Grammar monkeys on patrol!

Um, how did I miss this? How did THE WORLD MISS THIS??? Apparently, according to National Geographic, monkeys can understand grammar. I mean, sure, most people know about Koko, the sign language gorilla. But WOW. Read more HERE.
The article describes how "previous research in cotton-top tamarins had shown that the animals can understand basic grammar, for instance, identifying which words logically follow other words in a sentence." And now our scientist friends have demonstrated that tamarins can recognize suffixes and prefixes, and when they are used incorrectly. During the study, when a suffix was used out of order from what the monkeys had been previously hearing, they turned dramatically towards the researchers. THEY WERE THAT UPSET!!!! What sticklers those little tree-swingin' guys are. This is so exciting! Now in my ideal future universe when we are record shopping alongside giant otters and hanging at poolside Vegas bars with giant salamanders, we can have book clubs with tiny punk rock-lookin' monkeys. DREAMLAND!

Baby bats continue to astound with their strangeness, heartwarmingness

As often happens, my best friend and frequent Cuteoverload.com reader Sarah has opened my eyes (and now yours!) to this adorable yawning baby bat! "Oh it's 11am! I can't believe I stayed up this late into the morning! I am so tiwed!" That is what he is saying. Because as you know by now, I'm sure, all baby animals have an adorable lisp.


(Picture from Northern Territory News in Australia.)

Rein of the giant creatures: Coconut Crab edition

Coconut crabs sound so fun, don't they? All relaxing on the beach, sipping pina coladas, maybe jammin' a little "Margaritaville." They sound like the ULTIMATE SUMMER CRUSTACEAN!!!!! Total good times, beach buddy. Then you find out they are giant. And nobody's laughing anymore.

Check this guy out. I found him on Webecoist.com, a website that apparently shares my fascination with lifeforms that are much larger than they should be. In the past this blog has envisioned hanging out with giant otters at say, the grocery store, or at a picnic, maybe. Not these crabs. They just wanna sit on your garbage can and scare the @#%^ out of you. Fortunately, like most giant things, they live nowhere near me. They are native to Guam and the Pacific Islands.

Echidna, mon amour

Ahh yes. Another reader nominated creature, this time from my friend Jaina. This week's update features a questionably cute (Is it? I just can't decide. I have to go with "yes". His funny, stumpy lil' arms and legs just make me want to visualize him having a tea party, or going sailing in a toy boat with a frog and a pygmy jerboa, or something that British animals do.), but 100% smart little dude known as the echidna. This photo (and this info)come from the NY Times, who chose to caption the image with the quote "Muse Opiang was working as a field research officer when he became seized by a passion for the long-beaked echidna," which for some reason strikes me as really funny. "Passion," maybe. Like, dude's all into painting the echidna's toenails for her or turning up sappy love songs that remind him of echidnas when he's in his car.

So why is this interesting? For one thing, echidnas have a larger capacity for reasoning and remembering than humans. "Among humans, the neocortex that allows us to reason and remember accounts for 30 percent of the brain; in echidnas, that figure is 50 percent," the article says. Also they lay eggs, which strikes me as kind of wacky for some reason. Check out the article here. It's worth it for the line about echidnas being made up of Babar and a boatload of other creatures. Babar! He made Arby's fun.

Pygmy jerboas: nature's ultimate Furby

A while back, my friend Jessica posted this on her facebook page and let me tell you people it is a WONDER. Thanks to my time-wasting obsession with weird and super cute animals, I am well familiar with jerboas. But this one--WHOA. When I was in preschool, I loved dinosaurs but I really had no sense of depth perception, or how to draw a line correctly, and so all the brontosauruses and such that I drew either had massive football shaped tails that dwarfed their bodies or wee little tiny diamond shaped heads that could in no way jive with the size of the rest of their appendages. This is kinda what the little dude in this video reminds me of. He's like, part tiny Easter chick, part some kind of wildly popular children's holiday toy that I can't think of the name of right now. I WANT ONE SO BAD.

Unlikely BFFs Part XXII: Bobcat and fawn edition

These unlikely best buds have been rockin' the internet and warming hearts for a week or two now. During the recent Jesusita fire near Santa Barbara, this fawn and bobcat kitten lost their homes. The bobcat was found near Arnold Schwarzenegger's ranch, all dehydrated and sad and near death. When the good people at Animal Rescue Team brought the kitten in, she ran to the fawn and a beautiful friendship was born. Animal Planet, (where I picked up this story), is quick to point out that the rescue organization doesn't usually pair wild animals of different species together, but was out of room due to the many fire-related animal refugees. If you can help out some animals displaced by the blaze, read the original article and check out the sites listed below. Any amount helps!

Animal Rescue Team

Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network

FINALLY, Japan creates supercute, superglowing green primates

Once again, my BFF Sarah did all the legwork for this story and just forwarded it my way so that I could do as little work as possible and still give this blog weekly updates. EXCELLENT. And what a story it is!


Scientists in--where else?--Japan have genetically engineered glowing monkeys. Sure, they glow green only under a special light, which is probably not available to you and I--NO, not even at Spencer's Gifts. Notice the 4-pane split screen photo I selected for this story (because I love split screen photos; check 'em out, each pane is so different, all with their own lil' glowing marmoset personalities!). The photo shows just a tantalizing glimpse of what their specially glowing hair roots, blood, and skin look like under the aforementioned superscientific light. How did this miracle occur? Through the careful splicing of a jellyfish gene into the wee embryonic monkeys. While this innovation may seem like the perfect accompaniment to Japan's recent crop of robot models/teachers or the Deadhead who just wants to keep reliving that magical LSD trip at the circus, these little dayglo primates were actually bred to study Parkinson's and ALS. Read more in the wonderfully named Yahoo news story Green Glowing Monkeys Have Green Glowing Babies.