Kittens

I just came across this and realized it was essential to tell you about it. Or, maybe, I'm the last person to learn of it. Exploding Kittens: A Card Game About Kittens and Explosions and Sometimes Goats. Apparently ... Exploding Kittens is a card game for people who are into kittens and explosions and laser beams and sometimes goats. In this highly-strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette, players draw cards until someone draws an Exploding Kitten, at which point they explode, they are dead, and they are out of the game -- unless that player has a Defuse card, which can defuse…

It has long been known by humans that female mammals can be attracted with the call of a young in distress. There is a famous documentary film of the Hadza, a foraging group in Tanzania, in which this method is used by young boys to trap Dasssies (rock Hyrax). First you catch a baby Dassie (not hard) then you hid and bit it in the neck so it cries out, then when the momma Dassies come to rescue it you shoot them at short range with an arrow or whack them with a stick. Adult Efe Pygmy hunters sometimes imitate the call of a young Duiker (a forest antelope) in distress in order to draw in…

See? Cartoon cute. It may be easy to put a kitten up as the weekly dose of cute, but look at him - he may be the cutest kitten ever. Cuter, perhaps, than even that little ocelot kitten, which, until now, has earned the title of cutest kitten ever. I mean, look at him! His eyes are cartoon adorable. I didn't know cat eyes could actually look like Puss N Boots! How could I resist showcasing this unbelievable exhibition of pure cuteness? Anyhow, this six-week-old cutest kitten competitor was born at Australia's Adelaide Zoo (there are actually three of them!). Servals (Leptailurus serval) are…

Wow. This is so cute, it burns. h/t Greg Laden

tags: animals, kittens, whack-a-kitty game, silliness, cute, funny, streaming video This video is filled with head-exploding cuteness! It's time to play Whack-A-Kitty! It's like the game, Whack-A-Mole, but on cute overload. [1:33]

When considering the virality of internet memes—that is, the likelihood that a given item of web goodness will be passed from one person to another as fast as you can press Control+C, Control+V and send—there are many theories as to what causes these explosions of web transference. But examining pieces of Internet phenomena from the early days of the dancing baby to the more modern use of Rick-rolling, it's clear the logic of virality has yet to be uncovered through the scientific method. Here at Seed, we couldn't help but notice the abundance of cute-themed videos showing up on the…

The. Cutest. Kitten. Ever. EVER. Photo of the little ocelot kitten care of Zooborns, the best source on the internet for cute doses.

And tell me you don't want one:

Two weeks ago, we asked you what your favoritest animals in the world were. Then, last week we asked you to up the ante and get weirder. You responded in turn with a veritable cornucopia of odd critters some of which we had never heard of! (Just kidding of course we'd heard of them, we're like freaking bizarre animal encyclopedias.) Anyway, without further ado, your responses (in video, whenever possible): Drhoz! wants to cuddle with a tardigrade, aka a 'water bear.' Who doesn't? Unfortunately, Drhoz! also claims to... ... be open to "shacking up" with a goose barnacle if it buys dinner…

It's a whole new week, so I'm moving away from the artiodactyl theme (for now, at least) and the PotD will probably take on a more random aspect for a while. Today's photo is of the tiger cubs Terney (center, with tire), Changbai (left), and Koosaka (right), born at the Philadelphia Zoo a few months ago. They are Amur (or Siberian) tigers, Panthera tigris altaica, the largest of the extant tigers and also critically endangered. While the zoo notes that they contribute to tiger conservation initiatives like the Tiger Conservation Fund, it seems that these cubs will remain in captivity and…

tags: cats, kittens, blog carnivals There are a couple cat-oriented carnivasls available for you to enjoy. The first one is the 180th edition of The Carnival of Cats. The other one is a relatively new one, Bad Kitty Cat Chaos, which was having issues being published due to power outages over the weekend. Be sure to check them out!

tags: kittens, cats,streaming video This is a delightful streaming video of cats and kittens being .. themselves. Music is by Bjork, "It's Oh So Quiet". [3:36]

tags: kittens, cats,streaming video This video shows "box kitten" finally climbing out of her box. By the way, all kittens found a home in the photographer's neighborhood. Two of them live together with one family and the other three have a family each to themselves. They live happily ever after. [0:56]

tags: kittens, cats,streaming video A delightful streaming video of kittens playing around and in a box. Music called "Sister Jack" by Spoon. The kitten in the background wants to get back in the box soooo bad. But this kitten took over. How did that kitten get out of the box? I'll post that video in an hour. [1:38]