Playtime with Ozzy the Weasel!
November 16, 2013 1:05 PM   Subscribe

 
heh, literally a "least weasel"
posted by The Whelk at 1:06 PM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


There are many more super cute videos of Ozzy on their channel.

Like this one.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 1:19 PM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


Shocking how accurate the old Foghorn Leghorn/Weasel cartoons were.
posted by 445supermag at 1:20 PM on November 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't know where this guy lives or what his relationship is to that weasel, but those things, being native fauna, are illegal to keep as pets around these parts.

(I think we can keep all the exotic tigers and scorpions we want, though, so, yay?)
posted by Sys Rq at 1:22 PM on November 16, 2013


Guys, I've got all the Redwall books, I'm pretty sure this thing is, like, innately evil or something. At the very least it must have a curved sword and a wicked grin?
posted by Think_Long at 1:25 PM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


He seems very measely for a weasel.
posted by manoffewwords at 1:35 PM on November 16, 2013


On some of the later videos there's a disclaimer:
A weasel is not a pet. They hate being locked up, they're not friendly when hungry. Don't get one. Seriously. Ozzy is a special case rescue baby. Cute, but deadly. ;)
So I'm guessing it's probably okay. Also: Ozzy still likes playing with fingers.
posted by chrominance at 1:45 PM on November 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


I KILL YOU! I KILL YOU! I KILL YOU!

Aww, how cute!

NO! I KILL YOU! YOU DIE! I BITE!

Adorable! He's playing!

NO! KILL! KILL! KILL!

Hee hee.

HATE! HATE! BITE! BITE! BITE!!!
posted by xingcat at 1:45 PM on November 16, 2013 [16 favorites]


Oh sure, Ozzy's cute now, but when he grows up, playtime could be more like this, or even this. RZZZZZ!
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 1:46 PM on November 16, 2013 [5 favorites]


Everybody loves the taste of finger
posted by angrycat at 1:51 PM on November 16, 2013


this is MY weasel (ignore the baboon).
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:00 PM on November 16, 2013


The least weasel is also the cover start of O'Reilly's Web Design in a Nutshell.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:02 PM on November 16, 2013


WHY hasn't humanity devoted its resources to domesticating least weasels yet? I NEED a tame pocket weasel.
posted by nicebookrack at 2:16 PM on November 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


I NEED a tame pocket weasel

worst evar euphemism for your junk
posted by me & my monkey at 2:24 PM on November 16, 2013 [13 favorites]


Is that some sort of fancy lure? Or a cat toy?

Dachshundmouse?
posted by heyho at 2:32 PM on November 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is the part of Mustelidae where we dance.
posted by maudlin at 2:41 PM on November 16, 2013


AIIIIEEEE, NO, NOT THE BUNNY!
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 2:44 PM on November 16, 2013


"A weasel is wild. Who knows what he thinks? He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose. Sometimes he lives in his den for two days without leaving. Outside, he stalks rabbits, mice, muskrats, and birds, killing more bodies than he can eat warm, and often dragging the carcasses home. Obedient to instinct, he bites his prey at the neck, either splitting the jugular vein at the throat or crunching the brain at the base of the skull, and he does not let go. One naturalist refused to kill a weasel who was socketed into his hand deeply as a rattlesnake. The man could in no way pry the tiny weasel off, and he had to walk half a mile to water, the weasel dangling from his palm, and soak him off like a stubborn label.

And once, says Ernest Thompson Seton--once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach, gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast, bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?"

-Annie Dillard, "Living Like Weasels"

posted by Baby_Balrog at 2:55 PM on November 16, 2013 [19 favorites]


Seriously? I've owned pet rats bigger than this guy.
posted by radwolf76 at 2:56 PM on November 16, 2013


I literally had to stop watching halfway through from cute overload. That little sproing-sproing-sproing off in the distance, then sproinging back to HAVE AT YOU with the finger, followed by tumping over to expose the eminently scritchworthy tummy...it's too much to bear in large doses!
posted by darkstar at 3:10 PM on November 16, 2013 [3 favorites]


It's like all the crazy found in a domestic cat amplified and concentrated into something the size of a lab rat.

No. This is not a good thing. Although it is awful cute, like the pygmy marmoset.
posted by fiercekitten at 3:11 PM on November 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


Dammit that ownership is Not A Good Thing because I need to scratch me a tiny weasel belly IMMEDIATELY
posted by billiebee at 4:10 PM on November 16, 2013


I worked with a student worker who had three pet ferrets. One day I said to her "Have you notice how every story about your ferrets ends with '...and then they bit me!'?"

Also, for avian cute: Coco the duck falls asleep.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:12 PM on November 16, 2013 [6 favorites]


ALL the squee! Which sent me yet again to the California list of illegal pets. (I have been desirous of a hedgehog, a porcupine, a baby moose -officially a mooselet- all in the last week. It's probably a good thing for me, and certainly for them, that Cali tells me no.)

But I did discover this on the illegal list:
Order Primates: all species except those in the family Hominidae
So apparently we make great pets?
posted by susiswimmer at 4:27 PM on November 16, 2013 [3 favorites]


A very long time ago, I worked in an installation full of electronic equipment and computers that had tubes in them (yes, that long ago). We had a rodent problem; the mice liked the warmth, and they liked the taste of the wiring. An inordinate amount of my time was spent either trapping mice or repairing the damage they caused... and really, it was grisly to have a piece of equipment crash and know that you were going to go down in the crawl space under the floor to splice in a new run of wiring after cleaning bits of fried mouse out of the cable trough. Then one day a family of least weasels moved in, and it was as if the heavens opened up and tiny furry angels bearing swords of fire descended upon the fat mousie sinners. The slaughter was unrelenting. They devoured mice like competitive hot-dog eaters bellying up to the table at Nathan's. My workload declined in tandem with the rodent population, and soon I was leading a life of sloth and idleness. I became much in demand as a euchre partner, as I did little else but develop my card-playing skills. But - alas! - all good things end; Mama Weasel scampered over my boss's toes one morning in the coffee room and I could see the realization dawn on him that my outstanding uptime record was not, in fact, due to my own work at all. Soon enough my glorious interlude was over and I found myself testing and replacing thousands of tiny light bulbs. But occasionally I would glimpse a weasel out of the corner of my eye, and I cheered them on.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 4:57 PM on November 16, 2013 [62 favorites]


I call shenanigans.

That is clearly the greatest weasel.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 5:01 PM on November 16, 2013 [4 favorites]


So this made me google least weasel and Wikipedia had this strange image of a weasel decked out in a garland set to attack a basilisk.

Turns out the smell of a weasel can kill a basilisk.

To this dreadful monster the effluvium of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:13 PM on November 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is exactly how my brother's ferret Ned used to behave. Especially when we let him out of his box in a motel room. He would literally jump for joy, making little squeaking noises.

Later I found out I'm violently allergic to ferrets, which is a drag.
posted by sneebler at 6:55 PM on November 16, 2013


I don't know where this guy lives or what his relationship is to that weasel, but those things, being native fauna, are illegal to keep as pets around these parts.

And also, let's not forget, let's not forget, dude, that keeping wildlife, um... an amphibious rodent for, um, y'know... domestic... within the city... that ain't legal either.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:13 PM on November 16, 2013 [4 favorites]


It's funny how strong cultural conditioning is. I can see, objectively, how cute that weasel-play is, and if it were almost any other animal I would be all over squee! but my conditioned response to mustelids is all 'enemy evil destroy destroy wait wait where'd it go? It's going to shed little killer babies all over the place any second!'

They are an introduced ecological nightmare here in New Zealand, we have birds, just birds, and not very bright birds at that.
posted by Catch at 10:23 PM on November 16, 2013 [3 favorites]


One of the most disturbing things I've ever watched on a nature show was a weasel or ferret (can't remember which) hunting a rabbit. The weasel was much smaller than the rabbit so he couldn't just bring her down and finish her with a bite to the neck, so he chased her around and bit her hundreds of times over the course of several minutes until she finally collapsed. It was like "death of a thousand cuts," only with bites instead of cuts. The poor rabbit was shaking badly with fear and pain and was totally panicked that she couldn't shake off the weasel no matter what she did. It was a terrible thing to witness and I haven't liked weasels and ferrets since. And yes, I know I'm applying human morals and standards to animals. Even this little weasel looks more like he's practicing than playing.
posted by Devils Slide at 10:35 AM on November 17, 2013 [2 favorites]


Again, before someone takes me to task over my hypocrisy and double standards, I'm well aware of it but can't help it in this instance. I mean, I've always owned cats and cats commonly torture mice to death (although mine don't; they're inside kitties) when they're easily capable of finishing them off quickly. That rabbit hunt was just especially terrible.
posted by Devils Slide at 10:45 AM on November 17, 2013


I just have to say that, because of this thread, I actually used the term "least weasel" in my conversation today for the first time in my life.

Thanks, Metafilter!
posted by darkstar at 5:09 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]


And now, barely ten days after first learning that the least weasel is a thing, I just saw one featured on Animal Planet's "Frozen Planet."

Coincidence...or cosmic synchronicity?



It's probably coincidence.
posted by darkstar at 5:49 PM on November 28, 2013


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