Staff at Mac's Mission, an animal rescue center in Missouri, named him Narwhal. The healthy 10-week-old pup has an extra tail, smack in the middle of his forehead.

Rochelle Steffen, who runs Mac's Mission, named after a pit-bull terrier she rescued seven and a half years ago, told BBC News Narwhal "is in no pain and plays for hours". ... And X-rays had showed his secondary tail, about a third the size of his actual tail, was not connected to anything and served no purpose other than to make him the "coolest puppy ever".

Narwhal will not be made available for adoption until he's grown up some, to confirm the secondary tail is healthy. Read the rest

Macrocilix maia is a moth with a most unusual camouflage: it looks like two flies enjoying a delicious supper of fresh bird shit. Is this merely some amusing human poop-pareidolia, or did Macrocilix truly evolve an appearance that made avian predators think it was a poisoned meal? There is "scant research," writes research scientist Alex Wild.

The scant published research on the mural moth is systematic in nature, with nary a mention of the incredible mimicry. In fact, the photo-sharing site Flickr has outpaced any academic work: photographer Allan Lee reports in 2009 that the moth reinforces the imagery with a pungent odor. That’s the extent of our knowledge. Macrocilix maia is a Ph.D. project waiting to happen.

Wild was writing in 2011. Has anything interesting been learned of Macrocilix since? Google Scholar suggests only fleeting references in papers and a book, saying nothing more than Wild's summary. There are many splendid specimens on Flickr, all with nearly-identical caco-camo.

Photo: Alexey Yakovlev/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0) Read the rest

In this video, a pair of rams chance across a boxing bag left dangling from a branch in the woods. Battle commences. A day later, they are ultimately victorious.

Dodge and Thunder discover the heavy punching bag hanging from a tree

There is an entire channel of this stuff.

Read the rest

In this very relaxing video, a man tends with infinite care to the precise ecology of his unfertilized nanotank: a tiny yet thriving 5-gallon world of flora and fauna. The best moment comes when he drops a slice of boiled cucumber in. A redditor explains the significance:

The only caveat is that this person has not used fertilizers or CO2, which most people who care for planted tanks do. He’s a achieved a really beautiful tank even without those components. It does help that this is a really small tank, though. However, smaller tanks are a lot more fragile and prone to failure because of their size. Even minute changes will in nitrate/nitrite levels can be devestating. The cool thing about naturally planted tanks is that they eventually form a self sufficient ecosystem that can balance itself very well.

A beloved dog that was lost in 2007 has been found -- over one thousand miles away from home, in Pittsburgh, PA. Read the rest

The getaway goat's name is 'Big Boy.' “He’s never done anything like that before,” his owner said when finally reunited with the goat.

“I think he was drinking too much that night. I’m really sorry it happened but there wasn’t much I could do. I wasn’t there.”

In an Ohio town, a teen got home from school last Friday to discover the family dog barking outside, and a sliding glass door shattered.

The kid's mom called the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office after they figured out a goat had crashed into their family home.

Keathley said she and the deputies called vets, animal control and the local Humane Society for advice. She said everyone laughed at them and they laughed too but they really needed help. Finally, the deputies decided to attempt corralling the goat out themselves. They tried tying a rope around its neck, enticing it with carrots, dog bones, grass.

At one point, the goat turned around and ran back into the bathroom. Eventually, the two deputies each grabbed a horn and managed to lead the goat outside and into the German Shepard’s cage.

On local Facebook pages, Keathley asked, “is anybody missing a ram? Please contact me ASAP.”

She said she didn’t want to include what the male goat had done in the post or else the owner might not claim him.

More: Goat breaks into Ashland County home, falls asleep in bathroom [times-gazette.com, video courtesy Jenn Keathley] Read the rest

Oh, deer. Read the rest

This adorable 12-week-old kitten needed a snooze during their little 'coffee break.' Read the rest

Firefox encounters issue with Windows. Read the rest

Rural Britons of the beekeeping set traditionally keep the bees up to date on family births, deaths, marriages and important world events. Perhaps we should all adopt this charming custom instead of blasting it all onto social media. [via]

The practice of telling the bees may have its origins in Celtic mythology that held that bees were the link between our world and the spirit world. So if you had any message that you wished to pass to someone who was dead, all you had to do was tell the bees and they would pass along the message. Telling the bees was widely reported from all around England, and also from many places across Europe. Eventually, the tradition made their way across the Atlantic and into North America.

The typical way to tell the bees was for the head of the household, or “goodwife of the house” to go out to the hives, knock gently to get the attention of the bees, and then softly murmur in a doleful tune the solemn news. Little rhymes developed over the centuries specific to a particular region. In Nottinghamshire, the wife of the dead was heard singing quietly in front of the hive—“The master's dead, but don't you go; Your mistress will be a good mistress to you.”

Can't help but suspect that "telling the bees" is a form of evolved self-therapy. Read the rest

This squirrel is surprised to encounter a hard, solid, almost completely invisible force field. Read the rest

The lost seal pup in this photo, taken by tourist boat operator William McPhee is fine. It was floating unconscious in the water after being parted from its mother, writes the BBC, and was lucky someone chanced across it.

She "would certainly have drowned" if not for their "quick thinking and efforts", a Tynemouth Seal Rescue Unit spokesman said.

Scroll down, now you have! Read the rest

Two corgis do battle in this epic video confrontation posted on YouTube by Defacto Sound, which I suspect is exploiting the Corg Wars to show off its audio design talents. Read the rest

Meet Eris The Borzoi. Read the rest

Here, you need some sweetness. Read the rest