Turkey Feather Wedding Dress

In 1947, a gal named Barbara Ehrhart chose to create her wedding dress out of turkey feathers.















The guests tossed more feathers instead of rice.

More pix here, courtesy of LIFE.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 03, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Eccentrics, Fashion, Marriage, 1940s

An Apple a Day…

A 68-year-old Swedish man, Ingemar Westlund, was cleared of murder charges when elk hair and saliva were found on his wife's clothing. It all happened back in September of 2008, when his wife took their dog for a walk in the woods and never returned. When she didn't come back, Mr. Westlund went looking for her and found her body next to a lake near Loftahammer. Even though elk normally steer clear of humans, apparently "the animals can become aggressive after eating fermented fallen apples in gardens." BBC

Posted By: mdb777 - Sun Nov 29, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Death, Wives

Electric Chair for Lobsters

A Lawyer in Jolly old Britain has invented a new method of killing lobsters. The "Crusta-Stun" (presumably a shortening of crustacean and stun gun) will retail for about £2,000. That's around $3,300. Yikes.

This "humane" way to dispatch your lobster is supposedly even sanctioned by PETA. If we invented machines big enough for cows, does that mean beef's back on the menu too?

The image above originally comes from MAKE

Posted By: dherlich - Wed Nov 25, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Food, Ethics and Morals

Giant Aussie Earthworms

Posted By: Paul - Fri Nov 20, 2009 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Australia, Natural Wonders

Lions And Tigers And Bears, Oh My!

A couple visiting a safari park in Johannesburg, South Africa got a bit closer to nature than they expected after one of the Lions, a juvenile male, calmly got hold of the rear door handle in his teeth and pulled it open. After a shocked moment, the driver gunned the engine and the vehicle took off with the lion in hot pursuit. It was finally driven off by wardens at the exit gates (Daily Mail).

Meanwhile Mr Zhu, a 61 year-old retired teacher from China’s Jiangxi province, let his curiosity get the better of him during a vistit to the circus in Nankang, and put his hand though the bars of a tiger’s cage to feel its fur. The tiger promptly bit off four of his fingers. Zhu collapsed on the spot with shock, but survived to receive 3500 yuan (about $500) in compensation. The tiger was unharmed by the incident, but felt hungry again 15 minutes later (Times of India).

Less aggressive, but equally troubling, is the giant bear that has made its home near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, described by one resident as “super smart”. The residents of Incline Village are enduring almost nightly visits from a 700 lb black bear that has already caused $70000 of damage this year. The bear has evaded the traps set for it and the patrols looking for it, and has even survived a couple of rounds from a .44 magnum, one of which reportedly bounced off its skull (Las Vegas Sun).

In other (not actually) bear news, Australian marsupial pinup the Koala is looking at a bleak future according to recent reports. The loss of eucalyptus trees through deforestation, dog attacks and car accidents are stressing the animals to such an extent that they are succumbing to usually harmless viral infections. Frank Carrick of Queensland University’s Koala Study Program said the koalas were in “diabolical trouble” and that their numbers were “declining alarmingly”. (Washington Post). The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are fewer than 100000 koalas left in the wild, maybe as few as 43000, and the mainland population could go extinct in as little as 30 years (New Scientist).

Finally, a crocodile bit of more than it could chew this week when it strayed too close to a bloat of hippopotami and their young, who promptly formed a threatening defensive ring. Startled, the crocodile attempted to escape over the backs of the angry hippos, a fatal mistake. The croc’s scaly hide was no defence against the 3000-4000 lbs of bite pressure of an adult hippo, and it was soon crushed to death in their jaws (Telegraph).

It's a far cry from the cretaceous period where, according to new fossil finds, crocodiles were the extraordinarily successful inhabitants of a swampy region that was to become the Sahara Desert. Given nicknames like "boarcroc" and "ratcroc", the fossils show a plethora of different crocodile species living alongside each other, with each adapted to different ways of life. Some, like "dogcroc" and "duckcroc" have oddly shaped braincases that suggest they may have been considerably more intelligent than their modern descendants (Times).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Thu Nov 19, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Death, Stupidity

Aqua Frolics

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Why not have your Thanksgiving turkey dinner underwater this year?

Posted By: Paul - Wed Nov 11, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Exercise and Fitness, Movies, Documentaries, Recreation, Sports, 1950s

Chinese Fruit Bats Engage in Some Kinky Behavior

A scientific paper published today on http://www.plosone.org details some interesting bat behavior. The article title really says it all Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time. The paper's abstract goes on to state "A positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male's penis during copulation and the duration of copulation. Furthermore, mating pairs spent significantly more time in copulation if the female licked her mate's penis than if fellatio was absent."

The image above (and a more in-depth discussion of naughty bat behavior) comes from this article on Treehugger.com

Posted By: dherlich - Wed Oct 28, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Science

Black Sheep

In line with the WU theme of "dangerous domestic animals...."

Anyone actually seen this?

Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 25, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Death, Movies, Parody, South Pacific

Cyber-pigeon!

In this photo from the Life archives, we see a 1962 experiment involving the affixing of goggles to a pigeon to learn more about its vision.

Please be sure to magnify the photo for full horrifying effect.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 18, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Science, Experiments, 1960s

Orange Blossoms for Violet

I don't think the Italian subtitles will stop you from enjoying this bit of monkey madness.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Oct 13, 2009 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Cartoons, 1950s