Animal World Tales

[Smitty]

As an ex-farmer so often I found PETS that children of family became tired of so were often cats, to some snakes or several Painted Bottom turtles. The mower being towed & PTO working said blades hacked up so many animals, snakes or such. On two occasion I took the turtle to a small box that use to contain apples, put in some hacked up weeds/grass that was wet. Then drove down to the lake at a spot I knew to be still most often to also not with a lot of people & would release the turtle. Interesing to see the neck stretched out at it was looking over its new home. Same on the 2nd one as well.

[CielOnTap]

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?rn=222562&cl=18535342&ch=&src=canadanews

There should be a video showing the 15m oarfish from Japan. Apparently, there have been sightings of washed up fish since last November. The fish are viewed as indicators of earthquakes to come.

[CielOnTap]

Is this an example of mobile interspecies dental cleaning? There is a bird that help a mammal with its dental care too.

Page last updated at 15:28 GMT, Friday, 12 March 2010
Zebra snapped putting head in hippopotamus's mouth


A zebra at Zurich Zoo appeared to be staring into the jaws of death when visitors saw it nose to nose with an open-mouthed hippopotamus.

But the hippo had no intention of having the zebra for lunch - it was having its teeth cleaned. The extraordinary sight was captured by photographer Jill Sonsteby, from Jacksonville, Florida. She said the teeth-cleaning session lasted 15 minutes and the zebra came to no harm. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8564834.stm

[CielOnTap]

Inspiration from the natural world for a new kind of robot? Researchers take a shine to the octupus:

Octopus inspires Italian robots
Pisa researchers using live animals as models for smart machines
16 March, 18:33

Guarda la foto1 di 1 (ANSA) - Pisa, March 16 - A team of scientists in Tuscany said Tuesday they were using live octopuses as a model for the household robots which will someday clean our homes, mind our children and man our factories.

The researchers from the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa said that classic humanoid models, like the ones made famous in the Star Wars films, had serious disadvantages compared to rubbery eight-limbed alternatives. Apart from having fewer arms to work with, standing on two feet puts robots at risk of "falling over and hurting themselves," explained the project's coordinator Professor Cecilia Laschi. She said that was less of a problem for a robot with eight tentacles, which it could use alternately to move around and handle objects. http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/rubriche/english/2010/03/16/visualizza_new.html_1733948941.html

[trailblaze]

Homeowners buy expensive alarm systems, tamper-proof locks and other items to protect their property, but a new study points to a less obvious crime-buster: cat fur shed by fastidious felines that might be living in the home. An international team of scientists has just established an extensive DNA database that will permit cat fur to be used more often and accurately as forensic evidence.

Fur from a fluffy, white house cat has already been used in a murder trial. The accused, Douglas Beamish of Canada, had cat fur stuck to one of his pockets in a discarded jacket. The fur was genetically linked to victim Shirley Duguay's cat, Snowball. The evidence helped to convict Beamish of second-degree murder, leaving him with a 15-year prison sentence.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35948243/ns ... e-science/


Ain't science great. Now cats help to catch criminals.

[CielOnTap]

This item from Germany brings recollection of a similar missing snake in townhouse(s) in Toronto scare from a few years ago. How about installing mesh covers on terrariums? Some pet shop owner should see the purpose of a cover.

03/22/2010

The Great Snake Hunt
House Evacuated for Eight Weeks after Pet Cobra Vanishes
Kevin O. wanted a new pet. But the highly poisonous cobra he bought apparently didn't want him. It escaped in his apartment, leading to a week-long, 40,000-euro search for the reptile. Now, with the snake still at large, the house has been sealed off for eight weeks.

Snakes, as every schoolboy knows, can go for quite some time between meals. Even monocled cobras -- extremely poisonous, but hardly the hardiest of reptiles -- can survive up to six weeks without a bite. Which helps explain why a house in the western German city of Mülheim is being sealed off and evacuated for two months.

The saga began over a week ago when amateur snake keeper Kevin O., 19, brought home his exotic new pet and installed it in a terrarium complete with the ventilation system necessary to keep the three-month old serpent toasty warm. Just a short time later, however, the snake tank was empty and its occupant was nowhere to be found. O. called the authorities.

What followed was one of the lengthiest and most expensive pet-hunts Germany has seen in recent years. The walls, floor and ceiling of O's attic apartment were dismantled and the two units on the ground floor below were also carefully searched. Flour was strewn on the floor in the hopes of collecting tracks. Strong, double-sided tape was installed to perhaps trap the cobra baby. The fire department even brought in mini-cameras to search the tightest and most inaccessible corners. http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,685045,00.html

$40,000 Euros for one bill alone. That young adult will be busy earning the money to pay it off. He'll need to mind having his own residence (which he needs to own) before he entertains bringing home any new reptile friends. What a lesson.

Just a thought: what if the critter is outdoors or turns up in someone else's home? Run.

[deja vu]

The story has all the elements of the classic TV series and movie, “The Fugitive.” There’s a dogged pursuer, and a clever suspect who refuses to be caught. All it lacks is a one-armed monkey to play the role of the real villain.

Hold it. Can you rewind that? Did someone say “monkey?”

That’s right. For more than a year now, a very resourceful rhesus macaque monkey has been leading a wildlife trapper on a merry chase across three counties and through the urban jungles of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Fla.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36013254/ns ... d_animals/


Just when you think you have heard it all, along comes this cute little fella. My moneys on the monkey, but If they finally catch him, he would certainly be the star attraction at any zoo.

[CielOnTap]

True love overcomes any distance, Croatian storks show
Thu Mar 25, 11:58 AM

ZAGREB (AFP) - A male stork proved once again that distance is no bar to true love as it flew thousands of kilometres (miles) back to its handicapped mate in a Croatian village, local media said Thursday.

This is the fifth year in a row that the stork, named Rodan, has made the epic journey of some 13,000 kilometers (8,060 miles) from South Africa to the village of Brodski Varos, in eastern Croatia, the Jutarnji List daily reported.

"This year he came a bit earlier," Stjepan Vokic, who cares for the female stork, named Malena, unable to fly since hunters shot through its wing, told the paper. Stork mate is the real deal

[CielOnTap]

Do property owners provide health care benefits and insurance against animal attacks if guests bring surprising pets? I'd be more than mildly freaked about pets in a no-pet hotel. Even if it was a cute monkey with manners.

Stretching the limits of ‘pet-friendly’
Hotels expand policies, but some patrons forget common sense


By Harriet Baskas
Travel writer
updated 9:46 a.m. ET, Thurs., March. 18, 2010

It’s always nice to find a pile of morning newspapers by the hotel elevator. A pile of dog poop? Not so much.

But that’s what greeted me at the 9th-floor elevators during a recent stay in Portland, Ore. Worse, someone had already stepped in it.

“I’m so sorry you encountered a surprise in the hallway,” the manager of the upscale, famously pet-friendly property wrote via e-mail when he got wind of the incident. “From time to time it does happen. It is a rare exception to responsible pet ownership.”

Oh yeah? That manager asked me to please not name his hotel here, but other hotel managers and pet owners tell me pet-friendly properties must deal with elevator “surprises” and more all the time. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35914562/ns/travel-tips/

[pysanky]

People working with animals always have questions about how animals do things. Curiosity solves puzzles; learn new behaviours.

People owning animals-some owners are out to lunch about animal responsibility. See what happens in stores--little dogs brought into grocery shop in little bags...