zooillogix | December 22, 2008From ABC4.com: A shark managed to jump out of its aquarium and onto a water slide at a hotel swimming pool used by guests. No one was in the pool at the time. The female reef shark leapt over the one foot high barrier and slid down the slide known as the Leap of Faith at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.
Slide goes in the water?
You go in the water.
Shark's in the water.
Sadly the pool chlorine and the shark didn't mix and the reef shark died shortly thereafter... but I can only hope that when it is my time to go, it is via a waterslide.
bleimanb | December 16, 2008Researchers have released the findings of a ten year study into the wildlife of the Greater Mekong River area in Southeast Asia -- Over 1000 new species discovered!
Before you all break into a heated, name-calling brawl on whether these should actually be called "new species" or "species that are new to science" or "species that are new to 'Western' science", allow Andrew and me to put the issue to rest: These species should be considered not only new species to science, but new species to humanity and to the world, as this is the first time that Western scientists, i.e. imporant people,…
bleimanb | December 15, 2008Zooillogix is finally living up to the 'x' in our namesake. We have discovered a microscopic animal that engages in lesbian sex with its dead female friends in order to obtain DNA and thus survive to reproduce.
Bdelloid rotifers are tiny creatures that live in moss and small pools of water. Every single bdelloid is a female, and they reproduce exculsively by cloning themselves. When their watery habitats dry up, however, so do they, where they remain for days, months, even years in form of dehydrated stasis until the water returns.
This is my friend, Shari. She just came over to use the…
zooillogix | December 14, 2008When I found a package on my doorstep last night from Kevin Z, I was worried. Was Kevin hitting on me again despite my many rejections? A single rose perhaps? Or maybe he was trying to cut things off. Yet another dead squirrel?
Well boy did I feel like a jerk when I opened the box to find the greatest gift I have ever received in my entire life: two zoo and aquarium shot glasses! Check check it:
Kevin is an invertebrate nut and world famous musician. Definitely check out his invertebrate blog, The Other 95%, and his big time Deep Sea News site, cleverly entitled - Deep Sea News.
If anyone…
zooillogix | December 12, 2008We just became aware of this. Sadly, now you are too.
Selected bits from the KittyWigs.com FAQ:
Question: Is this for real?Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Kitty Wigs are a fun prop to be used to enhance playtime with your feline friends. They're especially fun for photo sessions.
Question: Isn't this cruelty to animals? Actually, no. We see it as a way for you to spend more quality time with your pet. It's an opportunity for you to show your cat something new... Let's hope they learn to go for the jugular.
pink passion and bashful blonde. the latter does not look amused.
electric blue…
zooillogix | December 12, 2008So I was showing Zooillogix to a few folks at my friend's party in San Francisco and this guy broke out this sweet dumbo octopus tattoo. I'll show you mine, if you show me yours can be a risky move for a straight guy in SF, but it worked out this time around.
Dumbo octopus action
He also had this spotted owl tat, which appears to be nesting in a dense thicket of some sort...
Thanks to Nicky Crane (not the deceased gay neo-Nazi skinhead activist) and Cassie Abel for providing the booze and camera.
zooillogix | December 8, 2008Someone made the mistake of interviewing us again. This time it was the Nature Blog Network, which is a great site for demonstrating Zooillogix's crushing dominance in this ultra-competitive field. Check out the face-meltingly informative interview here.
Also, ZooBorns was featured by TypePad today. Good times, great oldies.
bleimanb | December 5, 2008We blatantly ripped off this story from Geekologie.com , but we had to share it with you all.
There are many uses of poodle from watchdog to loyal companion. In fact, Andrew and I had a moderately brain damaged, standard poodle named Willy that brought joy into our young lives for 12 years. By all accounts, however, this appears to be the best use of poodle we've ever seen. Now I know what many of you are thinking right now. "This is animal cruelty," you're saying, "That's blatant exploitation." But I would ask you this....Is it? Is it really?
Good thing this poodle does not have its katana…
zooillogix | December 3, 2008Ring in the holidays with yuletide logs... courtesy of the reindeer at the Miller Park Zoo. By combining two Christmas classics, reindeer and ornaments, and adding a twist - fecal matter - the zoo's marketing department may of stepped in retail gold!
In a nutshell, or a nugget if you will, keepers collected reindeer poop balls, rolled them in glitter, and allowed them to dry. The final product was then packaged in little boxes and sold with a certificate of authenticity, a move straight out of the Danbury Mint's playbook. Explains Susie Ohley, Marketing Director of the Miller Park Zoo, "Each…
bleimanb | December 3, 2008 An expedition to a tiny island in the South Pacific's Republic of Vanatu has yielded hundreds of new species, including possibly 1000 new species of crab.
Squat lobster
153 scientists from 20 countries participated in the survey of Espiritu Santo in the South Pacific, scouring caves, mountains, reefs, shallows, and forests collecting species. Out of over 10,000 species collected, the researchers are predicting that as many as 2000 may be previously unknown to the scientific community. Some pics from the National Geographic story are below, but we encourage you to visit this article and…
bleimanb | December 1, 2008A pair of gay penguins at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China has taken to stealing the eggs of straight couples and leaving rocks in place to fool their victims. The penguins, named Anderson Cooper and Clay*** by the zoo keepers, have been outed by their fellow penmates and have since been ostracized by the flock. Fearing for the stress levels of the flock, keepers have taken Anderson and Clay out of their enclosure and segrated them alone in a pen of their own.
"Did you see little miss happy feet the other day? That new beak gloss was a travesty against all things good in this world…
zooillogix | November 30, 2008Two weeks ago the University of Colorado College of Engineering sent two orb weaving spiders up in the space shuttle. The spiders' web building behavior was observed and streamed back to earth, serving as a classroom tool for teaching fifth though ninth graders about the effects of zero gravity. Great idea. Except when scientists opened up the second spider's box, they found it had escaped. Thus began the plot to a perfect B- Sci-Fi/Horror flick. Unfortunately for all of us safely earthbound observers, the other spider turned up in its buddy's box shortly thereafter, having succeeded only in…
zooillogix | November 28, 2008Very cool video of a bizarre squid from the genus Magnapinna. Also known as bigfin squid, few specimens have ever been observed and only a handful ever captured. The squid in this footage has tentacles 20 feet long.
This footage was filmed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Houston, Texas by cameras attached to deep sea oil rig.
zooillogix | November 25, 2008Riverdance Miniatures in Victoria, Australia may have set a new record for the world's smallest horse. This prematurely born foal stands only 15 inches high, or 3.3 "hands", in horse-speak. The previous record for a fully grown horse was 4 hands and 1 inch.
Miniature horses are in fact, miniature horses, and not ponies. They have a higher rate of dwarfism than normal horses, because, well, they were bred for it (see earlier post on a tiny horse going bonkers).
Add one of these horses, one of the formerly featured miniature pigs, and maybe a tiny sheep, and you'd have yourself the most…
zooillogix | November 20, 2008"Scientists" tell us that the tarsier is the only member of its lonely family Tarsiidae, which itself is the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes... We here at Zooillogix think they might be more closely related to other species than zoologists think...
Pygmy tarsier vs. Furby
Pygmy tarsier vs. Mogwai
Pygmy tarsier vs. Jabba
Pygmy tarsier vs. Little grey
Reader Suggested
Pygmy tarsier vs. Little Fuzzy
Credit to Mad Hussein LOL Scientist
Pygmy tarsier vs. Gilbert Gottfried
(Maybe the hands?) Credit to Katie Thompson
Pygmy tarsier vs. Critters
Credit to Benji…
zooillogix | November 19, 2008If you are one of the 10 or 20 people in the world living outside of the Zooillogix bubble, you might not know that I collect zoo and aquarium shot glasses. If you send me a new one (scroll down on left sidebar), I will shower you with love and praise. For example Miriam Goldstein of the inimitable Oyster's Garter sent me this awesomeness from the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.
I suggest you all go check out the Oyster's Garter immediately because anyone cool enough to send me this obviously also has a cool blog.
zooillogix | November 19, 2008High in the mountaintop forests of Indonesia, this little Furby-gremlin hybrid hid undiscovered (and unmolested) for the last ninety years. Last seen alive in the 1920s, the pygmy tarsier was thought extinct until researchers from Texas A&M University rediscovered the little guy last month.
Pygmy tarsier is not amused.
Over a 2.5 month period, the scientists trapped two males and one female in Lore-Lindu National Park. After taking measurements and affixing radio collars, the researchers were unable to resist the urge to love them, and hug them, and squeeze them and call them George.…