Wednesday 17 December 2008

Even more animal BFFs


I'd like to say this is in honor of my BFF Sarah coming to my fair city for Christmas, but really it's just because someone posted it somewhere else and I instantly knew it was perfect holiday fodder for this blog. It's a "real life Thumper and Bambi"! With a real smooth jazz soundtrack!!!

Deer and bunny BFF

Thursday 11 December 2008

In honor of last week's finale of "Paris Hilton's My New BFF": the kinkajou


I don't know how it happened, but somehow SOMEHOW I saw almost every episode of the MTV soon-to-be-classic Paris Hilton's My New BFF, and once it ended last week (or maybe two weeks ago? I am too lazy to look it up), there was a giant, pink, reality show shaped hole in my heart. And so, to keep the magic alive, here's a tribute to the exotic pet who totally WASN'T Hilton's BFF...the kinkajou who bit her.

Kinkajous are nocturnal rainforest dwellers, which means they are PARTY ANIMALS!!!! Alas this perfect pairing was not a match made in heaven, and Paris' new BFF is now a human, Brittany Flickinger.



Sunday 30 November 2008

The littlest froggie



This little fellow was discovered on the same animal-findin' expedition as the loung-a-roo pictured first in the post below. Dude is only 0.6in long and is so tiny that he was "detected only when it produced a soft call from among leaves on the steepest part of the forest floor," according to National Geographic.

Totally tree kangaroos!

This golden-mantled tree kangaroo was recently discovered maxin' and relaxin' with a crew of super chill scientists who discovered a ton of new animals (or in the case of this cute little dude, never before known to inhabit Indonesia).




And this Goodfellow's tree kangaroo was discovered when I tried googling the guy above. Clearly it's safe to say that when nature puts a kangaroo in a tree, the internet wins.




Ahhhh!!!

Tiny tarsiers possibly even more awesome than big ones

Behold, the pygmy tarsier. Long thought extinct, they were recently discovered alive and adorable (?) in Indonesia. MSNBC really brought this story to the fore with their recently published piece entitled (of course) Real life furbies rediscovered. Hey-yoooo!!! Everybody knows nothing makes online news readers click "read more" faster than an outdated Christmas toy reference!!!

Saturday 15 November 2008

More awesome pictures of lizards in outfits!




My dream: a bartender lizard


This site is incredible. You can get an anti-Bush or a cowboy lizard outfit/harness!!!

Ok, so it's not an outfit, but best buddies are the greatest accessory!!!

Tuesday 4 November 2008

VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!

Barack the vote!!!!!!!!!!!!



Yes We Can Has

Monday 27 October 2008

Adorable party otters




Economy eeshmonomy. Otters=LOVE.

When bigger is better: the giant otter edition

According to Keri, who introduced me to the wild and wonderful world of giant South American otters, they can grow up to six feet long. Just imagine, sitting next to one of these guys at the coffeeshop, or seeing two of them in the frozen foods aisle of your local grocery store!! Wow! I wish!!!







And check out this amazing picture that I couldn't figure out how to resize:

Yum yum yum

Ahhhhhh!!! So cute, so crazy!!! They look like a character in a Pixar or a live-action kids' movie where a little boy learns to believe in himself with the help of Ottie, the giant otter he finds living in his bathtub! To learn more about actual giant otters, check out Giant Otter.Org. They have a section about ecotourism!!! Oh how I want to go on a giant otter themed vacation!

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Adorable baby kangaroos, now available in regular or albino


I can't post the pictures, due to some whim of flickr, but believe me when I say these pictures will CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Please see Dark Roasted Blend, a blog devoted to drinking coffee and lookin' at weird stuff. Two of my greatest life joys!!!

And here's a link to Corpus Callosum, a site for my more scientific-minded readers (yeah kids, OMGwhatisthat.blogspot.com is probably not an acceptable source for your school papers), with pictures of a lovable albino baby kangaroo!!!

If normal-sized animals are cute and amazing, then tiny ones must be even MORE cute and MORE amazing. I believe this is a scientific fact. I learned it in 7th grade science class.

Check out this beautiful collection of wee friends.

Dog costume party, UK style


Thanks to Olivia for sending this to me just in time for me to post it when I am too lazy/tired from working two jobs in one day to do the stressful work of googling "weird animal news" until I find something entertaining. So, here is a link to a Dog Costume Party at the Nelson's Head, an awesome pub nearby where I used to live. You can bring your own pizza inside, and there are always frogdogs*!!!

*Frogdog below. This frogdog looks decidedly unfroggy, but totally proud to be an American.

Friday 8 August 2008

Ewww...but it was inevitable that it be posted here. The Montauk Monster!!!!

I saw it first a couple days ago, on Colbert, having given up on Gawker a couple months ago for some reason I can no longer remember. It is, of course, the Montauk Monster, the toast of summer 2008, which we will perhaps remember fondly for at least another week. Here it is, in all its gross, decaying glory, the underwater hell beast that totally crashed out on the beach, to our delight, and disgust.




And here's the wonderful picture currently gracing the desktop of the timeclock-computer at the record store where I sometimes work. Finally! A change (in decomposition) that we can believe in!

A tribute to a very special badger

Just under two weeks ago, a tragic event occurred, an event which has been haunting me every day. And so I feel I must pay tribute to a very special badger. Here's the story: after a fun and low-key tubin' trip to the Cannon River, some friends and I were driving back to Minneapolis on some winding country roads. As we ascended a hill, we saw a badger crossing the road. It was too close to stop. There was a collective intake of breath. Then--miraculously--the badger made it across. A sigh of relief. Then...tentatively...foolhardily, or perhaps, bravely, a second badger tiptoed into the road.

There was nothing for it. If we swerved, we would hit the badger who had made it safely across. So the entire car gasped, and suddenly there was a THUMP as we hit the badger. Silence reined throughout the car. I had never been in a vehicle that had hit an animal before.

Now, as a coworker tried to tell me, "maybe he made it...but probably not." And in that case, this little badger died for his friend. And that's heartwarming. Last night we drank a toast to that brave badger, and today I would like to dedicate a post on omgwhatisthat.blogspot.com, with some pictures of my favorite badgers throughout history.

God rest your soul, little buddy. You were a brave, brave lil' badger.



Roger the nutria

This is a follow-up to the picture of the guy with the lollipop-lovin' nutria at a county fair. And this picture is from someone's flickr page. I really hope they will be okay with me posting it, because it is incredible. Look at this nutria!!! We named him Roger one day at work. Do you know what he is saying? He is saying...



"I WUV DUM DUMS!!!! MORE WOOT BEER DUM DUMS!!!!"

Little known fact: all nutrias have a slight speech impediment, due to their giant rat-beaver teeth.

Tuesday 29 July 2008

Night of the flying colugos

This is a colugo. According to a Berkeley University article, this "'flying' lemur of Malaysia is the champion of all gliding mammals, able to drop from the forest canopy, glide more than the length of two football fields, execute 90-degree turns and then alight gently on a tree trunk."

Colugos were formed millions of years ago after a squirrel and a bat met at a tree-shrew party in college, decided they didn't give a damn about what society thought, and would stay in Malaysia forever to produce their race of flying squirrel bat children.*







*Not scientifically proven.

Party shrew!!!


This little dude loves to PARTAY!!! (Well, not this exact type of little dude--I couldn't find a picture of Malaysia's pen-tailed tree shrew, but this is a tree shrew nonetheless.) According to this BBC report, the party shrews drink fermented flower nectar (Ahhhh....) that would give them "a 36% chance of being drunk by human standards." Except the booze doesn't seem to effect them!!! They just keep partyin'!!!

There are also some videos on the BBC site, including one with the waaaaay British tag "slow loris fancies a tipple." Indeed!

Thursday 24 July 2008

Man feeding lollipops to giant rat creature



"Yesss, eat my precious nutria, you have a long day ahead of you here at the El Paso County Fair!"

2 fast 2 furious: that lizard that runs on water!!!

Here he is, in all his glory! The lizard that runs on water! This is one of the finest of all God's creatures, significantly better than narwhals, and almost as amazing as mouse-lemurs or tarsiers.

Saturday 28 June 2008

A tribute to geeps

Goat plus sheep, together at last. But its offspring is just TOO LONG!!!




My pet giant guinea pig thing


Actually it's a capybara. On a leash. And it visited a farm in Texas and made friends with a tiny donkey. Beautiful.

More pictures here at this blog I discovered, Scribal Terror: Nature. There is a story about a baby mammoth unearthed from the ice, seahorses living in the Thames, and video of a kitty who walks on his front paws!!! Extraordinary!!! A blog after my own freak animal heart.

Baby bush baby

I found him while bored, kinda drunk, and google imaging stuff. It's a baby bush baby!!!

Monday 23 June 2008

Footage of beautiful frog wedding!!!


At last, I have found it. Footage of the frog weddings taking place in India. You can watch the Reuters video, as well as a totally fun commercial!!!! right here. The magic is compounded by the video journalist being named Penny Tweedie. Sooooo Brideshead Revisited.

More Dog and Monkey BFFs

My friend Laura took her dog to a street fair in New Orleans and an amazing friendship between her Boston Terrier and a helper monkey took place. It will touch your soul. But I can't post pictures b/c you have to buy them...so here's a link.

Beautiful friendship

and here's a Reuters video of a dog and monkey who became friends after a terrible, terrible rainstorm in Mozambique.

Thursday 12 June 2008

Amazing BFF animal blog


While google-image searching "mouse on frog" yesterday at work, I discovered this phenomenal blog dedicated to cross-species BFFs. The person behind Let's Be Friends is my new hero.

Frog and mouse BFF


This is an old story, but the picture and the journalism totally make up for it being 2+ years old. Highlights from National Geographic.com:

It could be the most spirited interspecies escape since The Rescuers.

and

According to the Indo-Asian News Service, some rural Indians are holding frog weddings in the hopes that the amphibians' bliss will inspire farm-saving storms. After marking the bride and groom with vermillion and turmeric—traditional adornments in human Hindu nuptials—villagers take the supposedly happy couple to a nearby pond to honeymoon.

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Adorable Yoda fox

This is a Fennec fox. He is the nature's perfect combination of those two irreconcilable enemies, dogs and cats. And also Yoda.







Dogs that people dyed weird colors

Oh, the humiliation of being a dog. People wanna dress you up like a bumblebee, people wanna dye you colors nature never intended.

Yes, thank you Costume Dogs.com for contributing the following beautiful creation. And just for existing.







For real, it is NOT a panda. Real talk! Where could this ridiculous concoction have come from? Why, where else, but England's The Sun "newspaper!" (See My Dog's Actually a Panda.)

Sunday 25 May 2008

It's baaaaack!!!! (This blog, that is.)


I don't know if I quite wanna deem this a triumphant return, but let's just say that the last three posts constitute a TRIUMPHANT RETURN to the internet for OMGwhatisthat.blogspot.com. After a month of being employed at one of the most soulsucking, time-consuming corporate jobs ever, I am back online, bringing you the best and brightest in freak animals. And to celebrate, here's a shot of Binkie the mouse lemur's cuddly, extremely lovable little sibling. I can't think of a more excruciatingly adorable name than Binkie, so I am taking nominations for this lil' guy.

Ehhhh!!!! The unholy FROGAMANDER!!!

If you're like me, you're always looking for THE MISSING LINK. And if you're sick of pondering "what's the missing link between frogs and salamanders???", then National Geographic has news for you. They've found it!!! In freaky fossil form.



"I'ma eat you, little fly dude!!!"

From the online news story:

"It had an overall amphibian gestalt. … You know, kind of a froggy salamander-y sort of look," said Jason Anderson, a comparative biologist at the University of Calgary, Canada, who led a new analysis of the fossil.

"So it's kind of a frogamander, if you will," said Anderson.


Oh man, I think we all will, Mr. Anderson!!!

Monkeys with cats

A match made in heaven!!!









WHOA!!!!!!! Check out this amazing site, Monkeywashingcat.com.