It's hard to believe that snails like to play, but that's what this one looks like it's doing with a baby carrot in this time-lapse video.
From YouTube description:
I have two nerite snails named Randolph and Mortimer (yes, after the Dukes in Trading Places). They are sisters who have lived with me for over a year. Up until this point, I had offered them a few types of food that they were not interested in, but one day I offered this baby carrot to them and shortly after, found Randolph doing what you see in this video. I left the carrot in for about a week, during which time Randolph and Mortimer ate the whole thing. In this video, I don't think she's eating it, but simply playing. I have other videos of her eating where you can clearly see her moving her head and engaged in the activity of eating. This is just her having fun.
Image: YouTube Read the rest “Snail amuses itself with a carrot”
I'm glad Maxwell Helmberger's YouTube channel nearly quadrupled its subscribership over the weekend after I posted one of his videos on Friday. He made a new video thanking Boing Boing (you're welcome, Maxewell!) along with some hints as to what bug he'll make a video about next. Read the rest “Insect behavior claymation video series thanks Boing Boing”
After a winter dump that left an area of Durango, Colorado with 80" of snow, one small dog got stuck. No matter what he did (including high jumps) he couldn't move forward. But that's what buddies are for. His bigger canine friend clears a trail for him, leading him back to his human. Read the rest “When a small dog gets stuck in 80" of snow, his big buddy clears a path for him”
After Twitter user @gabbytropea is accidentally locked out of her house, her cat gets to work by removing a sliding door stick so that she can open the door. Yay for smart cats.
Read the rest “Clever cat listens to instructions and unlocks a door so its owner can get back into the house”
"Fitness influencer" Michelle Lewin was romping around on Pig Beach in the Bahamas when a large wild pig couldn't help itself. It saw her butt cheek and bit it.
Lewin posted the video — which includes a closeup of the bright red bite marks — to her Instagram with a good sense of humor.
View this post on Instagram
🐷🤨🤷🏼♀️😂
A post shared by Michelle Lewin (@michelle_lewin) on Feb 11, 2019 at 12:50pm PST
Via geek.com Read the rest “Wild pig on a beach charges an Instagram model and bites her on the bum”
Baby Abram and Haru, his Shiba Inu sidekick, both want a piece of cheese. But in order to get it, they must first ring the bell. Can they learn this trick? The answer isn't too surprising, but what does surprise me is how polite the dog is to the baby, and how helpful the baby tries to be to the dog. Read the rest “Ring a bell, get a treat: an experiment with a baby and a Shiba Inu”
Here's a guy who went to a monkey park in Takasaki-yama in Japan and donned a monkey park worker uniform for a day to see what it was like. One reason Japan has monkey parks is to get them used to eating food there so they don't invade nearby farms. The monkeys didn't really like having a stranger tend to them, and they made their displeasure known by chattering. They settle down pretty quickly, though. My favorite part was when an experienced worker ran through the park with a cart loaded with sweet potatoes. The monkeys chased after him and picked up the sweet potatoes as the fell off the cart.
I went to a monkey park near Kyoto with my family in 2010. Here's a video:
Read the rest “What it's like to work at a Japanese snow monkey park”
I don't know what this veterinary hospital at Colorado State University does to incite such glee, but this dog, Endo, is jumping really high with excitement. Like above-the-counter high, causing the receptionist to break out in laughter. And the dog doesn't quit, with 45 good jumps in a row.
Via AP/YouTube Read the rest “Excited to see the vet, a dog high-jumps 45 times in a row”
I'm surprised the record company hasn't filed a takedown notice and confiscated the bird for being an illegal recording of "Another One Bites the Dust."
Another one bites the dust
Read the rest “Cockatiel sings "Another One Bites the Dust"”
These baby aliens, er, emus are hatching at the same time – a "simultaneous breakout," as the person behind the camera calls it. I only wish she would have kept the camera rolling until these babies made their full appearance.
Here are what the emus look like after three days. Same batch, but different emus that hatched two days later:
Read the rest “Watch: Here's what emus look like when they are first hatching”
Susaki is a city in Japan. They have a cute otter named Shinjokun with nearly 500k Twitter followers, and who serves as an honorary tourism ambassador. But then someone created a Twitter account for Chiitan, a mascot based on the otter, and started posting short videos of the otter misbehaving -- tipping over a car, burgling a house, recklessly swinging a weed whacker in the air. Chiitan now has over twice as many followers as Shinjokun, and some people think Chiitan is a sanctioned mascot. They complained to Susaki officials, who, for some reason, decided the way to quell the controversy was to fire Shinjokun. That seems to have been a mistake. From the New York Times:
After receiving more than 100 calls from around Japan about Chiitan’s behavior, the city declined last week to renew the real otter’s honorary tourism ambassador contract. But posts about Chiitan being “fired” (the mascot and the real otter have the same name) have since gone viral on social media, incorrectly implying that the city had officially sanctioned the rogue mascot’s cheeky antics.
...
[Takashi Moritoki, a Susaki city official] said Susaki officials had initially turned a “blind eye” to Chiitan because they hoped the rogue mascot would help improve the city’s image. But the city is now consulting a lawyer, he said, because it worries that Charando, the design company — which still owns a copyright for Chiitan — is earning money from its viral antics that might otherwise have gone to city coffers.
Read the rest “A psychotic rogue Japanese otter mascot concerns city officials”
Last summer a 3-year-old cow named Betsy (not the one in the photo; that's a stock image I used because our content management system doesn't allow us to post something without an image) somehow escaped from a rodeo in Alaska and went to a 4,000-acre park on the outskirts of Anchorage. She's been spotted many times in the park by hikers and bicyclists, but so far no one has been able to capture her.
“I’m just totally exhausted from looking day in and day out,” Frank Koloski, Betsy’s owner, told The Washington Post on Tuesday night. “She’s a go-getter, that’s for sure.”
...
Koloski has a plan in place: If he can just figure out where Betsy is hiding, he’ll bring several other cows to that location. Betsy will immediately rush toward the other cattle, he predicts, and a number of his rodeo acquaintances have already volunteered to help him rope her. Until he knows exactly where she’s located, though, he’s not eager to let the other cows loose in the dense, dark woods.
In the meantime, Betsy appears to be doing just fine. Alaska cattle are tough and accustomed to the area’s harsh winters, Koloski said. Since the park is within city limits, he doesn’t think there’s too much of a risk of her running into a bear or a wolf. There are still plenty of natural sources of water that haven’t frozen over, and he’s left out hay bales and mineral salt blocks nearby. During the summer, Betsy would have found plenty of fresh grass on the slopes of the ski area to feast on, he said.
Read the rest “A cow escaped from a rodeo 6 months ago and no one can catch her”
Austrian train workers were clearing tracks that go through the Gesaeuse national park when they noticed a mountain goat that wouldn't move from the sidelines of their path, even after honking the train. They then saw a snowdrift completely bury the creature. So the workers stopped all operations, grabbed some shovels, and got to work. Yay for good deeds.
Via AP Read the rest “Watch train workers rescue a mountain goat completely buried in snow”
This black bear in Florida thought he'd pay a social visit to a family over the holidays. After lumbering onto the porch and knocking over some decorations for fun, he rang the doorbell. But the family was not amused. They got on the intercom and firmly repeated, "Bear, go away!" The unwanted guest finally got the message and went on his merry way. Read the rest “Watch: bear visits a home and rings the doorbell”
This guy likes to make ants bite him and wasps sting him so he can post his reactions on YouTube. In his latest video, he makes a Costa Rican Executioner Wasp sting him on his forearm. It's hard to know for sure how much he is hamming it up for the camera, but he makes quite a show of the pain. He says it hurt as much as the Tarantula Hawk's sting and the Bullet Ant's bite.
Image: YouTube Read the rest “Man intentionally lets himself get stung by incredibly painful Executioner Wasp”
Not a one of these pooches can deal with a disembodied kitty head appearing on their turf. Maybe it's the size of the cat that it must have come from that spooks them. Maybe it's the way that the pillow's eyes follow them around the living room. It's a clear and present danger to everything the mutts believe in.
It must be stopped. Read the rest “Puppers are not OK with a cat-shaped pillow showing up in their house”
No one bothered to tell this honey badger that the garbage can it's digging was designed to be baboon-proof. Not that it would matter: A honey badger isn't a baboon. In just a few minutes, it manages to yoink out a brag-worthy late night feast. Read the rest “A baboon-proof garbage can can't keep a honey badger from its late night snack”
