MetaFilter posts tagged with Animals

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Lutoslawski — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:24:56 -0800

Vanity Fair explores the rise of cuteness and why we love it so very much.

Cat ladies are sadder and scarier than you think

Cool Papa Bell — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:44:11 -0800

"What's the deal with cat ladies?" asks an article. Maybe you saw the TV show, which could be "the grossest footage" on TV. Gross indeed, but read the studies from the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, or watch the documentary, and maybe you'll want to visit the little old lady that lives down the street and see if she's OK.

Predator Appreciation Month

kliuless — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:42:18 -0800

-Where Tasty Morsels Fear to Tread
-'Leopard Behind You!'
-A Long, Melancholy Roar

"Shouldn't have had that 12th coffee, I can't even blink anymore and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears!"

MaryDellamorte — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:49:43 -0800

Clips from each six episodes of BBC's Walk on the Wild Side, which involves the overdubbing of voices to natural history footage. 1 2 3 4 5 6

Animals With Lightsabers

XQUZYPHYR — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:28:23 -0800

Animals With Lightsabers.

putting the fur into Für Elise

nickyskye — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:50:11 -0800

The sounds of a loon, two owls, cat, wood stork and cuckoo are the sole musical instruments in this furry arrangement of the classic, "Fur Elise," composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Furry, trained flies, underwater astonishments, make new animals and more at Switcheroo Zoo. Previously.

A Compendium and Bestiary of the Unusual and Bizarre

anastasiav — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:23:05 -0800

The Ever So Strange Animal Almanac

Happiness is a warm puppy. ~Charles M. Schulz

bigmusic — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:57:36 -0800

Dogs were probably the first animals animals to be domesticated - because we wanted to eat them.

Alas, poor Quagga! I knew him, Horatio.

shakespeherian — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:57:37 -0800

Photographs of extinct animals.

Whats it like to be a cow?

vacapinta — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:31:08 -0800

An Armadillo running and sniffing
The Mole-Cam
Cow Staring at Cow.
These and many more at the Museum of Animal Perspectives, a site run and curated by Sam Easterson.

Steve?

Christ, what an asshole — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:41:33 -0800

Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan!

Ouch! Poor Baby

netbros — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:53:43 -0800

Animals With Casts has everything from a wrinkly mutt with his hind legs supported by a homemade PVC pipe wheelchair, to an elephant with an enormous leg cast, to a turtle with two wheels attached to its shell, to a baby kangaroo with its hind legs wrapped up. But please don't go breaking your pet's leg just to get in the lineup.

Sometimes you have to dig for inspiration

maudlin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:37:04 -0800

Apes do it. Birds do it. Even educated elephants do it. But can a dog do it? Can a dog make art? Meet Tillamook Cheddar, an adorable Jack Russell Terrier who, after 19 solo shows, has made more than $100,000 in sales of paintings like these. (I believe she did not choose the titles.) Opinions on her work vary. SAW Gallery's exhibit on animal art. (Any Ottawagonians seeing this?) Previously. Previously. Me, I'm open to ape art (some are more skeptical), have reservations about elephants, think the bower birds are doing something awesome that is mostly hardwired and partly inexplicable, but the dog may as well be a wind-up paintbrush for the artist owner who has carefully set up the media in advance. Her selected output is often really attractive (see: windup paintbrush), but that no more makes her an artist than her ability to roll in smelly stuff and lick herself thoroughly.

Fancy some endangered fetus soup?

booknerd — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:04:20 -0800

Endangered pangolins (scaly anteaters) have been heavily hunted in China to supply a large demand for food, particularly fetus soup (warning: graphic photos), and Chinese medicine. "Proceedings of the workshop on trade and conservation of pangolins native to South and Southeast Asia" [PDF] a report from TRAFFIC (Wildlife Trade Network) was released yesterday. More on pangolins previously on MetaFilter

We are all sinners.

gman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:49:09 -0800

Masturbation in the animal kingdom.

Adventures in Excrement

aheckler — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:53:32 -0800

Friday Flash Fun: Who Pooped? [NSFLunch, autoplays sound] Brought to you by the Minnesota Zoo.

Sign of the time, so out of line

Joe Beese — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:35:33 -0800

National Geographic's photographic history of monkeys in space.

Toronto Humane Society: one out of three is pretty damn bad

maudlin — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:38:24 -0800

At the Toronto Humane Society, veterinarians say animals die suffering unnecessarily in their cages while pleas to euthanize them are dismissed. Dozens of staff, volunteers and veterinarians have quit in protest. ... A note written by a staff member or volunteer on the medical chart of a cat, animal ID A127495, admitted last fall, reads: "Died Oct 19 3:15 am. Gasped and jerked and cried last breaths, because there was no one in shelter to euthanize or treat. This is not humane." ... [THS president] Mr. Trow says he strives to keep euthanasia rates low for ethical reasons. “How can anyone suggest that, because he might be here longer than anyone would want, that it's better to put [a dog] down?” Mr. Trow asked. “I think that's a strange suggestion, don't you? You live here as long as you can.” Images (yes, they're disturbing.) Video of a puppy adopted out with a broken leg. The THS web site. Mr. Trow maintains that the THS does not have a no-kill policy and denies that the shelter's veterinarians are influenced in their decisions whether or not to euthanize. “There's no pressure on anyone to do anything or not to do anything other than on professionals, professional doctors and professional nurses, to do the best they can,” he said. By law, it is a requirement for veterinarians employed by humane societies to have language in their contract that makes them responsible for all decisions relating to the care of animals. “I couldn't work at the Toronto Humane Society any longer because it violated my professional oath as a veterinarian,” said Johanna MacNaughton, a veterinarian who resigned in April. ... “I would never make a euthanasia decision without great consideration, and I would only euthanize an animal if it was suffering with no chance of recovery,” said Dr. MacNaughton. And an internal memo obtained by The Globe confirms that euthanasia decisions must be cleared by management, many of whom have no medical training.

Pets are people, too

woodway — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:16:19 -0800

Now preparing for departure: PetAirways, an airline exclusively for animals that begins service to five US cities in mid July. Entrepreneurs Dan Wiesel and Alysa Binder came up with the idea of catering to the in-flight comfort of your four-legged friend, using specially modified cabins with pet attendants. Will it take off? The most recent APPA National Pet Owners Survey estimates that US pet owners spent $45.4 B on their animals in 2009.

love, charlie

Joe Beese — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:47:00 -0800

Charlie plays. Charlie explores. Charlie bites. Charlie relaxes. Charlie sleeps. Charlie loves. love, charlie ran from July 12, 2003 to January 1, 2008. Charlie occasionally visits here.

Curious Creatures and Beautiful Beasts

homunculus — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:28:15 -0800

The art of Justin Gibbens. Gibbens imitates the conventions of 18th and 19th century zoological illustration and traditional Chinese fine-line painting to make images of curious creatures and beautiful beasts. [Via]

Little Armored One

iamkimiam — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:56:06 -0800

What can jump 4 feet straight up, births identical quadruplet pups nearly every time, can curl itself into an armor-plated ball, walk underwater for up to six minutes and can swallow air until it bloats to double its size to float? Dasypus novemcinctus, of course! A place for all things armadillo: DilloScape Armadillos and humans are the only mammals susceptible to leprosy: Armadillos and their role in the study of Hansen's Disease From Mayan Legend, to Texas, and beyond: The Biogeography of the Nine-Banded Armadillo One armadillo's sad story: Otis is Resurrected! Also, Armadillo games, Flickr pool.

Implausible Hybrid Creatures

homunculus — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:30:45 -0800

Implausible hybrid creatures, by Amy Ross. [Via]

Animal behaviour: Grape expectations

kliuless — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:10:32 -0800

Revealing how we are just a bunch of monkeys... (via) Franz de Waals and Sarah Brosnan

...trained brown capuchin monkeys to give them pebbles in exchange for cucumbers. Almost overnight, a capuchin economy developed, with hungry monkeys harvesting small stones. But the marketplace was disrupted when the scientists got mischievous: instead of giving every monkey a cucumber in exchange for pebbles, they started giving some monkeys a tasty grape instead. (Monkeys prefer grapes to cucumbers.) After witnessing this injustice, the monkeys earning cucumbers went on strike. Some started throwing their cucumbers at the scientists; the vast majority just stopped collecting pebbles. The capuchin economy ground to a halt. The monkeys were willing to forfeit cheap food simply to register their anger at the arbitrary pay scale.

in other words, it could be up to our kids to replenish our trust networks... BONUS GRAPES

Pour another and you might see two

baphomet — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:27:12 -0800

No, you're not drunk, it's really a pink elephant. Pink dolphin unavailable for comment.