So this new critter, the Symbion pandora, has such a bizarre life cycle and is just so bloody weird -unlike anything we had come across before- that its discovery in 1995 lead to the creation of a whole new phylum in the Animal Kingdom. Meet the little monsters.

If your weird-o-meter is humming, keep reading Zoologger, a new column in NewScientist magazine that writes about about weird animals from around the globe. Selective abortion in pipefish, single-cell giants that enslave bacteria, amphibious cats, you name it.
posted by Cobalt on Apr 28, 2010 - 38 comments

Nothing To Do With Arbroath [more inside]
posted by jtron on Feb 29, 2008 - 5 comments

Remember the threads last week about R/C planes with digital cameras? Rank amateurs. Animal Planet has upped the stakes in the unmanned aerial vehicle race by strapping a video camera to an eagle. That's right, an eagle. It's incredible. Check out the dogfight in particular. They're also doing a bunch of other cool things with animals and technology.
posted by loquax on Dec 6, 2004 - 28 comments

"The creation of the Nuclear Power Plant at Sellafield (formerly known as Windscale) was a bonus for the local zoo, as large tracts of land were made available and cheap by people moving away or dying."
posted by mr_crash_davis on Nov 11, 2003 - 15 comments

The Naked Mole-Rat is naturally naked. Conversely, these others are naked for reasons of disease (like this bear with alopecia and hairless chimpanzee) or mutation (the Sphynx cat; the Mexican hairless dog; the Chinese Crested Dog; the Naked Chicken; the Hairless Rat; a hairless ferret; the Nude Mouse; and the Hairless Hamster). What is the attraction of encouraging mutations that make normally furry animals furless?
posted by raygirvan on Dec 19, 2002 - 36 comments

Animals trapped in stone have been reported many times, but do you believe it? Why has there been so little investigation of these claims? It could be the key to re-animation...
posted by agregoli on Dec 17, 2002 - 36 comments