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How many five year olds could you take in a fight?
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Photographer captures trout's great escape
Also at
Environmental Graffiti .
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Tony Hawk, I wish I had half the command of obscure English vernacular that you do.
shredordie.com
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Boy attacked by moose "feigns death," thanks WoW
A Norwegian news site is reporting that a young boy and his sister were attacked by a moose (same thing happened to my sister once), and the boy reportedly "taunted' the moose away from his sister, and then feigned death, causing the moose to lose aggro and leave. "Just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft," the boy is reportedly quoted as saying. In Norwegian .
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Jellyfish attack destroys salmon
A jellyfish invasion has wiped out Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing more than 100,000 fish. Like all things British, Pelagia Noctiluca are usually kind of boring. But damn, "the jellyfish covered an area of up to 10 square miles and a depth of 35 feet." Did they see it coming? Were there crowds of Irish people standing on the dock, horrified at the swarm of mauve stingers bearing down on them?
This is actually becoming a very large problem all over the world, likely spurred by a warming of the oceans and overfishing. We've eaten most of the fish, and since nature abhors a vacuum the jellies are quickly becoming our new oceanic overlords. Sea (lol) also:
Jellyfish Bloom on African Coast Jellyfish Bloom Swamps British Coastline Jellyfish Bloom in Japan And yes, there's even an
international symposium on jellyfish blooms .
Regardless of whether or not this will eventually doom us all (if rising sea levels don't first), jellyfish
are amazing to look at. If you haven't seen this video of the lake full of jellyfish in Palau, it's worth checking out.
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Man sized sea scorpion claw found .
The immense fossilised claw of a 2.5m-long (8ft) sea scorpion has been described by European researchers. Eurypterids , otherwise known as sea scorpions, evolved about 500 million years ago and died out about 250 million later.
Turns out, ancient
arthropods (think crabs, spiders, centipedes, insects) are fascinating. The largest today is the
Japanese spider crab , which can have a leg span of up to four meters, but the body itself is only about 37cm. Compared to what was running around in the Devonian, that's peanuts.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, before the Mesozoic and the rise of the dinosaurs, the high levels of oxygen in the air allowed arthropods to grow to sizes that would scare the crap straight out of you. Since they don't have proper lungs like pretty much anything in the phylum chordata, the size that insects, crustaceans, arachnids etc can grow to is directly proportional to the amount of oxygen in the air. Which meant that you'd have to put up with Arthropleura, a three meter long millipede.
Here's a video of one being impaled! Also includes meter long dragonflies and a spider the size of your head.
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examine its cloaca for a degenerate penis .
Over and over he scoops up a chick with his left hand, expels its droppings with a squeeze of his thumb, opens its vent with his fingers, peers through the magnifying lenses attached to his spectacles and determines its sex. Then he deposits the tiny bird in one of two bins. Two thousand vent sexes and a good day's work later, his hands and his shirt front are still immaculate. And if you buy sexed chicks from Lyle's employer, the sort is guaranteed 95% accurate. Of course, it makes perfect sense that the
Japanese came up with it .
Oh look! It's everyone's second favorite Discovery Channel host, Mike Rowe!
I don't know which I find more unsettling - that he calls a chicken vagina a "hidey-hole" or that he squeezes meconium onto the camera.
Want something more scholarly? You're
in luck !
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Wild Turkeys' Lurking Puts Boston Area on Edge
The turkeys started chasing kids and joggers down the street. Neighbors would laugh watching the lawyer or pediatrician who lived next door being chased by a gobbling mob of birds. Turkeys take to cities, towns BROOKLINE - On a recent afternoon, Kettly Jean-Felix parked her car on Beacon Street in Brookline, fed the parking meter, wheeled around to go to the optician and came face to face with a wild turkey.
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The mating habits of Limax maximus [the great grey or leopard slug] are considered unusual among slugs — the hermaphrodite slugs court – usually for hours – by circling and licking each other. After this, the slugs will climb into a tree or other high area and then, entwined together, lower themselves on a thick string of mucus, evert their white translucent mating organs (penises) from their gonopores (openings on the right side of the head), entwine these organs, and exchange sperm. Both participants will later lay hundreds of eggs. The tiny slugs emerging from the eggs need at least two years to reach sexual maturity.[1]
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ridiculous animal nonsense lately, and I apologize. Moving on, let's take a look at the oldest clam in the universe.Ming the clam is 'oldest animal'
A clam dredged up off the coast of Iceland is thought to have been the longest-lived animal discovered. The scientists, being soulless murderers, promptly killed the clam. Seriously.
Did you know the largest species of clam is
Tridacna gigas ? They can grow up to five hundred pounds! I bet they're delicious, too. Look at how big this clam is!
Incidentally, the clam in that picture is actually giving birth. To thousands upon thousands of other monstrous clams. Watch your back, people.
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The mouse that shook the world
It can run for hours at 20 metres per minute without getting tired.It lives longer, has more sex, and eats more without gaining weight. Could the science that created this supermouse be applied to humans? Well damn, now that they've created
this monstrosity we don't really have any choice but to apply this to humans. Lest we see Hitchhiker's Guide become a reality. Though then again, they're comparing him to Lance Armstrong - maybe we should really fear
cyclists .
Hopefully, this video of a Vietnamese Centipede tearing a mouse to shreds will make you feel better. No, I don't either.
I love that they named him "Father Christmas" (it's in the youtube description).
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Bob's Dinosaurs Attack! Homepage
Topps tried once more with the DINOSAURS ATTACK! cards that came out in 1988. At that time there was a lot of interest in Dinosaurs and Brown and Gelman thought a blood and guts series like the old ones would be unusual enough to be sucessful again. But it never broke through as a card series in a big way. Just hard core collectors seemed to love them. The series was certainly inspired by Mars Attacks. This is an incredibly gory, fifty-five piece trading card series about dinosaurs running loose in the modern day, disrupting all sorts of events and violently eviscerating all in their path. This guy Bob Heffner has graciously decided to scan and upload the front and back of each card, so now everybody can revel in the majesty of this ridiculous piece of history.
Wait, what does that say?
When Tim Burton had Warner Bros. acquire the rights for the Mars Attacks film, they also bought the rights to Dinosaurs Attack. Oh my god,
yes . Does anyone out there have enough pull in Hollywood to make that happen? I appreciate the effort with
Jurassic Park II , but frankly it just wasn't enough.
Here are two more of my favorites:
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Drunk elephant rampage ends in death
It happened back in 2004, too:
Drunken elephants die in accident And 1991:
A herd of thirsty elephants have broken through Indian army defences to steal the soldiers winter rum rations. The animals regularly break into an army supply depot in the jungle area of Bagdogra, in Northern Bengal, to get to the stores of food and spirit. Soldiers have tried to keep them at bay by lighting fires around the base and putting up electrified fences. But the crafty creatures have learned to hose out the flames with water stored in their trunks, and to flatten the fences by dropping uprooted trees on them. Once inside the depot, the huge raiders have no problem smashing down thin steel railings and wooden windows to get to the rum, sugar, flour and bananas inside, said an army spokesman. An officer recently posted there explained that the elephants broke the rum bottles by cleverly curling their trunks around the bottom. Then they empty the contents down their throats. They soon got drunk, he said, and swayed around. They enjoy themselves and then return to the jungle. But woe betide any soldier on duty who confronts one of the partying pachyderms, said the officer. One elephant never forgot the man who poured hot water on him one night - and has returned regularly to demolish his hut. Then again,
at least one person is skeptical about the whole thing. His point about the marula fruits is probably valid, but I'm not convinced that it's impossible for an elephant to drink enough. Honestly, I
want to believe. Anyway, here's that video:
If I ever open a bar, I'm calling it "Marula".
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5 rare Asiatic lions electrocuted
AHMADABAD, India - Five rare Asiatic lions were found electrocuted Friday on the edge of western India's Gir National Park, a wildlife warden said. Here's an
unwieldy video that's too ugly to embed.
I suppose numbers two through five didn't get the hint. Most interesting thing? There are only about 350 asiatic lions left in the wild. Yes, yes - 1.4% of
all the asiatic lions were killed by
the same electric fence . It seems like you wouldn't need a fence powerful enough to reliably kill full grown lions just to keep them out.
Also:
The Wildlife Protection Society of India says their bones are all highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine, as are their claws Surprise.
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anal glands , so technically that man and his fancy Jeep now belong to the cheetah. Did you know your cat has anal glands? That's right! On top of that, the cat food you feed him makes his poop too soft to properly drain them. Remember cat owners, it's a good idea to express your cat's anal sacs regularly !i've been waiting to use anal sacs in a post for a week now
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Dutch natural history museum unable to locate elusive crab louse for its collection
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: A Dutch museum said Friday it is having trouble getting its hands on a parasite that just about everybody else is anxious to avoid: crabs. Alack the day! He's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead! Can Heaven be so envious? Without pubic lice, we just might be running out of harmless STIs we can still make fun of people for! What could be the cause of this horrible extinction?
The authors hypothesized that the bikini wax known as "The Brazilian" that removes all or most pubic hair, might be to blame. ...
okay.
I'll give it to you, that
might be possible. Plausible, even. But what the hell kind of bizarro-world is this museum living in? It's always difficult to tell if the Dutch are way ahead of us, or if they're just thinking on such a far-off plane that neither of us will ever really understand each other. Frankly, I'm amazed they get along with everyone so well.
But here's what really clinches the article:
"When the bamboo forests that the Giant Panda lives in were cut down, the bear became threatened with extinction. Pubic lice can't live without pubic hair." Frankly, I'd rather see the crab louse make it out alive. I'm sick of pandas.
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'Cow-eating' trees of Padrame
Residents of Padrame near Kokkoda in Uppinangady forest range sighted one such carnivorous tree trying to dine on a cow last Thursday. According to reports, the cow owned by Anand Gowda had been left to graze in the forests. I once read about the man-eating trees of Madagascar in a big, fantastic book called
The Unexplained (which, incidentally, introduced me to the concept of the chupacabras), but I suppose it makes just as must sense for there to be one in India. According to the
Wikipedia entry on carnivorous trees (you know there's gotta be one), they've been spotted in Central and South America too. The article also includes what appears to be the only legitimate picture of one on the internet.
As is standard with these sorts of things, there are no photos, official investigations or anyone expressing any interesting in figuring out what the
fuck happened.
However no detailed inquiry was made as the authorities were not asked for any report, Rao said. Typical.
More from
Cryptomundo
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Check this site out! Not only is it full of videos of fire ants telling it like it is, the guy who wrote it is hilarious.
Fire ants have a degree of awesomeness that cannot be replicated by other insects. They are dangerous, relentless, stinging robots that attack anything that comes near their nest without any regard for their own lives. Even their name sounds menacing - putting other contenders like a "stink bug" or "dung beetle" in their place without even having to go to the trouble of biting out their intestines. My favorite part is this:
Fire Ants vs. Giant, Pissed Off Spider It's a shame that he confused locust with cicada, as per the top of the page, but this is a common mistake. They don't look particularly similar:
LOCUST
FIGURE IT OUT
Regardless, I understand that not all of us grew up under the spectre of yearly locust plagues. Especially the flesh locusts. It's difficult to forget that menacing shape after watching your grandmother be torn limb from limb in the village square, screaming helplessly as she clasps the red petunia you had sheepishly handed her.
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Monkey attack kills Delhi leader
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. My god. I'm imagining SS Bajwa leaning over his balcony on a steamy Delhi morning, perhaps leisurely sipping coffee while smoking his day's first cigarette, and suddenly being
assaulted by angry rhesus macaques . As one leaps for his head and digs its claw into his eye socket, Bajwa tosses his arms into the air and lets out a deafening Wilhelm scream. Several others swing from the balcony and plow into his torso, sending him flying over the banister into the tropical air. The mass of blood, flailing bureaucrat and enraged simian carves a graceful arc through the air before hitting the ground with a dull thud - the monkeys walk away unconcerned as the public servant lies lifeless on the ground. Sirens in the distance. This was not a random assault. This was a hit.
But don't worry! Delhi is working hard to ensure that this doesn't happen again:
Solution elusive Wait, what? How the fuck is
that a good idea? Didn't they learn from, oh, I don't know, the brown snake or the cane toad? Yeah, imagine cane toads, but they'll kill you instead of your dumb dog.
Maybe they need to employ these guys:
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love to dance. There are days when it seems like every other video is a cockatoo boogying its face off, and damn if I couldn't spend hours watching them do that. It's an awful shame they're usually dancing to the Backstreet boys or something similarly terrible, but then again the sorts of people who make pet birds dance might not have the best taste in music.Wired Magazine , coming to ruin our fun ! Curse you wired, with your reasoned, objective analysis!
I suspect that in most cases, while the video is being shot, but outside the picture, the bird's owner is dancing along with the bird, and encouraging it. Being very social, interactive, and intelligent, they also quickly notice what kind of behavior gets them attention and repeat it. So it would be easy to train a cockatoo to dance without ever consciously trying to. While it doesn't seem that there's a bulletproof conclusion, it looks like cockatoos might not actually be genetically endowed with wicked flow. This should be the sort or thing that could be solved with a cockatoo, the scientific method and a Backstreet Boys CD, but by the time they throw all that through an IRB I don't think anyone will care anymore. Alas! Here are some more videos if you'd like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCm0kn-Mbdo This one actually has some great music that I took the time to look for afterwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjFAbsGconY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQT6noaH0qo
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all you get is a link . Here !
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shitting your pants in terror , or is he so used to fighting that he can do it while taking a dump?
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goddamn that hurts .
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(a contribution) Battle for Anchorage Read more
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Elephant seals are the largest member of the pinnipeds, weighing up to two and a half tons . That's probably about twice as much as your crappy Honda Civic. In fact, "The record bull, shot in Possession Bay, South Georgia in 1913, was 5000 kg (11,000 lb) and 6.9 m (22.5 feet) long." There are actually two species, northern and southern, of which the southern tends to be about 400 kilos heavier.
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two thousand kilograms , and a polar bear a third that size has absolutely no problem completely kicking its ass and dragging it out of the water.
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Just don't look like a seal . Well damn, what if I am a seal? They've certainly gotten a raw deal as big, floating bags of meat, and you know something's wrong when your chief predator is just screwing around with you for fun.
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Motorway fowl-up: Why 3000 chickens crossed the road
Why did 3000 chickens cross the road? Because the lorry they were in crashed on one of Scotland's busiest motorways, that's why. How, exactly, do you round up three thousand chickens? I wish someone had taken video of the policemen chasing them and chucking them back into the truck. This is without a doubt the best photo in the article. True journalism.
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here . Did you have a hankering to hear a crocodile today? Perhaps a juvenile distress call, threatening adult hiss, or a courtship bellow? My friend, all that and more is just a click away.
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this excellent blog the other day, and upon delving into the archives came across a comic that seems to be entirely about a black horse fighting everything it can lay its murderous hooves on. Opponents include wolves, snakes, vaguely murine bears and other horses, along with more formidable adversaries such as weather and gravity itself. help himself , but I appreciate the spunk required to tell gravity to go fuck itself and (presumably) come out on top. In these times of subjugated, broken beasts of burden, it's important to remember that horses can, in fact, battle.
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(a contribution) Read more
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Battlezoo . An institution. A way of life. Now, a blog.
Originally conceptualized as a gigantic, free-form nature preserve where humans would pay to fight animals , Battlezoo was one of Western civilization's last great ideas. Construction began on a remote South Pacific island in late 1947 and was completed four years later, with close to seventy thousand individual creatures brought in from every continent on the planet.
Set to open on July 17th, 1951 - the tenth anniversary of its conception - the Zoo never actually saw the light of day. On July 15th, legal issues, lack of investor interest and violent animal rights protests led to the complete abandonment of Battlezoo and relegated it to the obscure annals of history.
The animals still roam the island today, locked in an eternal showdown.
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