ROBERT SCHNECK: Tortoise cosys

Nothing makes you feel good quite like a snazzy outfit. Katie Bradley's four tortoises are the best dressed in town, thanks to a wide assortment of crocheted cozies. 

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/04/02/Crocheted-Tortoise-Cozies/#!twUVo

ROBERT SCHNECK: The Bizarre History of Insect Head Transplants

Hi Jon,

A friend forwarded this article to me and I think bloggo readers will enjoy it. 

The Bizarre History of Insect Head Transplants

Head transplants sound the most crazy futuristic scenario imaginable. Right? But not to entomologists. They’ve been transplanting the head of one insect onto another for 90 years -- while keeping both insects alive. What can you learn from giving an insect a total head transplant?

http://io9.com/the-bizarre-history-of-insect-head-transplants-456738894

ROBERT SCHNECK: Old Hitler

Florida fishermen tell of a legendary giant hammerhead shark called Old Hitler.

"He's bigger and badder than Jaws. Got a head as wide as a pickup truck," says Larry Mastry, 53. "I've heard he's anywhere between 20 and 25 feet," says Capt. George Roux.

"He's a big boy," says Wayne Lord, 55. "That's all I know."

For decades local anglers have called him Old Hitler, the great hammerhead shark who allegedly lurks in the summertime waters around the Sunshine Skyway bridge. As the weather heats up, so do the tales about the legendary fish with an evil name who can snap a large tarpon in two with one chomp."Read more about the legend of Old Hitler at: http://www.sptimes.com/

ROBERT SCHNECK: Yesterday's mystery bug

Hi Jon and Merry Christmas to everyone there at the CFZ.

I'm pretty sure it's a leaf-footed bug - one of the true bugs - but without more information, such as where the picture was taken, that's as far as I would go. Some leaf-footed bugs take on baroque shapes but here are two of the more subdued examples. These two have similar markings.

And strangemouse (a young lady called Victoria Burton) has identified it as to species

Well done both of you. I thought that I was the only person who thought about invertebrates on Christmas Day!

ROBERT SCHNECK: Victorian Scylla

Dear Jon,

I came across this remarkable, vaguely Lovecraftean representation of Scylla, as in 'Scylla and Charybdis', by the British illustrator Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941). I've never seen anything quite like it and thought CFZ readers would feel the same way.

ROBERT SCHNECK: People Need to Get Out More

Dear Jon,

This is on the internet under the title 'Alien Critter and Transformer Dragonfly, 23 Sept 2011, Greenford UK'. I'm no naturalist but I think I just spent 8 minutes watching a piece of thistledown.

http://www.examiner.com/unexplained-phenomena-in-national/watch-strange-alien-insect-london-uk-video

ROBERT SCHNECK: Tudor mystery bird

Hi Jon,

This is a page from the Bodleian Library's Tudor Pattern Book (c. 1520-1530), which has paintings that were used by illuminators, embroiderers, and other craftsmen. Most of the animals are labeled (e.g. 'A dog') or identifiable by their actions (e.g. the reptilian beaver biting off his scrotum), but the hoofed bird in this picture escapes me.

I don't understand what the writing means or recognize the bird as a heraldic, mythical or symbolic animal (a hoofed bird might, incidentally, explain the Devil's footprints of 1855). I'm hoping bloggo readers can identify it.

ROBERT SCHNECK: "The Ray Harryhausen Creature List"

Dear Jon,

Came across this video and thought bloggo readers would enjoy it. 'The four and a half minute compliation [sic] of every Ray Harryhausen animated creature in feature films, presented in chronological order.' With great music by Tito Puente.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9kmjW73-v4&feature=player_embedded

ROBERT SCHNECK: Mystery Moptop

Visayan Warty Pig or the Fifth Beatle?

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CFZ PEOPLE: Robert Schneck

Happy Birthday to one of our favourite bloggers, and also Prudence's biggest fan...

SICK BEETLE ADORNMENTS

Many thanks to Dondi Ratliff and Robert Schneck for identifying Naomi's mystery insect. Robert Schneck added this mildly distasteful codicil:

Several places online claim that in Mexico they are decorated and worn as "living jewelry". Here is a picture.

ROBERT SCHNECK: Love Among the Seed Beetles

Let's get right to the point: that's a seed beetle's penis. Yes, it is. And those spikes are not decorative. They 'help the male's chances of fertilizing the eggs by providing an anchor, but can also pierce the female during sex, causing injury.' As a result, female seed beetles have developed 'tougher integument to resist collateral damage' as part of a process known as 'sexually antagonistic co-evolution.' I'm guessing that the females also developed a tendency to suffer migraines around bedtime, but maybe they like that kind of thing. Who are we to judge what two adult weevils do in the privacy of a bean? Hedgehog-like todgers are not unique to coleoptera, however, for:

'Seemingly harmful genitalia have evolved in many animals, helping males compete among themselves to father offspring. This sort of sexual conflict – known as sexually antagonistic co-evolution – is thought to result in rapid steps of evolutionary tit-for-tat between the sexes, but it is poorly understood. So far, little experimental evidence has supported the theory.'

Probably have a difficult time finding volunteers. Read the whole story (and it is quite a story) at: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1380

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ROBERT SCHNECK: Octopus With 84 - Yes, 84 - Tentacles

It seems the well of strange octopus stories will never run dry. Am I the only one who didn't know that:

"every so often an octopus with extra tentacles is discovered. These octopi [sic] typically have the usual eight tentacles branching off their trunk. But then the tentacles branch out themselves, and continue to branch out, until you have something like the last specimen: an 84-limbed beast."

The author goes on to call it a "fractal octopus".

(Read the full story and see more pictures at http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com/2008/08/fractal-octopi.html ; the original source is the amazing Pinktentacle.com)

ROBERT SCHNECK: Artificial ears

Japan is a remarkable place. Despite earthquakes, tsunamis and reactor meltdowns they still manage to produce surreally cute devices that are both endearing and vaguely disconcerting. Consider the negomimi:

'From the cybernetic labs of Japan come these moving cat ears, which purportedly adjust themselves in response to your thoughts or mood...the ears seemed eerily good at foreshadowing facial and vocal expressions, leading the more poker faced among us to wonder if they don't give away too much.'

(Full story and video at: http://gawker.com/5800564/mind-reading-cat-ears-promise-endless-embarrassment)

An even more interesting possibility is the way animals, for whom an ear-flick can be an invitation to romance or a challenge to butt heads, might react.

ROBERT SCHNECK: Tyrannosyphilis?

Is this poster saying that no matter how clean and attractive the brontosaurus looks, she might have venereal disease? Is something Freudian going on with those long necks? Both dinosaurs look seasick to me but the overall image is so appealing that I don't care if it makes sense.

ROBERT SCHNECK: Not Every Cat Has A Genius But Every Genius Has A Cat

'Writers and Kitties' is an emetic title for this otherwise wonderful online collection of photographs showing cats with writers. There are the obvious choices like Twain and Huxley, but also Fortean favorites like Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury. H.P. Lovecraft is shown here holding a fairly eldritch specimen.

http://writersandkitties.tumblr.com/archive

ROBERT SCHNECK DOES IT AGAIN

Yesterday we posted an insect for you to identify.

Robert Schneck writes:

It looks a lot like the hoverfly, Helophilus pendulus.
http://www.bnhs.co.uk/focuson/hoverflies/html/index.htm

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ROBERT SCHNECK: An Unexpected Sloth

While rifling through my new favourite blog, 'Ugly Overload' I came across a picture of a two-toed sloth emerging from an outhouse's essential feature.

Considering that sloths are usually in trees, you might think that someone dropped her in there, along with the pup clinging to her belly, as a surprise for the next customer. In fact:

'Two-toed sloths in Peru have begun a recent trend of scampering (can sloths even scamper?) into latrines to eat human waste. Why, you ask? That's a good question, and surprisingly, there are several possible answers. Our feces (or at least, Peruvian feces) might have nutritional value. Maybe it's the insect larvae crawling around on the feces. Or maybe it's all the salt in the urine. Researcher don't know for sure. '

Read more (and see a picture of the unhappy baby sloth) at:

http://uglyoverload.blogspot.com/2011/01/latrine-diving.html

ROBERT SCHNECK: My New Heroine

I think people like Sister Michael Marie are the reason God doesn't slap Earth into the Sun and start over.

"Sister Michael Marie, 36, travels the world to do the same for animals that are left alone, injured and hungry after disasters.She has worked on the Gulf Coast and in Chile, Brazil and Japan to serve all of God's creatures, including dogs, cats and other helpless animals. She always wears her full nun's habit, even while helping with a spay or neuter operation."

Read the whole story at: http://www.ucanews.com/2011/04/18/us-nun-on-mission-to-rescue-tsunami-pets/

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ROBERT SCHNECK: It Came From the Elephant's Graveyard

Anyone that loves pop-horror loves Tales from the Crypt (this is not up for discussion), and everyone that loves Tales from the Crypt loves the artist Graham Ingels (they were all good, but if Jack Davis was Raphael, Graham Ingels was Michelangelo). Obviously Tales from the Crypt, Graham Ingels, and ZOMBIE ELEPHANT, well...,that's just the apogee of wonderfulness. I don't know the story these panels come from, but have read enough comic books to guess that Milo, the furry-armed pith-helmet dropping an ankus, was married to a famous elephant trainer named Emma, whose prize elephant was Rene. Milo began holding hands with Leeta, the blonde bursting out of the aubergine dress, and the two of them killed Emma, pinned it on Rene, and he was destroyed. The dastards were feeling awfully pleased with themselves when suddenly: