Tennessee Vultures

Okay, I'm used to pigeons and crows scavenging in Providence. But giant carrion birds outside my front door, eating smooshed squirrels--!?! I'm sorry, this is why cities were invented.

Any WU readers have such birds as their immediate neighbors?

Posted By: Paul - Sun Oct 04, 2009 - Comments (10)
Category: Animals, Death, Regionalism, North America

Follies of the Mad Men #72

This one's just for Patty, who registered discontent with our exclusive concentration on the female form!

Posted By: Paul - Sun Sep 27, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Body Modifications, Business, Advertising, Products, Hygiene, Fictional Monsters

The Dead Animal Library

Not as gruesome as it sounds, these hides and skulls are proving useful for determining pollution in modern day animals.



I think a human skin and skull library would be equally valuable for the same reason -- are you ready for your hide to be tanned?

Posted By: gdanea - Tue Sep 22, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals

Barry White Comes To The Rescue Of Zorro!

A six year-old male shark imported by the London Aquarium to breed with their resident female was initially a disappointment. Zorro the zebra shark showed little interest in London girl Mazawabee, despite having built a reputation as a lover at his previous home in Belgium. Staff at the aquarium floundered around for a solution before suggesting that perhaps Zorro's uncharacteristic shyness could be overcome with a little masterly mammalian mood music from legendary sole-singer, Barry "Great" White?

Surprisingly, the treatment has almost worked too well, to the saving of Zorro's reputation and further enhancement of Barry's. Zorro and mate Maza are now so ardent that their frequent, and violent, public courtship has alarmed some visitors, with Zorro's "love-bites" being misinterpreted as an attack. But with a "tiger in their tank" the aquarium staff are happy, Zorro is happy, Maza is (probably) happy and maybe, somewhere, Barry is smiling too (Annova).

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Fri Sep 18, 2009 - Comments (6)
Category: Animals, Music

1.5 billion birds and counting

There are three sections to this video, showing an ever increasing number of birds.


I understand no one actually counts the birds, but how the estimate is made would be interesting.

Posted By: gdanea - Sat Sep 12, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals

Drunken Monkeys

A study of Vervet monkeys shows a similar percentage of drinkers and non-drinkers as the human population, but the real entertainment is the monkeys stealing the drinks!!



This is from the BBC Worldwide animal show "Weird Nature".

Posted By: gdanea - Tue Sep 08, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals

A Little Light Weirdness - 5

They say news travels fast, but in the speed stakes it can’t hold a candle to dumb. Circling the blogosphere like an angry Superman is news that security guard Jason Cooke has managed to sight the Loch Ness monster on Google Earth. The object, which Cooke claims exactly matches the descriptions of Nessie, is clearly visible as a quadrupedal, long-necked plesiosaur-like creature, and in no way could be the wake behind a boat or anything mundane like that. This latest find comes as a relief to many cryptozoologists, who had expressed concerns that the dearth of recent sightings might mean Nessie had fallen victim to Global Warming (Telegraph).

Or perhaps this is simply proof that Scottish universities have got the jump on their transatlantic counterparts? In a move nearly, but not quite, totally unlike Jurassic Park, Professor Hans Larsson of McGill University in Montreal has announced that he hopes to de-evolve chickens back into their dinosaur ancestors. Larsson stressed that he is not aiming to recreate whole dinosaurs at this time, but by switching on or off certain genes in chick embryos he hopes to induce atavistic dinosaur anatomy in the full grown animals (AFP).



More in extended >>

Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Aug 26, 2009 - Comments (12)
Category: Animals, Ceremonies, Weddings, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Cryptozoology, Fictional Monsters, Fairs, Amusement Parks, and Resorts, Geography and Maps, Inebriation and Intoxicants, Nature, Science, Experiments, Surrealism

Another Helping of Food Related Weirdness - 4

First up, let's take a moment to savour pest control, Texas Style. Farmer Skip Smith, from Dublin, TX, is so fed up with feral hogs busting in to his watermelon patch and eating his crops that he’s fighting back with the aid of night-vision goggles and a silenced, fully automatic machine-gun. “The same thing that our forces use in Iraq, we're just using them on animals," Smith said, “we shoot about 45 to 50 a week on 1000 acres." Which is a hell of a lot of free bacon (ABC).

But if there is one food that might possibly challenge bacon as the mightily meaty master of my heart, it would be southern fried chicken. So what could be better than a sandwich that includes both? Well, how about one that leaves out that pointless bread stuff and puts the slices of gorgeous bacon between two hot, fresh fried chicken fillets? That is the idea behind what some reports are claiming is the latest creation from KFC, the “double-down” sandwich. Bacon, cheese and the “Colonel’s special sauce” are sandwiched between the chain’s house-style fried chicken in a heart-stopping 1200 calorie mouthful. And the day this launches near me officially marks the end of my banana diet (AJC).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Aug 26, 2009 - Comments (8)
Category: Agriculture, Animals, Cops, Exercise and Fitness, Food, Candy, Guns

Evil Cows Celebrate Another Victory

Link to article.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Aug 18, 2009 - Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Death, Europe

A Little Light Weirdness - 3

Brazilian TV presenter, Wallace Souza, has brought a whole new meaning to the term "hit show", by allegedly arranging the deaths of at least four people to boost the ratings of his mid-day real crime show. Souza, a former policeman and prominent politician, is accused of being behind a criminal drug network with an estimated turnover of $25m a month, while the murder victims were all either partners who had fallen from favour or from rival outfits. Once the hit had been set up, it is claimed Souza would receive a tip-off so that camera crews for his program could reach the scene before even the police (Guardian).

Someone else who may be meeting with an "accident" pretty soon is Ginger the kune-kune pig, who is not in pensioner Anne Moon's best books after swallowing her $2500 dollar diamond engagement ring right off her hand. Mrs. Moon, who had gone to pet the pig just prior to the impromptu a-la-main meal, immediately alerted the pig's owner, farmer Paul Caygill, and hopes to be reunited with the ring given to her 30 years ago once nature takes its course (Fox News).

And while Anne Moon is left hanging around dumb animals, in the Norwegian town of Helgoysund, it is the dumb animals that are hanging around. For it is there that a ram managed to get its horns entangled in one of the town's overhead electric cables, before losing its footing, astonishing onlookers as it subsequently abseiled down the hill towards the next pole. Locals suspect that this may have been caused by an over rambitious attempt to reach the ewes in a lower field, and after the ram was eventually towed back to higher ground and released unharmed, he was allowed access by way of compensation for his ordeal (Daily Mail).

Still on the subject of dumb animals, that is presumably what one Parisian store is hoping to attract with its latest creation, a fusball table populated entirely by Barbies. The "Barbie Foot", by French "concept-store" Colette, uses 22 of the ubiquitous dolls, in contrasting uniforms of pink and white in its limited edition table football game, which it hopes to sell for 10,000 euros, that is $14,000, each (Guardian).



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Posted By: Dumbfounded - Wed Aug 12, 2009 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Crime, Death, Exercise and Fitness, Furniture, Government, Law, Television, Goofs and Screw-ups