[Daisy Mae Johnson]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Lovely!

[the dud]

War of the RUT

Chaaaaaaarge!

Surrender or die!

The RUT demands rights on this forum or we'll keep on invading topics.

[Dr. Otto Bond Sr.]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

My favorite of all God's creatures is the unicorn. Here are some of my favorite verses about it:

His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns... Deuteronomy 33:17

God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Number 23:22

Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. Psalm 22:21

Truly this is an amazing creature! When reading about the unicorn, one can truly admire God's handiwork.

[SUV]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures



Sister, is that a Pushmi Pullyu?

[Palmer C. Eldrich]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

I love this little guy:

Where do I get one?

[WanKer]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Well how much times do i have to say IM NOT ****ING MEXICAN!!!!!!!(i know your gonna put me an infraction, but whatever, it is necesary)

And I'm not Austrian but these guys are too thick to understand. No wonder they're all Christians. They've bought the crap & swallowed all the lies hook line & sinker.

[Pastor Ezekiel]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

And I'm not Austrian but these guys are too thick to understand. No wonder they're all Christians. They've bought the crap & swallowed all the lies hook line & sinker.

Are you here to spit in Christ's face? What kind of language is that? Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

If you'd like to be banned, just say the word, abo.

[WanKer]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Are you here to spit in Christ's face? What kind of language is that? Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

If you'd like to be banned, just say the word, abo.

What word would that be?

[Pastor Ezekiel]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

What word would that be?

That was the one. Bye aussie scum.

[Dr. Zaius]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Has everyone seen Yoda, yet? He's so cute!!

Meet Yoda the cat with FOUR ears

19th August 2008

If Batman had a cat, it would probably look something like this. The household pet, named Yoda, was born with an extra set of ears. Valerie and Ted Rock took him in two years ago after visiting a bar near their home in Chicago, where he was being passed round by curious drinkers. He was one of a large litter and the owners were looking for a home for him.


A good listener: Two-year-old house cat Yoda was born with four ears


The couple immediately fell for the freaky feline and asked the owner if they could adopt him. He agreed and the couple named the cat Yoda, after the pointy-eared Jedi knight in Star Wars. Valerie, 65, said: 'We were at a pub on the south side of Chicago with a group of friends when we noticed a small cage sitting on the bar and people passing around a kitten. 'He had been part of a large litter and the owners were looking to find a home for him.

'Ted and I had just lost a cat that was our pet for over 20 years, and we were sure we were done with cats. 'When he was passed around he reached for Ted, crawled up into the crook of his neck and fell asleep - Ted was a goner. 'It was a done deal when the kitten made himself at home on Ted's shoulder.

'We decided to name him Yoda. I understand the Star Wars character was based on George Lucas' cat.'After adopting the eight-week-old kitten into their Illinois home, Valerie decided to have Yoda checked out with the local vet.



Owner: Valerie Rock found Yoda being passed around a Chicago bar and took him home with her

But the vet was mystified by his unique appearance. 'The vet had never seen anything like it before,' explains Valerie. 'He immediately went to the internet and found the four-eared cat in Germany. 'We have spoken with other vets in our acquaintance, and they likewise had never encountered anything like this.
'We began to realise that we had something very special.

'As a result, he has been an indoor cat and has a chip installed in case he gets lost. Yoda is so different that we were concerned that he might be catnapped.'

Yoda's extra 'flaps' are separate to the base of his skull, with one placed slightly behind the other. Yet despite his unusual looks, Valerie is sure Yoda's behaviour - and hearing - are quite normal. 'Yoda's hearing is normal as far as we know,' says Valerie. 'People do a double take when they see him or his picture. It is great fun showing him off.



Yoda: The wise Star Wars character the cat was named after


'We have actually had people ask if we had his ears cut to look this way. But he is a perfectly normal affectionate, curious cat and is a joy to have around. He is not afraid of anything and is very sociable unlike some of the other cats I have owned. But he does have an interesting obsession with bread - I can't leave bread on the counter for a moment. And when he purrs, it is not audible. The only way I know that he is purring is to put my finger on his throat to feel the vibration. He also is not very vocal. He meows, but only softly, and not very often which is a good thing.'

C'mere, kitty!

[Dr. Zaius]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Rare Half-Giraffe, Half-zebra

Rare African okapi seen in wild
By James Morgan
Science reporter, BBC News

Okapi (ZSL)
These are the first photographs of wild okapi in Virunga National Park


An African animal so secretive it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn has been caught on camera in the wild. Camera traps set by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in the Democratic Republic of Congo have captured rare pictures of wild okapi. The giraffe-like mammals, which have zebra-like stripes on their rear, are under threat from the bush meat trade.

The sightings in Virunga National Park prove the species is surviving in the jungle despite years of civil conflict. Dr Noelle Kumpel, ZSL's bush meat and forests conservation programme manager, said: "To have captured photographs of such a charismatic creature is amazing. Okapi are very shy and rare animals - which is why conventional surveys only tend to record droppings and other signs of their presence."

Okapis, which have a black tongue designed for grasping and holding, along with distinctive stripes on their behind, are the closest living relative of the giraffe.

Okapi (ZSL)
The rare mammals, related to giraffes, have distinctive striped coats


They were unknown to the western world until the early 20th Century, but are now known to inhabit three protected areas, of which Virunga National Park is one. Their abundance in the park is unknown as access to the forests of DRC is limited by civil conflict and poor infrastructure, making survey work difficult.

Poaching
The last official sighting in the area was nearly 50 years ago. But a survey in 2006 by conservation group WWF found their tracks on the west bank of the Semliki River, in the park's northern sector. The latest pictures were taken by traps set by ZSL in conjunction with the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN).

Thierry Lusenge, a member of ZSL's DRC survey team, added: "We have already identified three individuals, and further survey work will enable us to estimate population numbers and distribution in and around the Virunga Park, which is a critical first step in targeting conservation efforts." In addition to the ongoing civil war, the species is under threat from poaching. Okapi meat, reportedly from the park, is now regularly on sale in the nearby town of Beni.

The ZSL survey team has warned that if hunting continues at this rate, okapi could become extinct in the park within a few years.

I'm not really sure what to make of this one. It seems something untoward was going on in Noah's ark.

[Dr. Zaius]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Search for food causes dung beetles to become carnivores:

Little dung beetle is big chopper


By James Morgan
Science reporter, BBC News




It was rooted at the rear end of the food chain, but now the humble dung beetle is biting back.
A ferocious scarab species has been filmed in Peru attacking and eating millipedes 10 times its length. D. valgum no longer dines on faeces. Instead, the nocturnal predator prefers to decapitate live prey with its armour "teeth" and then devour their insides. It is a rare example of a scavenger species turning carnivore, say US scientists in a Royal Society journal. Dung beetles (Scarabaeidae) are not renowned for their predatory instincts.

It seems like such a huge jump - from a scavenger to a hunter-predator - so how did it get from A to Z?
Dr Adrian Forsyth,Blue Moon Fund

They feast on fresh animal faeces which they gather into balls and roll with their hind legs. But after the species Deltochilum valgum was seen grappling with millipedes several times its size, Dr Trond Larsen of Princeton University decided to find out whether it could actually be preying on the creatures.

Biting back
Working in the Peruvian rainforest, his team set up more than 1,000 traps containing different treats to tempt the beetles. These included a traditional menu of dung, fungus and fruit, as well as millipedes, which were live, injured or dead. They found D. valgum fed exclusively on the millipedes, preferring prey which were alive but injured.





Using infrared cameras, they filmed one adult beetle attacking and killing an injured millipede, which dwarfed it in size, by decapitating it with its body armour. "This is a remarkable transition," wrote Dr Larsen, a tropical ecologist, in the journal Biology Letters. Despite its close relationships with dung feeding species, D. valgum has entirely abandoned its ball-rolling behaviour. This is the first known case of an obligate predatory dung beetle species." The carnivorous beetles use the same mouthparts their cousins use to extract bacteria from dung and carrion as weapons to assault and kill their much larger prey.

I find it amazing that what we thought was just another dung beetle turned out to be something rather exceptional

Dr Adrian Forsyth,Blue Moon Fund

When placed together in observation chambers, the beetles began their attacks by grasping a millipede's body with its mid- and hind-legs. The millipedes - up to 110mm long - responded by coiling or flailing their bodies to resist the grip of beetles just 7-8mm wide. After waiting until the flailing slowed down, the beetles inserted their armour teeth between body segments, prying upwards with their head while simultaneously sawing with their fore-teeth. "During one kill we observed, the force of the beetle's prying severed the millipede's head from the rest of its body," said Dr Larsen.

One giant leap
The team say their discovery demonstrates how small changes in the physiology of a species can lead to giant leaps in its behaviour. The beetles were never seen rolling dung balls. Instead, they used their powerful hind legs to drag a killed millipede to a safe site and then begin devouring it.


Dung beetles' heads are usually flat and wide like a shovel in order to roll balls of dung but D. valgum has a narrow, pointy head which it uses to get right inside the millipede's body and feed on its insides. It also has sharper "teeth", which are used to prise open the body and sever it into smaller pieces. And unlike most dung beetle species, which bury their food, the remains of dead millipedes were left lying under leaves, entirely cleaned of their soft inner tissue.

"It seems like such a huge jump - from a scavenger to a hunter-predator - so the real story is, how did it get from A to Z?" said Dr Adrian Forsyth of the Blue Moon Fund, a co-author on the paper. We knew plenty of dung beetles which are attracted to dead insects - drawn by their potent cyanide-rich odours. And now we find a species which just couldn't wait. This is a beetle which says: 'It doesn't matter if it's dead or alive, I'm going to eat it'. It's a nice example of how you can take an apparently big step - to become a carnivore."

The scientists believe this unusual evolutionary transition was driven by high levels of competition for food.


Dung beetles undergo fierce competition for resources, both between species and within species. Adults are seen to aggressively defend their dung balls from competitors by pushing and chasing each other. The same behaviour was seen in beetles which had captured millipedes. The dramatic evolutionary leap could help to explain the coexistence of so many different types of insects, researchers say.

Taste test
However, this is not the first time the dung beetle has been shown to be more sophisticated than its name suggests. In 2006, researchers in Kuwait won an Ig Nobel Prize for a study showing that "dung beetles are fussy eaters". When offered dung from three herbivorous animals - horse, camel and sheep - the beetles preferred the more fluid horse dung to the others. Furthermore, the African dung beetle was the first animal found to navigate using moonlight, enabling it to orientate itself and make a hasty retreat from competitors when rolling a ball of dung.

So while they may be the butt of many jokes, it would be foolish to pooh-pooh their talents.
One of the beetle attacks was captured on night vision camera
The millipedes coiled up in defence against the beetles
Most dung beetle species feed on balls of faeces Instead of rolling dung balls, the beetle used its hind legs to drag millipedes

A hungry beetle searches for a new food source, and suddenly the scientists claim that it is proof of evolution. C'mon people, it just chose a new restaurant.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Search for food causes dung beetles to become carnivores:
A hungry beetle searches for a new food source, and suddenly the scientists claim that it is proof of evolution. C'mon people, it just chose a new restaurant.

Indeed, from time to time one comes across people who eat weird things; who can forget the late Brother Issachar Merryweather, who was famed for eating seaweed until his untimely demise at the hands (or whatever it is that they have) of a limpet. Brother Issachar was not evolved at all!

[Dr. Zaius]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

Bird uses human fishing technique:

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: God's Beautiful Creatures

I am more than amazed! The bird shows as much intelligence as the Dove that returned an olive branch to Noah or, dare I say it, Balaam's speaking ass!

What sort of bird is it? A kingfisher?