Last Viewed Animals Blogs (472)

Best Friend

It gives me great pleasure to announce the rediscovery of an animal believed to have been extinct for nearly a century and a half. Nonetheless, unconfirmed rumour in the 1930s was to the effect that a small population of the Cape Desert Warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus aethiopicus) might have survived. On strength of the old rumour a recent capture expedition was organized, but failed to locate the animal mentioned

Time delay cameras were left however, and a single photograph now displays the forgotten and unknown beast in full colour. The type still exists, thankfully. With locality in the Kalahari Desert now better defined, renewed efforts for captive breeding and eventual rehabilitation of the badly diminished population are being planned afresh

1. They don't give non-committal responses about spending time with you
2. You can serve them the same meal every day and they are always excited about it
3. Animals don't judge, don't hate and don't scheme or lie
4. Unlike small humans, animals can be left on their own while you're out and it won't get you arrested
5. Animals are peaceful company; they don't talk incessantly, offer unwanted advice or even worse; have a really annoying laugh.
6. They don't suddenly have to send a text or take a call while you're out together
7. Dogs are incredibly loyal to their people and stand by them no matter what
8. People can be cruel and callous towards animals and selfishly destroy their habitat. Wild animals will generally leave people alone.
9. You don't have to go through a lengthy pregnancy to expand your family
10. Dogs give the best 'welcome home' ever

My oldest surviving cat, Moe, is missing tonight.

He started acting strange a week or two ago. Changed his sleeping spot of more than a decade in the master bedroom to a treadmill downstairs in the basement. He used to love being held but now not for more than a few moments. He has started running at full speed when going anywhere in the house. As if he is racing something or being chased. For the past decade(s) when outside he would rarely be more than 30 yards from the door, often in plain sight and always when I called him he would come quickly. Usually he would go out for only a few hours, then come back in. Never, ever, did he miss a 6:30 dinner call. Let out after dinner he would usually be back within 40 minutes. Until a few weeks ago he had the most affectionate look on his face when laying on me or at my feet. He has lost over 10 pounds in the past decade, but the vet says that isn't unusual. He is pushing 20 years old and has shared all of the events in this household of that period. It isn't unfair to say he is a part of who I am. Some may remember a video I posted this year of him making sure my blood sugar is acceptable or how he probably saved my life by biting my nose to awaken me the night my blood sugar suddenly dropped to 33 while I slept. Sudden changes.

In the past week or so he has begun acting sometimes when I come in the room like, who are you?; No immediate recognition and it takes him a few seconds to calm down. He has suddenly in the past week begun drinking a lot of water. At the sink he will put his head under the faucet and drink until I wonder where he is putting it. He no longer likes the bedroom and if carried into it, runs away as soon as he can to the basement and hides. He has suddenly stopped coming into the bed to check on me. That was of course the most noticeable thing as until last week he would lay on my chest for hours. Let out, he vanishes into the woods and takes hours to come back. Yesterday he was out from 8AM to 5PM and not a trace of him did I find when I wandered around calling his name. Then at 5 he showed up like nothing was unusual, ate his dinner and went out as normal afterwards and came back 2 hours later. Unusual, but not a calamity.

Today at 3PM he wanted to go out and I let him and the other cat out. At 6:15 PM the other cat was waiting at the door for his dinner but no Moe. I fed the one and went out looking for Moe and calling his name. No trace of him. He has never before missed dinner. After sundown I began wandering my woods with a flashlight calling him and looking along the game trails. Not only is his fur snow white (stands out pretty good, even in the woods, but he has a reflective collar on and I expected the flashlight to at least pick up on that. Nothing.

It is pushing 1AM now and I am very worried for him. There was a light rain at 9PM and I certainly expected him to show up at that as he hates rain. I don't know what to think. Did he have a heart attack? Did a coyote or fox get him? Are the changes in behavior I have noted in the past two weeks the result of a stroke or alzheimers (yes cats get it too, in cats it is called feline cognitive disorder (FCD)? If I am not finding him with the flashlight and he isn't responding I know he went at least several hundred yards away, if not more. I am hoping that he didn't get lost. I am reading tonight on FCD and getting lost in familiar places is one of the symptoms. So is forgetting who a human owner is. Also their hearing goes. I haven't really seen a sign of hearing loss, but I am now worried. Not coming when called is a total departure from two decades of prior behavior.

Deep sea researchers in Indian ocean, saw it, and snipped a chunk for positive (DNA) identification, and species naming- at almost 700 meters of dark depth. The genus is known, Apolinia, and these glowing wormoids are related to corals and other multi organism colonial beasties. Stinging cells on board, as in my Homies, the Portuguese non females of war. But I digress.
Others in the genus are much smaller, and rest vertically at depth. These are more spiral in form, and seem to have a species unique feeding stance. As many life forms at these depths, they have photophore cells, which glow. Go figure.
Outer space fascinates, rightly so. But science is ignorant of so much right here on Father Earth, in our (dying?)seas. Sheezamm! Makes the whales seem, well, like four cheeses high.

Nothing to do

This mother and baby giraffe was recently discovered in Kenya.
They are not simply albinos.
Albinos have a mutation which prevents the development of the natural
pigment melanin.

Instead, these giraffes have a more complex mutation, leucism,
which actually prevents the formation of several natural pigments,
but it also does it incompletely.
Those afflicted often display a feint ghostly image of their pigmentation pattern.
This is very rare and only observed in one other instance in Tanzania.

But, you probably don't care about any of that.
You just want to see the white giraffes.
So, with no further ado here they are.

Go here;




P.S. Just because giraffes are supremely tall,
indeed, the tallest animals, and these 2 are white,
this, however, does not make them white supremacists.

Not Easy