A two-headed turtle captured by a turtle collector is a rare example of a conjoined-twin birth, its owner said.
The turtle would have likely died in the wild because it swims awkwardly and would be an easy target for predators, according to Jay Jacoby, manager of Big Al's Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton.
The store bought the tiny turtle from the collector for an undisclosed price and will keep it on display, he said.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Two-headed turtle goes on display
MonKEYS
MonKEYS are stretchable durable covers that fit over almost any shape key, adding a playful touch to a normally ho-hum object.
You can even give 'em names. These are Cheeky, Che, Kong, Darwin, Spank, and Bob.
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Munchlers
Munchlers
A lunch box that would captivate every kid, or kid at heart, lunch boxes in the shape of zoo animals, designed by Stephen Savage.
The eglu for rabbits
The eglu for rabbits
The eglu has a front door which opens using the handle on the top. This handle also locks the door so when your rabbits are in the run you can clean the eglu, without the chance of them escaping! When your rabbits are in the eglu, you can close the door and then pick them up or stroke them using the side hatch.
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Animal Globe
"Animal Globe"
Compact, colorful and educational globe,featuring more than 100 animals shown in relation to their country of orgin. Includes a pocket size encyclopedia with facts about each animal.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Pupperware, anyone?
One of the hottest new concepts in critterland is the home pet party, a gathering of animals and the people who are willing to open their wallets for them. The events are ringing up revenues for companies like Shure Pets, based in Chicago.
"The pet economy is on fire," says Andrew Shure, president and founder of Shure Pets.
"Our society is more affluent, people are marrying later and maybe not having kids, and they tend to treat their pets like their children," says Shure.
Shure launched his company in 2003 and has seen revenues increase every year, he says. Shure Pets has 1,600 "independent pet consultants" throughout the country, in all 50 states. "We're growing, though we're still a tiny company," he says.
On average, parties ring up about $400 in sales, says Shure, and consultants earn 25 percent commission. Party hosts earn credits toward merchandise.
Photo credit: Sacramento Bee/Autumn Cruz
Video: Fighting Giraffes
Great footage of fighting giraffes, but it gets pretty vicious at times. Filmed on safari in Tanzania.
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
Camouflaged Animals
Some animals have to blend in with their natural environment in order to not get eaten by other animals.
More at: Very Bored
Art by Mike Libby - Insect Lab
Insect Lab is an artist operated studio that customizes real insects with antique watch parts and electronic components. Offering a variety of specimens that come in many shapes, sizes and colors; each specimen is individually designed and hand- assembled, each is one of a kind and unique.
Borrowing from both science fiction and science fact, Insect Lab's customized insects are a celebration of natural and man-made function. Specimen's are presented in either custom made black shadow boxes or glass bell jars, allowing for display anywhere.
Dogs & Aviation Security
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program is an important tool used to deter terrorism in aviation today. Their teams are the most mobile form of explosive detection and can be utilized in all areas of the airport environment. An explosive detection canine team is used to search narrow and wide-body aircraft, vehicles, terminals, warehouses, and luggage in the airport environment.
Dogs are looking for a variety of explosive odors that they have been trained to detect. Once the dog identifies the explosive odor, it responds accordingly. Recent scientific studies have indicated that the dog actually uses a "bouquet" of several different components of the explosive to make this determination.
TSA dogs have been utilized to clear sports arenas, schools, office buildings as well as all areas of the airport environment. Once again the bomb dog's mobility and ability to identify the source of an explosive odor are critical elements in its operational use.
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A horse is a horse, of course, of course
Customs agents in Atlanta said nay to a person trying to smuggle a small horse inside a dog crate from Germany to Guatemala.
Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport said the passenger who bright the small show horse onto a plane apparently was trying to pass the horse off as a dog, Atlanta television station WGCL reported Wednesday.
Customs agents said the owner did not have the proper permits, and the horse's crate was too small. After removing the horse from the crate, officials examined it for diseases and fed it.
Armor for Dogs!
Organic Armor creates handmade costume pieces, jewelry and props that look like ancient metal, bone and leather. But unlike the real thing - you'll find the pieces lightweight and comfortable. Wear them for hours through active movement - especially suited to performance. Wear it to clubs, rituals, festivals, on stage, or in the backyard!
They also make armor for dogs.
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Video: Seagull Thief
A seagull in Scotland has developed the habit of stealing chips from a neighborhood shop.
The seagull waits until the shopkeeper isn't looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos.
Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds.
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Pretend They're Raisinettes
Mental Floss has collected Six Unexpected Uses For Animal Dung.
These lovely earrings were made from moose droppings.
Please discourage earlobe nibbling while wearing them.
Lifestyles Of The Pets Of The Rich And Famous
When it was disclosed that Leona Helmsley had made her pet Maltese Trouble her biggest heir, leaving a $12 million trust fund for her pet, Forbes.com researched the spending habits of the very rich and their pets.
According to Russ Alan Prince, of Prince & Associates, who tracks the habits of the rich, wealthy people who love to lavish money on their pets spend $328,000 on their pets annually.
"Life enrichment" services for pets is the biggest spending category and includes stuff like deep-muscle massage, psychic readings, life coaching and "cosmic sensitivity," a sort of astrology. More than one-third of pet-obsessed owners spend in this category.
Special diets and meals prepared by celebrity chefs are also popular.
More than one quarter pet-focused owners spend more than $25,000 on their beloved pet's wardrobe.
If you thought child birthday parties were getting out of hand, imagine what it would be like to attend a $25,000 party for a pet. Sixteen percent of pet-focused owners in a recent survey are guilty of this.
More than 12% of pet-obsessed people send their lovies to a psychologist.
Six percent of pets fly around in private aircraft unescorted except for the flight crew, mostly being transported to their owner's vacation spot after their owner missed them too much.
57% of pet-focused owners had formal arrangements in place in the event they died before their pets, and 27% of them had a trust set up for their pet, to the tune of $526,000. Ninety percent of those trust arrangements distribute remaining funds to family once the pet dies.
Pet trusts aren't as crazy as they sound. Thirty-nine states, including New York, allow them, but restrict their durations. In N.Y., the term is 21 years.
Sound Activated Mini Dancing Monkeys
Sound Activated Mini Dancing Monkeys
Plastic toys, fashioned like monkeys that dance upon sound activation.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Alpacas on guard
A Cornish egg farm has recruited two Peruvian alpacas to act as security guards for their hens.
The animals, named William and Harry, keep predators away from speciality egg producer Clarence Court's hens near Camborne.
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In the footsteps of Genghis Khan
An Australian man has completed a three-year journey from Mongolia to Hungary, following in the footsteps of the Mongolian leader Genghis Khan.
When Tim Cope began his 10,000 km (6,200 mile) journey in June 2004 he expected it to take 18 months.
However, a stint at home when his father died and other delays meant it took more than double that.
Throughout the trek he traveled on horseback and relied on the hospitality of local people, including nomads.
He traveled with three horses at any time, one to carry him and two to carry feed and supplies and briefly, whilst in Kazakhstan, also used a camel.
He needed 13 horses in total to complete the marathon journey, though two of them - Taskonir and Ogonyok - have been with him since October 2004 when he was in Kazakhstan.
His other companion was Tigon, meaning "hawk" or "fast wind", a black and white hunting dog given to him as gift in Kazakhstan, whom he now hopes to take home to Australia.
Arriving at his final destination, the Hungarian town of Opusztaszer, Mr Cope paid tribute to the animals saying that they, along with the numerous people who had welcomed him into their homes, were the "real heroes" of the journey.
Both he and the animals faced much hardship as they endured life on the steppes of Asia and Central Europe, experiencing temperature ranging from minus 52C to plus 54C.
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UPDATE:
Tim Cope has a website : Tim Cope Journeys
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Rare albino ratfish caught in Washington
A ghostly, mutant ratfish caught off Whidbey Island in Washington state is the only completely albino fish ever seen by both the curator of the University of Washington's 7.2 million-specimen fish collection and a fish and wildlife biologist with more than 20 years of sampling fish in Puget Sound.
This fish was almost pure white with a crystalline layer near the surface of its skin that gave it a silvery sheen.
The foot-long female may have been 2 or 3 years old, making her a teenager in the ratfish world. She was caught this summer in about 200 feet of water during a UW research project examining the food web in Hood Canal and Puget Sound.
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Bugs can be cute
This is a Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar. Isn't he cute?
They are bright green with numerous blue spots with thin black outlines. Their eyespots are much bigger, with the black part being kind of shiny. They also have two other secondary fake eye spots that are yellow. The bottom half of their bodies are a sort of pinkish color. Viewed from certain angles they look like a small snake, to help scare off predators.
Here's a view of his cute little face.
Before they pupate, Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars turn a bright yellow color.
This is what the cute little catterpillar grows up to become:
Spicebush Swallowtail - Papilio troilus
The adults have a wingspan of 2.5 - 3.8 inches. Their range is most of the eastern half of the US, except extreme south Florida and Texas.
Source & photos: Butterfly Gardening & Conservation
Online Guide to Insect Songs
Online Guide to Insect Songs, brought to you to complement the book, The Songs of Insects
Monday, September 24, 2007
The world's wildest delicacies
Joe Staton, formerly of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, spent an unhealthily long time studying whether everything really does taste of chicken. He concluded that taste is, in large part, to do with the evolutionary origin of an animal. So, birds all taste like chicken, and so does crocodile, since dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds too. But why do tarantulas taste like chicken? And is fugu worth the risk?
Here are seven of the world’s more exotic delicacies, what they actually taste like – and where you can try, or avoid, them.
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Drunken Duck Decapitator
Scott D. Clark, a guest at the Embassy Suites Hotel in St. Paul, was in custody Sunday after police said he ripped the head off a tame duck that lived in a hotel lobby's ornamental pond.
Clark cornered the duck early Saturday morning, grabbed the bird and ripped its head from its body while a hotel security guard and others watched, police said.
Clark then turned to onlookers and said: "I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat it," St. Paul police Sgt. John Wuorinen said.
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Rare white koala
This koala is incredibly rare because although he has white fur instead of the usual grey/brown, he has the normal black eyes and nose.
The creature, nicknamed Mick, was found blind and suffering from a variety of illnesses by a forest ranger and taken to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, north of Sydney.
He was immediately given round-the-clock security protection in case anyone tried to steal him and sell him to a collector for his novelty value.
After an operation on his eyes, he was put on antibiotics and gradually returned to full health.
Mick has just been released back into the Bush after months of treatment - although his precise location remains a secret.
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Bees smother enemies to death
Honey bees can smother their enemies to death by swarming them, researchers report.
The discovery means that bees have three ways of dispatching their enemies: by stinging, which for a bee means suicide; by raising the other creature's body temperature, or thermo-balling; and by asphyxiation.
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Topiary Art Designs
Artist Steve Manning of topiary art designs makes custom and bespoke feature topiaries and stainless steel topiary frames for gardens designers, landscapers, theme parks, civic amenities, exhibitions, garden shows and event promotions.
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Sunday, September 23, 2007
Transparent Frogs
A research team led by professor Masayuki Sumida at Hiroshima University’s Institute for Amphibian Biology has created a type of transparent frog whose internal organs are visible through its skin. The researchers say the see-through frogs can help in the study of diseases and in the development of medical treatments by allowing laboratory scientists to check the status of internal organs and blood vessels while the frogs are alive and without having to dissect them.
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Electric Pink Bunny Slippers
Greg Solberg, Firmware Engineer at Tesla Motors, and his girlfriend Lisa built a pair of giant motorized bunny slippers that they could drive. They are 7.5-feet long and can scoot along at a top speed of about 15 mph. Both feet (yes, there is a left and a right) are covered with plush pink Flokati rugs the exact color of cotton candy.
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Big Head Fred Treat Canister
Big Head Fred Treat Canister
I'm Big Head Fred so fill me with treats 'cause every good dog deserves good eats! Big Head Fred's mouth rolls back to reveal tasty treats and is made of metal. Holds 18 oz.
Bush Biskit Dog Treats
Bush Biskit Dog Treats
Maybe it's time to sit your puppy down and have a serious talk about the facts. It's time you found out if your little bundle of unconditional love is a conservative, a liberal or a new fandangled progressive. Maybe you need to think twice about leaving Fido home alone to answer the never-ending stream of political phone surveys during the day!
Kitty For All Seasons
Kitty For All Seasons
Celebrate the seasons with this 12-pc. kitty and outfit set. Hand-painted polyresin cat comes complete with wardrobe for Christmas, Easter, 4th of July and Halloween.
