A Few Awesomely Weird Products

I don't think I am alone in saying that sometimes I buy things not because I need them, but because they just look cool, weird or whatever. I have put together a list of some of these awesomely weird products that I don't necessarily need but really want. 

Horse Head Squirrel Feeder

The rubber horse head masks have been making their way around the internet for awhile now and are hilarious in pretty much every scenario. It turns out they are even funnier on squirrels.

Lazy Housekeeper Mop Slippers

Sometimes you really need to clean but just want to be lazy, these will make the path from the fridge to the couch sparkling clean.

Instant Underpants

Mom always said to wear clean underwear! Now all you have to do is soak these tidy whities in water and you're good to go. They may be a little damp, but at least they are clean. 

Bacon Adhesive Bandages

Because bacon can fix anything

Giant Googly Eyes

Googly eyes can instantly make anything funny and these are big enough to put on a refrigerator or even your house. 

Inflatable Cat Unicorn Horn

Few things put a cat in its place better than strapping a unicorn horn to its head

Marmots, Groundhogs & Rock Chucks

Marmots are large ground squirrels of the Marmota genus. There are 14 species of marmots split among two sub-genera. The marmota sub-genus contains all European and Asian marmots as well as the American woodchuck (or groundhog). The remaining American marmots, sometimes referred to as rock chucks, are contained within the petromarmota sub-genus.

Yellow bellied marmot

Marmots can be found throughout North America, Europe and Asia in mountainous regions such as the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas and the Carpathians up to elevations of 14,000 feet. The one exception to this is the woodchuck, a lowland-dwelling marmot found in the eastern United States and most of Canada.

Woodchuck

Most marmots can be up to 22 inches in length and weigh 7-18lbs. Fur color differs by species and molting occurs each spring. Marmots usually live in self-dug burrows, or in the case of the yellow-bellied marmot, under rock piles; they hibernate 7-8 months out of the year.

Marmots are primarily herbivores and eat a wide variety of plants, flowers and seeds. However they have been known on rare occasions to eat insects as well. .

The Alpine marmot of central and southern Europe

Marmots are social animals and usually live either in mated pairs or in a harem consisting of one breeding male, several female mates and their young. They communicate with each other using a variety of visual and audio signals such as whistles, screams and tooth chattering. Scent glands are also used for territorial marking and conflict resolution between males.

Marmots usually mate and give birth in the spring after emerging from hibernation. Litters of four are average, and all will be expected to disperse and find their own territories at one year of age.

Flying Squirrels - Animal Hang Gliders

Despite their name, flying squirrels not actually capable of powered flight. Instead, they use a furry patch of skin between their wrists and ankles as a sort of parachute, allowing them to glide hundreds of feet between trees.

There are 44 species of flying squirrel spread throughout almost every temperate climate in the world. Though habitats vary by species, most can be found in woodland areas where tall trees can help the squirrels avoid ground-based predators.

Unlike ground squirrels and tree squirrels, flying squirrels are almost completely nocturnal. This behavior is one of necessity as they are unable to escape from large birds of prey such as hawks and eagles during the day. However, they are still exposed to predation from several species of owls at night.

Flying squirrels are omnivorous and vary their diet based upon what is available. Common food sources include many types of nuts, fungi and berries as well as small insects and bird eggs. Like all squirrels, flying squirrels do not hibernate and can live in dens of up to 50 individuals during cold winter months, usually in hollowed out trees or abandoned bird nests.

The Laotian Rock Rat - Living Fossil

Happy Monday, everybody! After a week spent talking about sharks I figured it might be nice to focus on an animal today that most likely won’t ever get a minute on television, despite making a comeback after a vacation of at least a few million years! Meet the Laotian rock rat: living fossil.

Animals and plants that are considered to be living fossils are those that are nearly identical to a species only known from fossilized remains with no other living relatives. Cockroaches and aardvarks are two commonly known animals that are referred to as living fossils. The recently discovered Laotian rock rat may fit this description as well, but there is some debate.

Discovered in Laos in the late 1990’s, the Laotian rock rat was first thought to be so distinct from all living rodents that it was placed in a new family called Laonastidae. However, in 2006 this classification was debated by biologists and it was instead suggested that the Laotian rock rat is a relative of members of the ancient Diatomyidae family which has been extinct for 11 million years. The rat is commonly placed in this family now. If this is indeed the case, the Laotian rock rat would join sixteen other mammals that were once thought to be extinct only to be rediscovered, though none have been thought extinct for nearly this long. This type of occurrence is known as a Lazarus taxon.

The Laotian rock rat appears different from other living rats. Despite the similar appearance and coloring of its body, it has the long and bushy tail of a squirrel. Most are about 15 inches in length with a third of that coming from the tail and a weight of about a pound. These rats have thus far only been found in the Khammouan Province of Laos. Though little is yet known about this newly-discovered species, their limited range and pressure from trapping has led the ICUN to label them as endangered. 

The Endangered Mount Graham Red Squirrel

In most parts of the world squirrels are an extremely common sight. In the United States it’s hard to spend any time in the backyard without catching a glimpse of an American red or grey squirrel scurrying up a tree or foraging for food in the grass. However, there is at least one species of squirrel that is extremely rare indeed, and wildlife officials are taking drastic measures to ensure its survival.

Mount Graham Red Squirrel

The Mount Graham red squirrel is native only to the Pinaleño Mountains in southeastern Arizona and is named after the mountain range’s highest point. These tiny mountain-dwellers are only about eight inches long and weigh a half pound. They were once thought to be extinct, but now exist as an endangered species in very limited numbers. According to the Arizona Department of Game and Fish there are only about 200 Mount Graham red squirrels left.

Arizona has recently experienced a lot of wildfires, leading some to fear that the entire remaining Mount Graham red squirrel population could be wiped out if fires affected their habitat. In response to this danger, Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO is reporting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has teamed up with the Phoenix Zoo to trap four of these squirrels and transport them to a temporary habitat at the zoo’s conservation center. That way, should the worst happen the four protected squirrels would hopefully be able to ensure the survival of the species.

For more information about the conservation of the Mount Graham red squirrel, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a .pdf file that can be downloaded here.

Secret Agent Squirrel

If there’s one thing squirrels love, it's food; and they’re capable of remembering some pretty complex directions to get to it, too!

This video from England shows a squirrel traversing a variety of obstacles, similar to a Rube Goldberg machine, to get to a prized bowl of nuts. Apparently the owners constructed the machine a bit at a time, rewarding the squirrel with food at the end of each section. After about two weeks, the squirrel was able to make it through the entire machine. Very Ethan Hunt!

How Animals Keep Their Cool

Now that summer’s here, a lot of us probably plan on spending our free time at the pool. When it’s hot outside, nothing’s better than jumping into some nice, cool water to relax. But, when a/c or an ice-cold dip isn’t an option, our bodies still find a way to keep us cool; we sweat. Animals in the wild don’t have the option to crank up the air conditioner when they get too hot, so they’ve developed their own ways to cool down.

Photo: CoolFox

Now, we all know that dogs will pant when they get hot, as their tongues are very effective at releasing heat from their bodies, but did you know they also sweat from their feet? Dogs don’t have a lot of sweat glands like we do, but if overheated they can sweat from between their toes. Other mammals such as squirrels sweat in this same way. Cows can sweat from their muzzles, and rabbits sweat from their lips, though neither nearly as much as humans. Birds have no sweat glands at all, so they will flare their feathers and open their mouths in hot weather to increase their surface area and evaporate water from the surface of their bodies.


Photo: Rene Modery

 Have you ever heard the phrase “sweating like a pig”? Well, that’s not really possible, because pigs don’t sweat at all. To regulate their body temperatures, pigs have to roll in mud or water, which draws the heat from their bodies. They look like a mess, but they’re just trying to stay cool!


Photo: Andrew Smith

Cold-blooded animals such as reptiles, amphibians, and fish have body temperatures that are the same as the air or water around them, and do not sweat. Land-going reptiles that are too hot will do their best to find shade or burrow into cool soil. If shade is not available, some have the ability to lighten their skin color, making it more reflective. Fish often seasonally migrate to deeper, cooler waters to regulate their temperatures.

Photo: Phillip Halling

Of course, we’re not the only ones who enjoy a nice swim in hot weather. Have a safe and happy summer!


Photo: Wen-Yan King



Squirrels Across the Globe

Whether you hate them or love them, almost everyone runs into a squirrel on a daily basis because over 200 species live across the globe. However, they don't live in Australia. The smallest squirrel is a total of five inches long from head to tail, while the largest can grow up to three feet. Because it's a rodent, its teeth never stop growing to keep up with the squirrel's constant gnawing on a diet of nuts, leaves, roots, seeds and other plants.

A fun guy who eats fungi

Yesterday I mentioned how big a capybara can get. Let’s check out a small sized rodent—the chipmunk. Chipmunks, part of the squirrel family, only weigh from 1 to 5 ounces! These little guys have stripes on their faces, which helps differentiate them from the golden mantled ground squirrel, sometimes mistakenly called a chipmunk. Baby chipmunks are called pups. Chipmunks eat nuts, berries, birds' eggs, grain, insects, worms and fungi.

Chipmunks were made famous in the 1960s when they made it into cartoons. If you aren't familiar with Alvin and the Chipmunks, you can check them out on the big screen soon.

JJ

Now that’s just nutty!

Did you know that a squirrel's brain is about the size of a walnut? Is that with or without the shell . . .

The cleanest animal in the rodent family, the male tree squirrel takes twice as long, as the female, to groom itself. We guarantee all of our squirrels are clean, too.

Speaking of Rodentia or the rodent family, the largest members is the capybara. From Central and South America, these guys can reach a length of 4 feet (120 cm) and a weight of 75 to 100 lb (34–45 kg). You know, I'm not sure I'd want to meet one of these guys face to face--that's bigger than my dog! And she's a German Shepherd/Yellow Lab mix.

JJ