More Dead Animals

Excellent recent post on low culture: Animal Superstars: Where Are They Now? When I was little, if I were watching an old movie with my mother and a cute dog (or cat or other animal) appeared in it, my mother would turn to me and say, "That dog's dead now." Awesome.

Pig Olympics in Moscow

From the city that brought us a cat circus, now comes the Pig Olympics. (No, it's not going on tour, sorry.) Here's a photo from the synchronized swimming:


Strangely, the article doesn't say who won! C'mon, BBC News, I had a small wager on Mykola of Ukraine . . . . The piece does make clear, however, that these pigs will not be turned into pelmeni:

"They go on to produce a new generation of sport pigs. They don't get eaten," he [Alexei Sharshkov, vice-president of the Sport-Pig Federation] said. "How could you eat a competitor who is known around the world?"

Baby Albino Wallaby

A three-month-old albino wallaby just made its (his? her?) debut at an Argentine zoo. It's the first albino wallaby born in Latin America! Check out the video.

Missing Link Found!

Yep, it's a fossil of a fish with limbs from 375 million years ago.

Pretty.

Pit Bulls Unfairly Profiled(To be filed under "Interspecies TLC")

Malcolm Gladwell was right! In Stoughton, MA, Ramona the pit bull is a tender foster mother to three orphaned kittens: "She cleans them, watches over them and showers them with affection." Awww! There's even a video. Watch it and weep tears of joy. If a pit bull can love kittens, how can there be war?

Or perhaps, as another video seems to show, she's just tasting them before deciding which one to eat?

The Lives They Lived, Part V

This is getting ridiculous. They're killing all the animals! In our latest installment of dead animal stories, the coyote captured in Central Park dies while being tagged for release! According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation spokesperson, "He stopped breathing during a routine tagging procedure and he couldn't be resuscitated by DEC biologists or Cornell University graduate researchers."


An autopsy will be performed to find out if the "stress of the chase, captivity, transport or some other condition contributed," according to the article. WTF, is the DEC employing Lynndie England these days?

The Lives They Lived, Part IV

Sorry for another death posting, but the AP reports that Junior, a 44-year-old orangutan at the St. Louis Zoo, has died. He was euthanized on Tuesday because of declining health.

The zoo's primate curator Ingrid Porton said, "You had to prove yourself to Junior and show you were trustworthy. When he let you in his world, you saw what a magnificent guy he was. You wouldn't say that about his female counterpart or some other male orangs."

Wait, the primate world has curators? And they say bitchy things behind your back just like the ones in the art world do!