As the time runs out before Jerry Coyne flies to his forever home (on Saturday), Kitten Whisperer Gayle Ferguson has sent a batch of pictures. There are also a few nuggets of information: Jerry is really aggressive about noms. When he’s tired of his own bowl he will push his head in front of another […]
This is a rare performance on the aquatic harp, an instrument that can be played only by procyonids: It’s like the theramin, but with water.
Several readers sent me a link to this video, which has gotten over 22 million views since it was posted only 2 days ago! It’s about as viral as a video can get. You might notice two things: the “strangers” are rather more attractive than “average” people, and they also osculate with unusual fervor. That’s […]
UPDATE: I mistakenly used last year’s article instead of this year’s. The fact is that, according to EarthSky, Wisdom produced another chick in early February of this year—at age 63! Here’s the photo of her with her offspring: She looks great for an old bird, doesn’t she? h/t to Reader Grania, who corrected me and […]
Five panda cubs; one bottle of milk. Can there be a better job than this? h/t: Barry
This is a little late for Valentine’s day, but who cares?; after all, I’m sure our hominin ancestors did a similar thing. When I was in grad school, I tried to woo a young lady by bringing her a vial of fruit flies (Drosophila) with a red ribbon around it. I thought she’d enjoy watching […]
We often hear about the “Martian zoologist”: a mythical creature who is invoked to show how baffling human behavior would seem to a non-Earthling. And here we see the venerable Sir David taking on that role—narrating, in his inimitable way, women’s curling at the Sochi Olympics. As PuffHo notes, The BBC somehow convinced the famed narrator to […]
I have found, over the years, that catnip (a mint whose scientific name is Nepeta cataria) affects some cats but not others. Hili, for instance, is completely indifferent to it, as I discovered when schlepping a catnip toy to Poland for her. A short (free) article by Jeff Grognet in the Canadian Veterinary Journal gives […]
Too much evolution and philosophizing makes Jack a dull boy, and so we’ll finish the work week with a few fun animals. This video, sent by reader Ronaldo, show the remarkable psychological similarity between humans and raccoons (Procyon lotor). ‘Fess up: you like to pop the bubbles in bubble wrap, don’t you? I know I […]
I don’t know how the cinematographers got this footage (much of it must be a montage), nor do I know how to embed it in a way that will show you the video as you’re about to see it, but it’s pretty amazing footage. A hawk goes after a wily squirrel, but (to my relief), […]
