the door at Simmons, my cat,
and shouted out loud, "What is that!
Simmons, how could you! Eek! It's a rat!"
There is was, out the door, on the mat,
head lolled over, just a big dead rat.
Next to it, my twitching tailed cat,
licked its gray paw. On haunches he sat.
Then he looked at me, then at the rat,
waiting for a reward, a stroke, or a pat,
A sweet, gentle, "Good, Kitty. Good, Cat."
I wondered, how Simmons, who was really so fat,
could have ever even caught that big old rat.
I ran inside, shoved aside my gardener's hat,
and took my pair of gloves out to remove the rat.
But when I returned, I saw the hurt on my tomcat,
my gosh, I'd never seen Simmons so sad,
and he was just about to run - to scat,
when I realized I'd hurt Simmons the cat,
by rejecting that bloody thing - that rat.
So I bent low, said, "Here, Kitty, Here, Cat."
And he bebopped over to me like a hepcat,
purred, meaowed, and lept over the mat,
and upended. Feet in air, he wallowed on the rat,
begging me to pet him - Simmons the cat.
I did. I stroked his fur, behind the ears - like that,
and ignored the blood and the rat gut splat,
and instead said, "Yes you are, you're a good kitty cat."
Well, Simmons smelled like a bitter muskrat,
or maybe a bit like a skunky polecat.
Still he deserved a stroke after that combat,
with a rodent so big, wow! That dirty rat.
Simmons acted like a teenaged brat,
but never had I had a loving like that -
not by a woman, a beast, a dog or a cat,
than I did that day by Simmons the cat.
Well, finally he was tired (because he was lazy and fat)
and scuffled off, though I'm not sure where at.
I scooped up the dead body - that bloody rat.
So, when I dug it out, and plopped it in a hole,
into a dark place, a grave as black as a bat,
well, me and the rat, we had us a brief chat.
Well, dear rodentia, goodbye, you filthy old rat.
Just then I burst out, laughing at that,
and how silly I was - even more than the cat,
and smiled at life's weird pleasures - at
love, life, and Simmons - my faithful old cat.

A Deer: Submitted by Caspar Kelly

2007-06-09T08:52:00.000-04:00

First, be very careful because, yes, deer can imprint. Bringing a deer in the house is like the worst thing to do. Except feeding it while is in there. We learned this, and hope others will learn from our experience.

This whole tale is long and has good and bad.

The only reason we were concerned at all was that it was laying in the grass and weeds we mow and we thought it was dead. I had been out earlier with Gryffyn (one of our special dogs-for-autistic-children doing some drills, and it wasn't there. When my husband went out later he called me. "Come look."

I immediately thought that something was wrong by the tone of his voice.

"Is it something dead?"

He said yes, it's a fawn.

Sure enough it was lying there not moving a muscle. We pondered what could have happened and assumed something had attacked it, although all our dogs were up. Still, it wasn't bloody, but sometimes injuries don't show. Then all of a sudden I saw it breathe. It wiggled its nose and its ears, but it was rigid and wouldn't move when we touched it.

We assumed that maybe it had a disease. We keep penicillin here, so i said, let's try to shoot it with some. We call the vet to find out what to do and he says, call the game warden.

Well we live in the deer capital of the world and it took almost a half hour to find someone to talk to about wildlife. Of course if you were to catch more than your share of fish the game warden is right on top of you!

We put it in a box and brought it in to call. When i picked it up i could tell it was responsive and alert and i could feel the heart beating pretty strong, but it wouldn't stand or lift it's head.

Now we know that's what baby deer do. Their only defence is that they don't move and they are hard to see -unless of course they are lying on the lawn. The good part is that, it takes awhile to imprint -- longer than 20 mins -- and we didn't touch it much with our hands.

We placed it in a box and picked it up with a towel. We did not feed it or shoot it with meds (we keep a lot of meds for the farm animals and special dogs). The nature advisor said that the mom left it to go eat and would likely return. She said to just place it back on the edge of the woods near where we found it, keep the dogs away and wait until night, when the mother would likely return. So we laid it in tall grass, snapped a few pics and waited.

Sometime later, the mom deer came bak and reunited with the fawn.

Still, with all the concerns aside how often do you get to hold a baby deer -- even if it is with a towel. It weighed barely 5 pounds.

Weird Suriname Frog

2007-06-09T08:45:00.000-04:00

This remarkable-looking toad may be a new species to science. It belongs to the genus Atelopus, and was discovered during a survey of the Nassau plateau in mid-2006 by Surinamese scientists Paul Ouboter and Jan Mol.

June 4, 2007

PARAMARIBO, Suriname - A toad with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles were among two dozen new species discovered in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname

The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.

Scientists discovered the species during a 2005 expedition led by the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 80 miles (128 kilometers) southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of the South American country, organization spokesman Tom Cohen said.

Weird Two Toned Lobster: 2007 (Rhode Island)

2007-06-02T20:23:00.000-04:00

Updated:2007-06-02 19:54:44
Two-Toned Lobster Caught Off Rhode Island
ABC News
(June 2) - Fishermen are scratching their heads at a rare catch off Rhode Island.

A half-brown, half-orange lobster is the talk of the town in Little Compton, R.I. The unique-looking crustacean was caught off the coast of Newport. Lobster aficionados say the chances of catching a two-toned lobster is one in 50 million. By comparison, the odds of finding a blue lobster are about 1 in a million.

In fact, the lobsterman who caught it thought someone was fooling with him. When a similar two-toned lobster was caught off the coast of Maine last year, Bette Spurling of the Mount Desert Oceanarium’s told the Associated Press that lobster shells are usually a blend of the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Those colors mix to form the greenish-brown color of most lobsters. The two-toned lobster caught off Rhode Island apparently had no blue in half its shell. Bernard Arseneau, a former manager at the oceanarium's lobster hatchery, said lobsters also have a growth pattern in which the two sides develop independently of each other. ABC News reported that the two-toned lobster was heading to an aquarium for all to see.

Weird Red & Green Lobsters: Newfoundland 2006

2007-06-02T00:07:00.000-04:00

Two-Toned Lobster Saved From Dinner Plate
Animal Half Green, Half Orange
POSTED: 9:15 am EDT June 13, 2006

TERRA NOVA NATIONAL PARK, Canada

A two-toned Canadian lobster's unique colors saved it from a date with a dinner plate.
The lobster, which is half orange and half green, was caught last week by a Canadian fisherman off Newfoundland. The lower right part of the lobster's body and its upper claw are orange, the color a lobster turns when it is cooked. The fisherman who caught the lobster, Kirk Tulk, said he's been told the unusual coloring may be due to a protein deficiency in the lobster's body.
Greg Stroud, an interpretation specialist at the Marine Center in Terra Nova National Park in Newfoundland, said the strange color pattern is a genetic defect.

Stroud said the two-toned lobster will be housed at the Marine Center for the rest of the year.
He said the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans will be taking a look at the colorful crustacean. The lobster doesn't have a name yet, so the center may hold a contest for naming rights.

(no pix - sorry. -Chrispy)

Weird Red & Green Lobsters: 2006

2007-06-02T00:05:00.001-04:00

Maine lobsterman pulls up rare lobster
July 14, 2006

BAR HARBOR, Maine --An eastern Maine lobsterman caught a lobster this week that looks like it's half-cooked. The lobster caught by Alan Robinson in Dyer's Bay that is a typical mottled green on one side; the other side is a shade of orange that looks cooked.

Robinson, of Steuben, donated the lobster to the Mount Desert Oceanarium. Staff members say the odds or finding a half-and-half lobster are 1 in 50 million to 100 million. By comparison, the odds of finding a blue lobster are about 1 in a million.

Robinson, who has been fishing for more than 20 years, said he didn't know what to think when he spotted the odd creature in his trap. "I thought somebody was playing a joke on me," Robinson said. "Once I saw what it was ... it was worth seeing." Bette Spurling, who works at the oceanarium, said lobster shells are usually a blend of the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Those colors mix to form the greenish-brown color of most lobsters. This lobster, though, has no blue in half of its shell, she said.

Bernard Arseneau, a former manager at the oceanarium's lobster hatchery, said lobsters also have a growth pattern in which the two sides develop independently of each other. The oceanarium has received only three two-toned lobsters in its 35 years of existence, staff members said.

(A rare two-toned lobster is seen in this Thursday, July 13, 2006, photo taken in Bar Harbor, Maine. AP Photo/The Daily News, Abigail Curtis)

Weird Red & Green Lobsters: 2001

2007-06-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

Fishermen Catch Mutant Lobster
Creature Displays Christmas Colors
November 6, 2001

PORTLAND, Maine -- A Christmas surprise came a little early for two Maine lobstermen.
Charlie Weber and his son Chris caught a half-red, half-green lobster in their traps.
Charlie said that in the 45 years he's been a lobsterman, he's never seen anything like the striped crustacean. Biologists said that the lobster has a genetic mutation called bilateral symmetry, which makes it look as if somebody painted each side with a perfect line down the middle. Chris said that he wants to give the lobster to an aquarium so that it can be put on display.

Calico Lobster !

2007-06-01T23:57:00.000-04:00

This story goes back a while, but basically a Portland, Maine, vessel brought in an unusual calico with an orange and yellow shell with black spots spread randomly, weighed more than 3 pounds.

It was weighed at 3-1/2-pound, male, and estimated it to be about 12 years old. It was released back into the wild. It was one of 1,500 others caught that day.

Parisi said he saw a similar shell about 12 years ago on a lobster that weighed about 1 pound.

Robert Glenn, a senior marine biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries in New Bedford, said it’s extremely rare," he said.

William Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said they can show up with blue, yellow or orange shells, but calicos are "pretty rare."

The most rare are albino lobsters, which are all white and do not turn red when boiled. Glenn said lobsters’ shells are often one color, or sometimes bicolored.

Many times lobstermen will call an aquarium and donate unusual lobsters, but whether they are taken depends on the color of the shell and how much space the aquarium has in its tanks. Sometimes businesses will try to keep them going in a (tank) to show off on display.

Anthony Ciarmetaro, owner of Captain Vince, said he has seen several calicos, several blue lobsters and several bright red ones.

Dog Becomes Surrogate Mother for Tigers !

2007-05-22T15:24:00.001-04:00

Huani feeds the tiger triplets and her own puppy at the Paomaling Zoo in Jinan, China.

A Chinese dog has become the surrogate mother of tiger triplets born at a zoo in the country's eastern Shandong province. The mongrel bitch called Huani is suckling the tiger cubs, imaginatively named One, Two and Three by staff at Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World, because their mother rejected them shortly after birth 10 days ago.

The zoo manager, Chen Yucai, said Huani is expected to nurse the tigers for about a month, or until their appetites outpace her milk supply. Mr Yucai said it was common for Chinese zoos to use dogs as surrogate mothers for rejected tiger cubs. Zoo staff have previously put dog urine on the fur of rejected cubs to make the surrogate think she is nursing her own pups.

However, this time the zoo did not need to because Huani, who has nursed tigers before, did not seem to mind caring for the cubs. "The family is getting along well and seems to enjoy each other," Mr Yucai said. A spokeswoman for London Zoo said staff try to match an abandoned animal with a mother of the same species with young of a similar age wherever possible.

In the 1990s, an Asiatic lion at the zoo abandoned her cub and staff successfully placed it with another lion that had given birth to two cubs. The spokeswoman said the cub was placed in the surrogate mother's litter so it would acquire her smell and be accepted by her. Although the cub was initially reluctant to take on the new mother, the 'adoption' proved successful.

If a mother of the same species cannot be found, staff at London Zoo will try to find a companion animal for the abandoned young. Staff once placed an abandoned tiger cub called Harry with an Akita hound, which he lived with for about nine months. The spokeswoman said it was preferable for the abandoned cub to imprint - the process by which an animal learns the characteristics of its parents - on a four-legged animal rather than a human being.

Eerie Ocean Life 7

2007-05-17T10:18:00.000-04:00

(May 17) - Carnivorous sponges, blind creepy-crawlies adorned with hairy antennae and ribbed worms are just some of the new characters recently found to inhabit the dark abysses of the Southern Ocean, an abode once thought devoid of such life.

A 'Cradle of Life'

Recent expeditions have uncloaked this polar region, finding nearly 600 organisms never described before and challenging some assumptions that deep-sea biodiversity is depressed. The findings also suggest that all of Earth's marine life originated in Antarctic waters. Scientists had assumed that the deep sea of the South Pole would follow similar trends in biodiversity documented for the Arctic. "There are less species in the Arctic than around the equator," said one of the study scientists, Brigitte Ebbe, a taxonomist at the German Center for Marine Biodiversity Research. "People assumed that it would be the same if you went from the equator south, but it didn't prove to be true at all." The findings, reported this week in the journal Nature, provide a more accurate picture of creatures in the southern deep sea and shed light on the evolution of biodiversity in the deep ocean, including ancient colonization dating back 65 million years.

Eerie Ocean Life 6

2007-05-17T10:17:00.000-04:00

Recent expeditions in the antarctic have uncovered some 600 new organisms never described before. A newly found isopod is shown here.

Eerie Ocean Life 5

2007-05-17T10:15:00.000-04:00

A pink polychaete worm is shown here. "The Antarctic deep sea is potentially the cradle of life of the global marine species," said scientist Angelika Brandt.

Eerie Ocean Life 4

2007-05-17T10:13:00.000-04:00

This spindly sea urchin has house guests: Sponges, made up of millions of single-celled animals, have attached to the urchin's branches. Weird Southern Antarctic Ocean Urchin.

Eerie Ocean Life 3

2007-05-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

This serolid isopod can flatten its body to increase surface area and keep from sinking into the fine-grain sediment on the sea floor. Southern Antarctic Ocean Creature.

Eerie Ocean Life 2

2007-05-17T10:09:00.000-04:00

Some of the deep-water isopods have eyes, suggesting they evolved from species that once lived in shallower seas where sunlight penetrated. Antarctic Souhern Ocean Creature.

Eerie Ocean Life 1

2007-05-17T09:48:00.000-04:00

This "deep-sea spider" dines on bits of food that sink to the sea floor. ...new characters recently found to inhabit the dark abysses of the Southern Antarctic Ocean, an abode once thought devoid of such life.

Squirrel Pix

2007-05-12T12:49:00.000-04:00

In our yard, Kentucky.

{c) Chris Perridas, 2007

Squirrels with Plague !!

2007-05-12T12:45:00.000-04:00

'Black Death' Found in Denver Squirrels By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY

(May 11) - A rash of squirrel deaths from plague in the middle of Colorado's largest city has heightened surveillance for the deadly but curable disease.

(the "Black Death" disease that killed millions in 14th-century Europe.)

One human case has been reported in the USA this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A 49-year-old man in San Juan County, N.M., was hospitalized last week and is recovering.

Denver's last outbreak in rodents was nearly 40 years ago. So far, 13 squirrels have been found dead in or near City Park, an urban playground 2 miles from the state Capitol. Two infected squirrels and an infected rabbit were found dead in Denver suburbs.

(Plague bacteria are carried by fleas that infect wild rodents, rabbits and cats)

City workers this week caught 17 squirrels for testing. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reports 10-20 people a year catch plague in the USA. On average, one in seven dies.

"Among pets, dogs are resistant but cats are highly susceptible. "Right now is a good time to keep cats inside."

Spider Blood Fluoresces: Bioluminescence

2007-05-12T12:43:00.000-04:00

SPECIAL GLOW. Enoplognatha ovata glows when bathed in ultraviolet light.
***

Fluorescence under ultraviolet light seems to be a widespread trait among spiders, say researchers who have done the first broad survey of spiders for this property.

The researchers tested blood from representatives of 10 diverse families and found that while under ultraviolet (UV) illumination, all samples glowed blue to human eyes, says Susan Masta of Portland State University in Oregon. In a wider survey of 19 spider families, at least one species from each family displayed glowing hairs or some other external fluorescence.

Masta says that the project began serendipitously when she and her colleagues turned off the lights while calibrating an instrument that illuminated a spider with UV light. The UV made bits of the spider's body fluoresce—that is, absorb one wavelength and emit another. Some of the emitted wavelengths fell within the range of human vision, and Masta noticed spider hairs glowing in the dark.

Masta and her colleagues found that hemolymph, the spider version of blood, fluoresced even in species that have no external fluorescent body parts.

Oh, no, a Spider: Part 2

2007-05-12T12:38:00.000-04:00

May 7, 2007 - ALBANY, Ore. (AP) - These guys weren't exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop.

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear - "like Rice Krispies" - ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

"They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said.

One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader's left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear - "like Rice Krispies."

Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.
When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.

Jesse was given the spiders - now both dead - as a souvenir. He has taken them to school and his mother has taken them to work.

"It was real interesting, 'cause, two spiders in my ear - what next?" Jesse said.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. )

Oh, no, a Spider: Part 1

2007-05-12T12:34:00.000-04:00

A woman went to her doctor complaining of headaches - and was told there was a spider living her ear.

From Tuesday June 11, 2002 ...

The arachnid had even spun a web in the woman's ear canal during its brief stay.

The 33-year-old, from Athens, felt a sharp pain in her ear while out riding a motorbike.

She went to her doctor who after a brief examination broke the astonishing news, Greek television station Private Star reported.

Dr Evangelos Gollas said: "When I examined the patient, I was surprised to find a spider's web and then, I saw there was movement.

"The spider found itself in her ear, and because the temperature is ideal there, it stayed."

The woman did not need to surgery to remove the spider and was not injured.

Cat adopts Mouse

2007-04-14T11:09:00.000-04:00

Ten days ago, the cat gave birth to five kittens in China.

"She stays in the box all day long, taking care of her babies, but three days ago, my colleague found a small mouse playing with the kittens," said a spokesperson for the store in Shijiazhuang city.

"The cat was protecting the mouse, and would become alert if anyone came too close."
The store staff threw the mouse out once, but immediately the cat ran to bring it back and let it play with her kittens.

Experts say it's quite exceptional, but that maybe the cat became lenient after becoming a mother.

Halobacteria, Retinal, and Chlorophyl: A Purple Earth

2007-04-11T21:23:00.000-04:00

Early Earth Was Purple, Study Suggests
By Ker Than: 10 April 2007 10:41 am ET

The earliest life on Earth might have been just as purple as it is green today. Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the Sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue. Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants, absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum.

“Why?"

DasSarma thinks it is because chlorophyll appeared after another light-sensitive molecule called retinal was already present on early Earth. Retinal, found in the plum-colored membrane of a photosynthetic microbe called halobacteria, absorbs green light and reflects back red and violet light, the combination of which appears purple.

Primitive microbes that used retinal to harness the sun’s energy thus tinting some of the first biological hotspots on the planet a distinctive purple color. Latecomers, microbes that used chlorophyll, could not compete directly with those utilizing retinal, but they survived by evolving the ability to absorb the very wavelengths retinal did not use,

"Chlorophyll was forced to make use of the blue and red light, since all the green light was absorbed by the purple membrane-containing organisms,” said William Sparks, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland

The researchers speculate that chlorophyll- and retinal-based organisms coexisted for a time, but after a while the balance tipped in favor of chlorophyll because it is more efficient than retinal.

Retinal has a simpler structure than chlorophyll, and would have been easier to produce in the low-oxygen environment of early Earth, DasSarma said. Halobacteria, a microbe alive today that uses retinal, is not a bacterium at all. It belongs to a group of organisms called archaea, whose lineage stretches back to a time before Earth had an oxygen atmosphere.

New Squid Found

2007-03-20T19:20:00.000-04:00

A great cephalopod blog site can be found here.
It's a Girl: Atlantic mystery squid undergoes scrutiny by Janet Raloff
Three weeks ago, while working the waters south of Key West, Fla., a chartered fishing boat hauled in a surprise: the fresh carcass of a huge squid unlike anything that the people on the boat had ever seen. In fact, according to marine biologists, the gelatinous creature is unlike any known in the Atlantic Ocean.
The fishing boat's captain sent the squid's decomposing body to the Mote Marine Laboratory, headquartered in Sarasota, Fla., where cephalopod specialist Debra A. Ingrao has been studying it. When the specimen arrived on Feb. 22, Ingrao promptly sampled its DNA.
"Most squid are 2 feet long or less," Ingrao notes.

Beautifyl White Peacock

2007-03-06T19:26:00.000-05:00

Casper Kelley saw this image and sent it to my attention. It is a white peacock !

Odd Couple in Georgia: Motherless Lamb Attached to Dog

2007-03-04T16:41:00.000-05:00

Here's an exclusive for you Weird Beast Readers!! This sent to me by a writer colleague! Due to a fatal accident, a new-born lamb became motherless. This report relates the tale behind the great photo.

"Yes, Chrispy, that's the motherless lamb. However, the dog is not the adopted mom -- that would be P___ who feeds him and holds him while he works on the computer! The lamb is living in the house and follows the dog and sleeps near her. The lamb likes to snuggle. "

~Casper Kelley

Orangutans and Tigers: Inseparable

2007-03-02T05:24:00.000-05:00

CISARUA, Indonesia - A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia's tropical rainforests.

The friendship between 5-month-old female baby primates Nia and Irma, and cubs Dema and Manis, has blossomed at the Taman Safari zoo where they share a room in the nursery.
After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out.

"This is unusual and would never happen in the wild," said zoo keeper Sri Suwarni

"When the time comes, they will have to be separated. It's sad, but we cant' change their natural behavior," she said. "Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old."

Newly Discovered Antarctic Beasts

2007-02-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

(1)This psychedelic octopus was also found in the frigid waters off Antarctica, one of the world’s most pristine marine environments.

(2)These deep-sea sea cucumbers, all moving in the same direction, were abundant in the area explored.

(3)The collapse of the 5,000-year-old ice shelves over the last dozen years gave the scientists a unique opportunity to see new species, such as this amphipod crustacean.

(4)Explorers off the coast of Antarctica found fast-growing sea squirt settlements, which apparently started colonizing the area only after ice shelves collapsed.

Story in "comments".

Spear-Making Chimpanzees

2007-02-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

Chimps Make Weapons to Hunt, Scientists Say By Maggie Fox, Reuters

WASHINGTON (Feb. 22) - Chimpanzees have been seen using spears to hunt bush babies. It was only the females who fashioned and used the wooden spears.

Full article in comments !

Giant Squid: Captured.

2007-02-23T09:47:00.000-05:00

Video as long as the snag lasts can be seen at my Lovecraft blog ... (click).

Rare Squid Could Be Largest Ever Hooked: Massive Catch Has Rings the Size of Truck TiresBy RAY LILLEY, AP

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Feb. 22) - A fishing crew has caught a colossal squid that could weigh a half-ton and prove to be the biggest specimen ever landed, a fisheries official said Thursday. (21 Feb 2007)

The squid, weighing an estimated 990 pounds and about 39 feet long, took two hours to land in Antarctic waters, New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said. The fishermen were catching Patagonian toothfish, sold under the name Chilean sea bass, south of New Zealand "and the squid was eating a hooked toothfish when it was hauled from the deep," Anderton said. The fishing crew and a fisheries official on board their ship estimated the length and weight of the squid: Detailed, official measurements have not been made. The date when the colossus was caught also was not disclosed.

Colossal squid, known by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are estimated to grow up to 46 feet long and have long been one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep ocean.
If original estimates are correct, the squid would be 330 pounds heavier than the next biggest specimen ever found.

"I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest. It is truly amazing," said Dr. Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology. If calamari rings were made from the squid they would be the size of tractor tires, he added.

Colossal squid can descend to 6,500 feet and are extremely active, aggressive hunters, he said.
The frozen squid will be transported to New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa, in the capital, Wellington, to be preserved for scientific study. Marine scientists "will be very interested in this amazing creature as it adds immeasurably to our understanding of the marine environment," Anderton said. Colossal squid are found in Antarctic waters and are not related to giant squid found round the coast of New Zealand. Giant squid grow up to 39 feet long, but are not as heavy as colossal squid.

Endangered Rhino

2007-02-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Feb. 20) - The first Sumatran rhino born in captivity in more than 100 years arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday with a single task - to breed and help save the endangered species from extinction.

The 5-year-old rhino, Andalas, was flown from a zoo in the United States to Jakarta's international airport. After a checkup he was to travel another 12 hours by truck and ferry to a rhino sanctuary on Sumatra island, where females Rosa and Ratu await.

"He is young and still full of energy," said Arman Malonongan, Indonesia's director general of forest and wildlife conservation. "Let's just hope he falls in love there."

The Sumatran rhino is considered the most threatened of the five rhino species, with less than 300 still alive in isolated pockets in the forests of Malaysia and Sumatra, which is also home to endangered tigers and elephants.

Rampant poaching for its horns - used in traditional Chinese medicines - and destruction of forests by farmers, illegal loggers and palm oil plantation companies has decimated their numbers over the past 50 years.

Conservation groups say saving the Sumatran rhino from extinction is possible, noting sustained efforts in India and Africa have led to booming numbers of species in those countries.
But they say breeding programs like the one that is bringing Andalas back to Sumatra and greater political will to stop poaching and forest encroachments are essential if numbers are to recover.

Andalas was born in 2001 in the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, the first time a calf was bred and born in captivity since 1889, when a live birth was recorded at the Calcutta Zoo in India.

"We persevered through five years of intensive effort and endured many setbacks before finally producing Andalas ... so it is hard to see him go," said Dr. Terri Roth, the zoo's vice president of conservation, science and living collections.

"Yet, we want nothing more than to help save this species from extinction, and if that means giving up our first-born calf, then we will rejoice in the opportunity."

25 million year old frog

2007-02-18T14:40:00.000-05:00

Researchers believe that this frog recently found in Mexico could have been preserved in amber for 25 million years.jpg

Multilegged Duck

2007-02-18T14:38:00.000-05:00

(18 Feb 2007) Webbed feet run in Stumpy's family, but he's the first to have four of them.
A rare mutation has left the eight-day-old duckling with two nearly full-sized legs behind the two he runs on. Nicky Janaway, a duck farmer in New Forest, Hampshire, 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of London, unveiled the duckling to reporters on Saturday.

More On the Fluorescing Squid

2007-02-14T16:57:00.000-05:00

The film captured the squid in action: 1. The squid swims towards the bait; 2. It spreads its arms wide; 3. It swims around the bait, twisting its body; 4. It grabs the bait with its eight arms.

Colossal Squid Lights Up the Deep Sea !!

2007-02-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

The squid wasn't as sluggish as was first thought
The squid in action
Big deep-sea squid emit blinding flashes of light as they attack their prey, research shows.
Taningia danae 's spectacular light show was revealed in video footage taken in deep waters off Chichijima Island in the North Pacific.

Japanese scientists believe the creatures use the bright flashes to disorientate potential victims.

Writing in a Royal Society journal, they say the squid are far from the sluggish, inactive beasts once thought.

In fact, the footage, taken in 2005 - the first time T. danae had been captured on camera in their natural environment - reveals them to be aggressive predators.

The squid, which can measure over 2m (7ft) in length, deftly swim backwards and forwards by flapping their large, muscular fins. They are able to alter their direction rapidly by bending their flexible bodies.

The films, taken at depths of 240m to 940m (790 to 3,080ft), also show the cephalopods reaching speeds of up to 2.5m (8ft) per second as they attack the bait, capturing it with their eight tentacles.

Blinding flashes

However, the intense pulses of light that accompanied the ferocious attacks surprised the research team.

Dr Tsunemi Kubodera from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, who led the research, told the BBC News website: "No-one had ever seen such bioluminescence behaviour during hunting of deep-sea large squid."

The footage reveals the creatures emitting short flashes from light-producing organs, called photophores, on their arms.

Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the team said: "[The bioluminescence] might act as a blinding flash for prey."

The light would disorientate the squid's intended prey, disrupting their defences, they added.

It could also act, the scientists commented, "as a means of illumination and measuring target distance in an otherwise dark environment."

However, further investigation revealed the light bursts may also serve another, quite different, purpose away from the hunting field - courtship.

As the squid drifted around torches that had been attached to the bait rig, they emanated long and short pulses of light.

The team believe the torch lights may have resembled another glowing T. danae , and the squid were possibly emitting light as courtship behaviour.

Difficult subjects

SIZE COMPARISON

Deep-sea squid - once thought to be legendary monsters of the sea - are notoriously difficult to study, and little is known about their ecology and biology. Several species prowl the ocean depths.

T. danae is thought to be abundant in the tropical and subtropical oceans of the world. The largest reported measured 2.3m (7.5ft) in length and weighed nearly 61.4kg (134.5lbs).

Larger species of giant squid belong to the Architeuthidae family: females are thought to measure up to 13m (43ft) in length.

But the aptly named colossal squid ( Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni ) is thought to be the largest of all - possibly reaching up to 14m (46ft) long.

Weird Chickens !! In Key West, Florida

2007-02-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

In Key West, Florida, city commissioners boted to remove the roaming street chickens. There are up to 3000 wild chickens in the city and have mostly been left alone to attract tourists. Recent concerns of bird disease initiated a crack down (or cluck down). However, a previous 2004 attempt that rounded up 500 chickens failed as some chicken-sympathizers opened the cages and let them loose.

Coffee News, Louisville, KY Volume 2:35H, 5 February 2007.

Psychic Red Squirrel

2007-02-01T15:44:00.000-05:00

Are RED SQUIRRELS psychic? Scientists aren't willing to go that far, but they do say the animal has a built-in ability to stay one step ahead of its food source. According to Science, trees use an evolutionary "swamp and starve" tactic in attempts to prevent animals from eating its seed (Science 2006, 314, 1928). The trees attempt to starve predators some years, so that in fruitful years, there will be fewer seed predators around to consume the bountiful crop.

There's just one hitch in the near-perfect plan: The American and Eurasian red squirrel has concocted a counterattack. The red squirrel has somehow discovered how to anticipate a boom seed season and has responded by defying nature and producing an unusual second litter of pups.

"American reds gave birth to larger litters in advance of high food production and were most likely to breed as yearlings," the researchers state. "The most striking effect was that females produced a second litter after a successful first litter in advance of high food production. In most cases, females were still lactating with the first litter when they conceived the second, suggesting that the normal physiological inhibition of ovulation by lactation characteristic of mammals had been circumvented."

Although scientists have yet to understand how the red squirrel is able to predict the trees' behavior, they suspect it is linked to "visual or chemical stimuli," such as buds, flowers, or pollen cones, which "may be correlated with the size of the forthcoming seed crop." Now that's nuts.

Weird Fluorescent Spider !!

2007-02-01T15:36:00.000-05:00

Extracted from …
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2007 American Chemical Society
January 29, 2007 Volume 85, Number 05 p. 8
Critter Chemistry
Spider Seduction Requires UV Light
Sex-specific use of UV light to seek out a mate is a first
Sarah Everts

Science © 2007

The female jumping spider attracts mates by using organs called palps, which are located just below her eyes and fluoresce when excited by UV light Without UV wavelengths, these spiders get no love.

Males reflect UV light off scales on their faces and bodies during the mating game, whereas females have sensory organs called palps, typically used to capture prey, that fluoresce bright green when excited by UV light.

In the absence of UV light, the success rate for consummating courtships decreases, explains senior author Daiqin Li of the National University of Singapore. "The fluorescence really seems absolutely essential for the males to recognize the females," comments Thomas Cronin, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "In most other creatures, fluorescence is a supplementary signal to add contrast. In these spiders, it seems necessary for the male spider to find a female."

2007-01-31T20:58:00.000-05:00

This one was submitted by Casper Kelly! She got it from a friend of a friend.

One week after being born, six baby skunks were abandoned by their mother. Luckily, we had just weaned five kittens off of our resident farm cat a day before and hoped that perhaps she might take them on as her own. She was reluctant at first, but she let them nurse - a positive sign. Two weeks have gone by and the six little "Stinkers" are thriving and their new mom couldn't be happier. She has become quite devoted to them and even carries them around to show them off to visitors

Mozart the Iguana

2007-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

This one was submitted to Ginger, my writer colleague !!

[Since this is a family blog, you will have to use your imagination as to Mozart's red, swollen, um, problem]

Mozart, an iguana with an erection that has lasted for over a week, will have his penis amputated in the next couple of days.

Veterinarians at Antwerp's Aquatopia had sought to treat the animal's problem, but decided removal was the only solution because of the risk of infection. The good news for Mozart and his mates is that male iguanas have two penises.

Mozart, sitting on the shoulders of his keeper as camera crews focused on his red, swollen erection, seemed unperturbed by the news.

"It doesn't bother him. He doesn't know what amputation means," said vet Luc Lambrecht, adding that Mozart's sexual activity should be undimmed by the operation.

Architeuthis - The Kraken - Giant Squid, even !! - - found

2006-12-23T10:08:00.000-05:00

Formally called Architeuthis, the giant squid can grow up to 60 feet in length. Little was known until recently about the creature that inspired the myth of the "kraken," a tentacled monster blamed for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

"Nobody has ever seen a live giant squid except fishermen," said team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of Japan's National Science Museum. The giant squid was caught on a baited hook laid 2,150 feet under the sea. Scientists captured it off the Ogasawara Islands, near Tokyo, on Dec. 4.

From: TOKYO (22 Dec. 2006) -- Its mass of reddish tentacles flailing, a giant squid fought a losing battle to evade capture in a video unveiled by Japanese scientists on Friday.Images of the squid -- a relatively small female about 12 feet long and weighing 110 pounds -- were the ultimate prize for zoologists at the National Science Museum, who have been pursuing one of the ocean's most mysterious creatures for years.Team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of the museum's zoology department said in an interview on Friday, "We believe these are the first ever moving pictures of a giant squid."The Japanese research team tracked giant squid by following their biggest predators -- sperm whales -- as they gathered to feed near the Ogasawara islands, 620 miles south of Tokyo between September and December.They succeeded in taking the first still photographs of a living giant squid in 2005, observing that it moved around in the water more actively than previously thought, and captured food by entangling prey in its powerful tentacles. The latest specimen, whose formalin-preserved carcass was displayed at a news conference at the museum in Tokyo, was caught on a baited hook laid 2,150 ft under the sea off the Ogasawara islands, on December 4, the scientists said.A squid about 22 inches in length had been attracted by the bait and the giant squid was hooked when it tried to eat the smaller squid, the scientists said.12/22/06 03:40 ET

Video Here.

New Beasts Discovered !

2006-12-18T23:50:00.000-05:00

Wonderful new Weird Beasts !

More than 50 new species of animals and plants that have never been seen before have been discovered in a 'Lost World' on the island of Borneo in just 18 months, say scientists.
Among them are two tree frogs, a whole range of plants and trees and 30 brand new types of fish including a tiny one less than a centimetre long and a catfish with an adhesive belly that allows it to stick to rocks.

Bioluminescent Bacteria: Milky Sea

2006-12-18T19:08:00.000-05:00

At a bioluminescent web site, "milky seas" are discussed. This is where bioluminescent bacteria in the trillion-billions and beyonds cluster together and can actually be seen from space. (See blue streak next to Ethiopia in picture above). These are miles across and dozens - maybe hundreds of miles long.

This makes them - in aggregate - one of the largest organisms on Earth.

This is even mentioned in Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea.

By the way, the bright streaks are the glowing lights of cities in tis area of the world - i.e. light pollution.

Aochan (the Snake) and Gohan (the Hamster): Pals

2006-12-17T15:51:00.000-05:00

A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a zoo in Tokyo. October last year, when zookeepers presented the hamster to the rat snake, it refused to eat the rodent. The two now share a cage, and the hamster sometimes falls asleep sitting on top of his natural foe.

"I have never seen anything like it," a zookeeper at the Mutsugoro Okoku zoo said. (The hamster was initially offered to Aochan, the two-year-old rat snake, because it was refusing to eat frozen mice. )

As a joke, the zookeeper said they named the hamster Gohan - the Japanese word for meal.

"Aochan seems to enjoy Gohan's company very much," said zookeeper Kazuya Yamamoto.
The apparent friendship between the snake and hamster is one of many reported bonds spanning the divide between predator and prey.

Hurrah for Tommy the Cat!! Saves Gary Rosheisen of Columbus

2006-12-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

Owner: Cat Called 911 To Help Him
(KDKA/AP) COLUMBUS A Columbus man who fell out of his wheelchair and was unable to call for help says his cat did it for him.Officers say Gary Rosheisen's cat Tommy was lying by a telephone on the living room floor when they arrived at the house Thursday.Fifty-year-old Rosheisen says Tommy must have hit the right buttons to alert authorities.Rosheisen suffers from osteoporosis and ministrokes that disrupt his balance. He says he wasn't wearing his medical-alert necklace when he fell.Police received a 911 call from the apartment, but no one was on the phone.Rosheisen says he tried to teach Tommy to dial 911, using a speed dial button. But he wasn't sure if the cat ever picked up the training.

Bao Xishun, World's Tallest Man Saves Dolphins

2006-12-15T23:27:00.000-05:00

Bao Xishun, 54, was recognized as the world's tallest man by the Guinness Book of World Records. In a picture below, he pulls plastic from inside a dolphin's stomach Wednesday (13 December 2006). In another photo, the herdsman from Inner Mongolia, observes the dolphins at their home in an aquarium in China's Liaoning province. He was called to help two dolphins after surgery on them failed.

New White Buffalo

2006-12-15T23:20:00.000-05:00

Assiniboine Park Zoo Gallery
12/11/2006

For White Buffalo in Shelbyville, KY that Chrispy took, see archives below.

Tales of the Cryptids

2006-12-10T08:41:00.000-05:00

http://www.talesofthecryptids.com/

Lots of fun weird beasts,

Octopus

2006-12-09T00:21:00.000-05:00

"The octopus his big-hooded eye followed me, a single five-foot-long arm reached out, the incredible arm inched up past my wrist, it's suckers like cold kisses tasted my flesh with tens of thousands of chemoreceptors. I couldn't help feeling as if I were being studied, that a measured intellignece lay behind that intent eye and exploring arm." (1)

The octopus is a big-brained invertebrate - cognitive, behavioral, and affective. These are mollusks - but what creatures. Psycholgist Jenifer Mather studied an octopus vulgaris snatch some crabs, drag them back to a crevasse, cover the entrance with rocks, eat the crabs, and takes a siesta. They solve mazes, learn, remember. The brain wraps about the espophagus. They only spend 7% of their time hunting, and the rest of the time is engaged in recreation and communicating with others of their species. (2)

(1) slightly enhanced from a portion of "Through the Eye of the Octopus", Eric Scigliano, Discover, 2003, pp. 47 ff. (2) condensed from same article.

Whale Sounds!!

2006-11-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

By Charles O. Choi: Special to LiveScience: posted: 27 November 2006
Humpback whales possess a vastly more elaborate vocabulary than was known ... Scientists had previously known of a very narrow range of sounds involved in humpback communication. These include calls associated with hunting for fish and long complex songs from male humpbacks linked with mating.

Researcher Rebecca Dunlop at the University of Queensland in Australia monitored humpback sounds from the whales along the east coast of Australia.

"The most surprising thing was there were 35 different types of sounds found.

Underwater sounds included "thwops," "wops," "grumbles," "snorts," "cries," and what are likely underwater blows. Sounds produced at the surface include those generated via breaching or repeated slaps of the tail or fins.

The scientists discovered these sounds have a variety of social uses including to help mothers and calves stay in contact, or as competitive calls among large groups of adults. The whale calls might also be be specific to one sex.

At times humpbacks used sounds specific to male songs for social interactions, mainly when single males joined females. This could mean the song units are the key sexual signals in the male songs [audio], as opposed to song length or loudness, as is the case in some bird species, the researchers said.

Research earlier this year found humpback whales to use grammar, in their love songs. Interestingly, the new study found that a number of sounds were made by lone animals. This suggests their use is not limited to social interactions.

This research could help understand the impact noise from ships and other manmade sounds have on whales. This noise "is increasing in the ocean," Dunlop said. "We don't know how this will affect individuals and populations of whales without first knowing how they communicate in a relatively 'noise-free' environment."

The researchers will report their findings Dec. 1 in Honolulu at a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the Acoustical Society of Japan.

Chrispy Goes to the Bats - Who try to take a bat sized bite out of him.

2006-11-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

(c) 2006 Chris Perridas

I pulled over to the park to watch the sunset and see if I could get a picture to go with Lovecraft's prose-poem ode to a sunset (see below, another blog entry). I saw a bat, and watched. It did it's usual bat thing, flitting to catch mosquitoes, moths, and what not. I got out and took a few pictures of the moon, the sunset, and then walked closer. The bat was joined by companions, so I thought - go for it. Being dusk, I set the digital camera and flashed away.

That's when I discovered two things. My camera is not made to take bat pictures, and bats do NOT like their pictures taken by flash papparazzi. They started to zip at me and I decided to move away - quickly. Here are a couple of surrealistic bat pictures for you.

My good friend and fellow writer from HL.net sent this to me. He is sure this is what I tried to take a picture of!!

In the howl of insanity comes a small ... meow

2006-11-26T16:21:00.000-05:00

The entire article will be in "comments" below.

On a trip throiugh Louisville, a family who rescued and kept precious a toothless, clawless cat lost it. Heartbroken, that the nervous feline bolted in a blur of a moment, they frantically tried to find it. They left, but asked a number of people to help, and in a miracle that may have used 3 of the cat's 9 lives, it was found.

Hurrah!

Astanax Mexicanus

2006-11-26T00:14:00.000-05:00

This excerpt from Science News:

Did Cavefish trade eyes for Good Taste? A certain cavefish seems to have thrown away its eyes for a bigger jaw and a more sensitive palate. The cave fish {Astanax Mexicanus, hereafter A.M.) in Mexico (according to William R Jeffrey of University of maryland: College Park). Its seeming ancestor is a terrestrial dweller. The A. M. has eyes as an embryo, but quickly degenerate. The bigger jaws, more teeth sort of push out the eyes, but the nervous system is enhanced in the taste buds. A special protein drives eye degeneration in cave fish and also enhances the jaw and taste bud enhancements. The enzyme - or lack of it - modifies both A.M. and its surface dwelling ancestor. It seems that to survive, the enzyme was selected so that the cave fish can more appropriately detect its food supply.

Lamark might have found this interesting. In this case, it appears that Darwin and Lamark are both needed to make the case of this evolutionary pathway.

Whooping Crane Chick Flies!

2006-11-25T13:14:00.000-05:00

MILWAUKEE (25 Nov 2006) -- One of the first whooping crane chicks hatched in the wild in more than a century is making more history as it migrates south with its parents from a Wisconsin refuge. The chick, whose sibling apparently was killed by a predator, hatched in June at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, according to Operation Migration, the group coordinating an effort to establish a second migrating flock of the birds in North America.

Weird Giant Catfish

2006-11-25T09:51:00.000-05:00

British fisherman Carl Smith (pictured with friend, Dave Jones) caught a giant wels catfish, dubbed "Jaws," measuring 8 ft in length and weighing a record-breaking 226 lbs. Two friends held tightly onto Smith as he battled the monster fish for 35 minutes. After Jaws was weighed, measured and photographed, he was released back into the River Ebro in Spain.

Amazing bereaved squirel: Strange Maine

2006-11-24T18:57:00.000-05:00

Read the entire story on Strange Maine. Click here.

As a teaser, you must know there is a great deal of weird action, and people chased by squirrels.

Armadillo Rumored sighted in Kentucky

2006-11-24T18:46:00.000-05:00

On Thanksgiving break, I hear a comment that an armadillo was sighted. It was killed on a road in LaRue county (birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, by the way). Global Warming is here! The amadillos are on the move north.

Ross Gull sighted: Global Warmng?

2006-11-24T18:44:00.000-05:00

The Salton Sea, a 35-mile-long lake stretching across the Imperial and Riverside county line, is a popular stop for birds heading south, and Guy McCaskie, co-author of "Birds of Salton Sea," believed he spotted a Ross' gull there a week ago. The appearance of the arctic bird nearly 100 miles east of San Diego would be the first reported in California and would place it hundreds of miles farther south than it had ever been seen. The gull, which normally breeds in Siberia or Greenland, rarely appears south of Alaska, and is only spotted in even the northern part of the lower 48 states every few years.

Weird Octopus

2006-11-23T08:22:00.000-05:00

In an article by Jaron Lanier, we read, "This video is so shocking ... shot in 1997 by my friend Roger Hanion ... off Grand Cayman Island {a researcher at Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole} he swims up to examine an unremarkable rock covered in swaying algae. Suddenly, astonishingly, one-third of the rock and a tangled masss of algae morphs and reveals itself ... the waving arms of a bright white octopus. Its cover blown, the creature squirts ink at Roger and shoots off into the distance - leaving Roger, and the viewer slack-jawed."

April 2006, "Why Not Morph", Discover, p. 26.

Raccoon Story

2006-11-19T15:17:00.000-05:00

Story that I believe is true.

My friend, Larry, took scouts camping. One of the folks said they were sleeping, and heard a "zzzzzip". The tent was unzipped, and a raccoon walks in. She jumps up and yells. The raccoon quickly scurries out, then stops and "zzzzzip" zips the tent flap back up.

Next day everyone claims that the person is insane. She dreamed it.

They go out, and come back. Another tent, completely zipped up, has been raided, everything turned topsy turvy and food eaten in a way only raccoons can.

Clearly, the raccooons have somehow learned to be clever. They unzip, eat, and rezip so as to camouflage their tactics.

You be the judge is this incredible and true.

Raccoons Attack!!

2006-11-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Family in California assaulted. See "comment".

I'll attach the entire order in "comments" to save space. Raccoons are clever and highly intelligent. When I moved into my house, the previous owner thought they were cute (they are) and fed them dogfood. Oh no! We moved in and they were trained to come to the back door (and since a generation of raccons in only a few years they had been trained for 3 or 4 generations) and were quite insistent. We cut off the food, trained them to be afriad of us - be very afraid - and now they have migrated to other food supplies and stop offs. They still patrol out of racial memory, but no food, so they move on.

The small raccoons are quite cute - don't we love baby mammals!! I do every now and then leave a watermellon rind out so that I can take aphoto of the young ones inside the melon rind. They do look cute sticking their head up.

One more thing. We've learned that raccoons have a sweet tooth. Leave some m&m's out sometime, and they will go insane. They love them.

If you feed the birds, they will attack bird feeders with a vengeance and they are more dexterous and better problem solvers than squirrels - and you know how insidoous squirrels can be. When all else fails, raccoons will smash a steel bird feeder.

Box Elder Bug

2006-11-12T15:16:00.000-05:00

For years, we have been plagued by a red and black bug at our church property. They seem harmless, but they do tend to get inside. Outside, however, they have a weird pattern. They crawl, fly, and proceed to get in every nook and crevice. You drive away after service and its the invasion of the bugs - they hang on tenaciously to the windshield and mirrors and dare you to blow them off. When they tend to breed, which is seemingly often, they congregate in piles of thousands.

So, what the heck are they?

When it crossed my mind, I looked through my reference books. No luck. No luck on the net under "ornage and black bug". Then Friday I happened to think to ask our work place exterminator. He has not failed us yet, and so I mentioned it. He was stumped. Then as he walked away, he said catch a few and I'll look at them. Then, he came back and said, you think they could be a box elder bug?

How did I know. We looked on the net together, and sure enough my old mystery stared at me.

I called my minister right away who was very amazed. Then we wondered what a box elder was. Off to the net again. Then today at church, I felt like an idiot. I caught a few frigid bugs (they are practically industructible) in the 40 F weather. And it dawned on me. Our property is filled with box elders. The seeds matched perfectly, and even though all the leaves are gone, I found a few desicated brown specimens that agreed closely with sketches. No wonder.

Anyway, thanks for sharing my "duh" moment with me. !!