The Bilby

This animal comes in 3 delicious chocolate flavors: milk, dark, and white. Sounds like Valentine’s Day- I know I want one! The chocolate bilby is the equivalent of an American Easter chocolate bunny, because the bilby is the symbol of Easter in Australia in an attempt to de-Americanize the holiday (What did the Easter Bilby bring you this year?).

The real bilby that’s not made from cacao and dairy products is a marsupial the size of a rabbit with abnormally large ears, giving the animal an acute sense of hearing to make up for what it lacks in sight. Its eyes are very bad, although it is a nocturnal animal. It inhabits arid areas of Australia, most commonly desert regions. The bilby has very strong claws and is able to burrow into the ground very quickly, which serves as a sort of defense mechanism against its main predators, which include mostly birds of prey, especially owls. The bilby also uses its claws for food, and it gets most of its water from food since water is scarce is desert climates. The bilby is mousy in appearance, with long ears, a long snout, and their personalities are commonly solitary and territorial. Unfortunately, the bilby is nearing extinction, though it used to inhabit more than 70 percent of the Australian continent. Other animals have taken over the bilby habitats, and their populations have declined also due to hunting for food and for pelts. Droughts have a heavier effect due to competition with other animals, and fire patterns have changed which have altered their habitats significantly. The bilby is a protected animal in Australia, and is most famous for its association with Easter. In case you’d like to order some chocolate bilbies for this upcoming Easter, here’s a link that allows you to do so:
http://www.easterbilby.com.au/save_bilby/chocolate.asp

save the bilbies for a delectable price of only $5.95!

Log/Dion?

Log or Dion. Which should be the name for a half dog/lion.

Love this picture, one of my favorites!

Mop Dog

Quick detour back to my original theme, Funny Pets.


I think this is a funny looking pet. It looks like a used mop. OR, it has dreadlocks.

Funny Cartoon Animals- In Real Life!- Tasmanian Devil

In my third piece of the series, I will be looking at The Tasmanian Devil, often referred to as Taz, and the REAL LIFE  Tasmanian Devil.
 
              Taz, is an animated cartoon character featured in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of cartoons. Taz is generally portrayed as a dim-witted teenager-type with a notoriously short temper and little patience. He will eat anything and everything, with an appetite that seems to know no bounds. He is best known for his speech consisting mostly of grunts, growls and rasps, and his ability to spin and bite through just about anything. The first Taz cartoon was released in 1954.
             The character was based on the real-life Tasmanian Devil, or more specifically its carnivorous nature and voracious appetite.  The most noticeable resemblance between the Australian marsupial and McKimson's creation is their ravenous appetites and crazed behavior.
  
               
              The Tasmanian devil is a carnivorous marsupial. It is now found in the wild only in the Australian island state of Tasmania. The size of a small dog, it is currently the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world. It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, pungent odour, extremely loud and disturbing screech, keen sense of smell, and ferocity when feeding. The Tasmanian devil's large head and neck allow it to generate the strongest bite per unit body mass of any living mammal, and it hunts prey and scavenges carrion as well as eating household products if humans are living nearby. Despite its rotund appearance, the devil is capable of surprising speed and endurance, and can climb trees and swim across rivers.
                                        The Tasmanian Devil is listed as Endangered.

Although it is mean and one would be very stupid to try to pet them, they can be pretty cute!!

Capybara

*Note* Sorry for not posting as frequently as I should. I just had my wisdom teeth removed and my laptop died.

I will be taking a quick detour from my series 'Funny Cartoon Animals In Real Life'. I am doing this inorder to give some information on one of the coolest animals around, the capybara.

The capybara is the largest living rodent in the world. Close relatives include chinchillas and guinea pigs.

                                                    MY Capybara Rant.

   If you happen to find one of these in your house, you must really have a pig sty. Seriously, this isn't a tiny  mouse. It is the largest rodent in the world. Please do yourself and your neighbors a favor, clean your house.   
             Here is my personal anecdote. My father once told me a story about a run in with a capybara. A friend of a friend brought home a pet dog for his child. The child was so happy, he slept with the dog. After a few nights, the childs parents were awoken to the childs screams.The pet dog bit of the childs toe! It turns out the dog was not a dog, it was a rodent that looked like a dog!! I can not confirm that this rodent/dog was a capybara, but I always assumed it was. I think a capybara could pass for an ugly dog.

   
                                                             
                                   Capybara INFO

    Capybaras are coprophagous, meaning they eat their own feces as a source of bacterial gut flora and to help digest the cellulose in the grass that forms their normal diet and extract the maximum protein from their food.

     Like its cousin the guinea pig, the capybara does not have the capacity to synthesize vitamin C, and capybaras unsupplemented with vitamin C in captivity have been reported to develop gum disease as a sign of scurvy.


       Capybaras have heavy, barrel-shaped bodies and short heads with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of their body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Adult capybaras may grow to 130 centimetres (4.3 ft) in length, and weigh up to 65 kg (140 lb). The top recorded weight is 105.4 kg (232 lbs). Capybaras have slightly webbed feet, no tail and 20 teeth. Females are slightly heavier than males. Females average 36 to 66 kg (80 to 145 pounds), while males typically weigh about 34 to 61 kilograms (75 to 135 pounds).

                     Capybara are semi-aquatic mammals found wild in much of South America  in densely forested areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and marshes, as well as flooded savannah and along rivers in tropical forest.

                Capybaras are herbivores, grazing mainly on grasses and aquatic plants, as well as fruit and tree bark. An adult capybara will eat 6 to 8 pounds (2.7 to 3.6 kg) of grasses per day.

 
            

Funny Cartoon Animal- In Real Life!- Ms. Piggy

In my second piece of a series in which I will examine funny cartoon animals and thier real live counterparts, I will be examining Miss Piggy of the Muppets and regular Pigs.

Miss Piggy is a Muppet, whch is more or less a glorified Puppet. The Muppets were created by Jim Henson starting in 1954–55. The word Muppet  comes from a combonation of "Marionette" and "puppet".
Other famous Muppetes include , Fozzie Bear, Rizzo the Rat, Gonzo the Great and the great Kermit the Frog. 

      

Miss Piggy is a femle pig with very nice hair. She is a pig who is convinced that she is destined for stardom, and that nothing is going to stand in her way. She presents a public face which is the essence of feminine charm, but can instantly fly into a violent rage whenever she thinks she has been insulted or thwarted. Kermit the Frog is often the target of her anger. When she isn't sending him flying through the air, she is often smothering him in (usually unwanted) kisses.

Here is a video of Miss Piggy in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr7v05KvggM

REAL LIFE Pigs

Miss Piggy does not accuratley depict pigs, Most pigs do not have such long and luxurious hair. Very few pigs can sing. And I doubt, that there are many pigs attracted to frogs, but then again, the Mupets are a comdey TV show. Nonetheless, Pigs are pretty cool creatures.

   

With around 2 billion individuals alive at any time, the domesticated pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet.

Long isolated from other pigs on the many islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, pigs have evolved into many different species, including wild boar, bearded pigs, and warty pigs. Humans have introduced pigs into Australia, North and South America, and numerous islands, either accidentally as escaped domestic pigs which have gone feral, or as wild boar. These have typically adapted well, and are increasing in number and broadening their range outside human control.

Pigs are omnivores, which means that they consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. In confinement pigs are fed mostly corn and soybean meal with a mixture of vitamins and minerals added to the diet.

Domesticated pigs are commonly raised as livestock by farmers for meat (generally called pork, hams, gammon or bacon), as well as for leather. Their bristly hairs are also used for brushes. Some breeds of pig, such as the Asian pot-bellied pig, are kept as pets.

The domestic pig was domesticated approximately 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. Pigs are intelligent and can be trained to perform numerous tasks and tricks. Recently, they have enjoyed a measure of popularity as house pets, particularly the dwarf breeds.

Feral PIG Picture=    

Dont Miss the new Muppet Movie, The Muppets (film). Comes out 11/23/11

Funny Cartoon Animal- In Real Life!- Roadrunner.

I have decided to post some pictures of funny cartoon animals and their real counterparts.  In the first piece of the series, we will be taking a close look at Road Runner from Warner Bros.

In case you are unfamiliar with the cartoon, the plot revolves around Wile E. Coyote (Pictured Above) chasing Road Runner around. Wile E. Coyote utilizes various tactics in efforts to capture and subsequently eat Road Runner. These tactics often involve Wile using various pieces of technology, such as rockets and traps. Yet Wile's tactics are often thwarted by Road Runner's  natural speed and wits. Wile E. Coyote failed plans often lead to him enduring a painful experience, such as falling off of a cliff or falling victim to an explosion.

Here is a link to a clip of the two kooky characters. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5_4EZxb87A&feature=related

Far too few people know that in real life, the road runner is not so purple, not so large and not nearly as fast as the roadrunner depicted in the cartoon.

Wikipedia Attack- "Roadrunners can run at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour (32 km/h)^[1] and generally prefer sprinting to flying. Roadrunners will fly to escape predators." "Roadrunner species generally range in size from 18 inches (46 cm) to 24 inches (61 cm) from tail to beak."

All in all, the road runner is still a beautiful creature and the Roadrunner character is pretty funny. Meep meep.