18th November 2009

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Officer 'Jungle Gym' meets feline friend

Meet the policeman dubbed Officer “Jungle Gym” in Taylor, Texas.

Keith Urban was on duty and he pulled over an SUV on a country road. When he stopped to write a ticket, a feline the Taylor Daily Press describes as a “black juvenile kitten, likely about a year old” approached and wanted to play. The whole thing was captured on Urban’s patrol car dashcam.

The cat wants to climb Urban’s leg, but Urban discourages it. It persists and, if you want to skip to the good stuff, around 1:49 in the video, the summit is reached.

That the policeman continued to write the ticket even as he was climbed upon makes this what the Taylor Daily Press calls one of the Taylor police department’s “most entertaining stories of life as a police officer.”

Police chief Jeff Straub said the video showed “incredible patience on the part of the officer.”

Tags catsclimbingThe Law

10th November 2009

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New signs of pig genius

Pigs can figure out how mirrors work and use the reflected images to keep an eye on their surroundings and search for food, says a new study.

This latest finding in pig cognition is yet another sign that they learn in a manner similar to humans. Says the New York Times:

Other researchers have found that pigs are brilliant at remembering where food stores are cached and how big each stash is relative to the rest. They’ve shown that Pig A can almost instantly learn to follow Pig B when the second pig shows signs of knowing where good food is stored, and that Pig B will try to deceive the pursuing pig and throw it off the trail so that Pig B can hog its food in peace.

Pigs can also learn what the paper calls a “circus’s worth” of tricks, such as bowing, spinning, uttering wordlike sounds, herding sheep (Babe!), playing videogames with joysticks and unrolling rugs.

Tags pigsdiscoveriescognitionBabe

29th August 2009

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New Long Beach tiger shark rather picky

(Um, did I order the steak?)

The new 5-foot-long tiger shark at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, has the erratic mealtime attitude of a tortured starlet.

In the wild, tiger sharks are scavengers who will devour smaller sharks, boat cushions and even discarded car parts. The one at the aquarium, however, has tastes that change almost too rapidly for staff to keep up.

“Some days she won’t eat,” Assistant Curator Steve Blair tells the L.A. Times. “Other days she goes on benders, feasting only on one type of food. Her tastes change from one day to the next. The tricky part is figuring out what thing triggers her hunger on a given day.”

The shark is supposed to eat about a half pound of meat a day and its menu choices have been expanded to include over 30 items such as mackerel, snapper, squid, ono, fresh water eels, chicken, flank steak, quail and $20-a-pound lobster tails.

Tags sharksfeedingLos Angeles

29th August 2009

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Banff squirrel extends 15 minutes

The little creature that squirreled its way into a couple’s honeymoon photo is due for another close-up. And another. And another.

With the online application “The Squirrelizer” (seen above), you can add him to your own photos.

Tags squirrelsphotographyhumor