Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Cats and Dogs...

On Saturday the Daily Mail ran extracts from my new book Play It Again, Tom.Here's the text and the cutest of the photos that accompanied it. There's also a number to order a copy through their free delivery book service.


Have you ever wondered which breed of dog barks the most, why black cats are a sign of good luck or which direction dogs wag their tail to show they are happy? Here are 36 fascinating facts from a new book on man's two best friends...




Dogs can smell human fingerprints that are a week old. Their noses are so sensitive that they can even smell electricity. While conducting an experiment, a researcher found that a dog could smell which of two boxes contained an electric current.

He concluded this was because the charge resulted in the release of tiny amounts of ozone that the dog could detect. The source of the dog's exceptional ability to smell is its wet snout.

The moist leathery surface acts like Velcro, catching even the tiniest molecules of smells, then dissolving them so that the dog's internal smell-receptor cells can analyse them properly. To keep its nose wet, a dog must produce a constant supply of mucus through the nasal cavities. Scientists reckon the average dog produces a pint of this mucus every day.




Apparently dogs prefer Bach to Britney
Dogs prefer Bach to Britney. A study looked at the way hundreds of distressed rescue dogs reacted to different kinds of music. The sound of human voices and pop music by artists like Britney Spears did nothing to calm the stressed dogs. Heavy metal and grunge music made the dogs even more agitated. When the band Metallica were played, for instance, the dogs started barking loudly.

At the other end of the scale, however, the scientists discovered that dogs relaxed and enjoyed themselves most when they were played classical music. Naturally, they liked the sound of Bach in particular.


Male dogs tend to be left-pawed, while females favour their front right paw. Cats, on the other hand, are generally left-pawed. Studies found that 20 per cent of cats favoured their right paws when carrying out complicated, manipulatory tasks such as toying with objects, while a little over 38 per cent favoured their left. The remaining 42 per cent were ambidextrous.


Many owners think their cat senses their arrival home in the car: The truth is more likely to be that its ultrasonic hearing allows it to recognise the signature high-frequency sound of the owner's car well in advance of its arrival within human earshot.


The ten brightest breeds of dog (ranked according to their ability to understand new commands in fewer than five repetitions and to obey first commands 95 per cent of the time or better) are: 1 Border Collie; 2 Poodle; 3 German Shepherd; 4 Golden Retriever; 5 Doberman Pinscher; 6 Shetland Sheepdog; 7 Labrador Retriever; 8 Papillon; 9 Rottweiler; 10 Australian Cattle Dog.

The ten least bright breeds (ranked in descending order of ability to understand new commands, even after hundreds of repetitions) are: 1 Basset Hound; 2 Mastiff; 3 Beagle; 4 Pekingese; 5 Bloodhound; 6 Borzoi; 7 Chow Chow; 8 Bulldog; 9 Basenji; 10 Afghan Hound.




Cats only have 30 teeth compared to dogs which have 42
Dogs have 42 teeth. Cats only have 30. The make-up of their mouths reflects their different dietary habits. At the front of the mouth, both have six incisors and two canines, used primarily for ripping. At the back of the mouth, however, dogs have more molars and premolars. These are used chiefly for crushing plants, roots, vegetables and bone, which cats don't eat.


Happy dogs wag their tails predominantly to the right. A study of how dogs respond to different stimuli was conducted by Italian neuroscientists and vets. Over a month, they watched a group of 30 dogs respond when they were briefly joined in turn by their owner, an unfamiliar human, a cat or an unfamiliar dominant dog, a Belgian Shepherd. The dogs' tails wagged vigorously to the right when they were shown their owners and much less so when they saw the unfamiliar human.

Cats lick themselves to protect against both the cold and excessive heat. In cold weather, licking helps to keep their fur smooth so that it functions as a more efficient layer of insulation. In hot weather, licking compensates for the cat's lack of sweat glands and helps to cool down the fur. Historically, cats have been regarded as valuable weather forecasters.


Some dogs are more likely than others to demand affection. Highest-ranking breeds: Lhasa Apso, Boston Terrier, English Springer Spaniel, Cocker Spaniel, Toy Poodle, Miniature Poodle. Lowest-ranking breeds: Chow Chow, Akita, Bloodhound, Rottweiler, Basset Hound, Collie.

Hungry cats can meow at the rate of two per minute for more than two hours non-stop and can purr continuously for up to two hours. Adult cats convey different signals with a dozen different sounds. They signal territorial aggression by growling, howling and snarling, and defensiveness by spitting and hissing. The meow, trill and chirrup sounds signal greetings. Cats also gurgle. Scientists think this is a signal of friendship.


Cats and dogs are good for human health. The idea that pets may help prevent illness was raised in the 1980s when Erica Friedmann at the University of Maryland found that recovering heartattack patients tended to live longer if they had cats or dogs.

Female dogs have a lower boredom threshold than males. In a major study in which both sexes were encouraged to look at a selection of different humans, the females got bored more quickly than the males.




A dog's bark lasts on average for 0.2 seconds
A dog's barks last, on average, for 0.2 seconds each. A Beagle was once recorded barking 907 times in ten minutes. Some dogs are more likely than others to be guilty of excessive barking. Highest-ranking breeds: Yorkshire Terrier, Cairn Terrier, Miniature Schnauzer, West Highland White Terrier, Fox Terrier, Beagle.

Lowest-ranking breeds: Bloodhound, Golden Retriever, Akita, Rottweiler, Newfoundland.


Dogs are born with an equivalent of a thumb on the side of their feet. The extra digit, the dew claw, is a remnant of their evolutionary past that has become obsolete. The dew claw can be a handicap for working dogs in particular, as it can get caught in undergrowth and bushes.


Dogs can tell the time. During his famous experiments, the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov trained dogs to expect to receive food every half an hour. But when he changed the rules of the experiment and failed to give them anything, they still started salivating after almost exactly 30 minutes. Consciously or unconsciously, their internal clocks had told them to expect food.

The cat's purr may be a self-healing mechanism. Cats purr at between 25 and 50 hertz, a frequency at which vibrations have been found to have a wide range of medical benefits, from increasing bone density and helping in the healing of fractures, torn tendons and muscles to generally relieving pain.


Cats are highly promiscuous. Male cats aren't fussy about who they mate with.


Cats have more than 20 muscles in their external ears, or pinnae. As a result, they can move each ear independently of the other, using them to identify and amplify sounds quickly. They can also move their bodies in one direction while pointing their ears in another.


When researchers tracked the behaviour of a white tomcat for a year, they found he fathered 63 kittens with a number of different females. That's one every six days or so.

Male cats appear to be possessive and certainly don't like the idea of sharing. Indeed, knowing their partners are being "unfaithful" makes them less fertile. One study of the sexual activity of male cats found some were capable of having sex ten times in an hour.

An average mother cat has between one and eight kittens per litter, though a litter may contain as many as 13 kittens. In one case, a cat was discovered to be carrying 18 foetuses. One cat was recorded as having 420 kittens over a period of 17 years. The oldest known mother was pregnant at the age of 26.


Cats' milk contains eight times more protein and three times as much fat as human milk.

Dogs have more taste-buds than cats. They have around 1,700 - almost four times as many as cats, which have approximately 470. A cat's tastes are moulded when it is a kitten. During weaning its mother gives it a set of food preferences which remains in place for the rest of its life. From then on, a cat is extremely fussy about eating anything that it hasn't tried before. So, despite the fact that raw meat is closer to the diet it would have in the wild, a domesticated cat raised on tinned cat food will shun uncooked cuts of meat that don't look and smell like the processed product.


Cats are hypercarnivores. This means they need a much higher amount of protein in their diet than almost any other mammal. An adult cat needs its diet to contain 12 per cent protein while a kitten needs half as much again, 18 per cent. Dogs are capable of living healthily on much less than this. An adult dog needs a diet of only 4 per cent protein. This is why dogs are much better suited than cats to vegetarian diets.



Cats can fish. To land their catches, they use a cunning "flip" technique. Depending on the size of their prey, they will dip one or two front paws into the water and quickly slide them under the fish's belly. They will then flip the fish out of the water, throwing it behind them, over their heads and on to land, where they will eat it. When kittens throw a ball up into the air as if to catch it, they are not playing. In fact, they are practising the fishing techniques they would use if they were living in the wild.


Chocolate can be poisonous to a dog because it contains high levels of theobromine, which is a cardiac stimulant and diuretic. Cats don't like sweet things, mainly because they can't taste them. By analysing the cat's genetic code, scientists learned that part of the code that normally provides an animal with sweet-taste receptors is missing.


Cats are much less likely to become overweight than dogs. One vet reported that 30 per cent of dogs that came to his clinic were overweight. Only 10 per cent of cats suffered from obesity. Anorexia is more common in cats than dogs, though dogs can suffer from it. In their case, the condition is often associated with anxiety about being separated from their owners.


Contrary to the familiar saying, old dogs can learn new tricks - provided, that is, they are following a healthy lifestyle. A study discovered that when elderly Beagles were fed on a diet of fruit, vegetables and vitamins and exercised regularly, they were able to learn a whole range of new tasks. Scientists think the healthy regime and mental stimulation stave off the onset of Alzheimer's and other brain-related illnesses common in older dogs.


The cat has a symmetrical walk, with its left limbs moving in sequence together, half a stride apart from its right limbs. The giraffe and the camel are thought to be among the few other animals that walk thisway. Cats normally walk at around 0.9 metres a second - that's just over 2mph. Most breeds of domestic cat can run at speeds of up to 30mph. The Egyptian Mau, exceptionally fast, can reach up to 36mph.


Cats instinctively react to cold by baring their teeth and walking around in circles.

All 38 members of the modern cat family are believed to be descended from just eight ancestors: the ocelot, panther, caracal, baycat, Asian leopard, puma, lynx and the domestic cat. The domestic cat evolved from the African wild cat and six species of small cats that thrived around the Mediterranean.


Cats signal friendship by sticking their tails in the air. Scientists think this might be a rare case of a behaviour that has evolved since the domestic cat started living with humans. In the wild, cats raise their tails into an upright position only in order to spray urine. A household cat, however, adopts this position for long periods of time while it conducts friendly rubbing with another cat.


Black cats shouldn't he seen as symbols of bad luck - quite the opposite, in fact. Scientists have discovered that, if anything, black cats have a fortunate genetic make-up. The gene for melanism, which makes their fur black, may also be able to prevent certain viruses or bacteria from entering their cells, making them more resistant to disease than cats with lighter-coloured coats. Dark coats also act as a better camouflage for hunting.


Among domestic breeds of cat, the Bengal has an unusual affinity for water. It frequently jumps into its owner's bath, generally uninvited.

Cats have a blind spot, right under their nose. For this reason, they can't find titbits on the floor.


Dogs are not colour-blind; they just don't see the range of colours other species, such as humans, do. A study concluded their world is predominantly made up of yellows and blues. Cats can see limited amounts of colour.

Cats gets stuck up trees because of an evolutionary design fault. Their claws curve under, making them a useful tool for climbing up but less handy when coming down, as they can't grip so effectively. As a result, cats tend to use a far-from-graceful backwards-sliding technique to get out of trees.


• Extracted from Play It Again, Tom by Augustus Brown, published by Bantam Press at £9.99, Augustus Brown. To order a copy (p&p free), call 0845 606 4206.

Heard The One About The Dog Who Tells Jokes?

Do dogs have a sense of humour? Can they crack jokes? The Daily Telegraph's Washington correspondent, Toby Harnden reckons they can. In fact he thinks his dog Finn is a real practical joker. When Toby tries to put his baby daughter in her car seat, Finn jumps in to block him, flashing a playful smile as he does so. Is he joking? Well, dogs definitely have a sense of humour. They must do, because some things make them laugh. A scientist named Patricia Simonet was the first to notice dogs make “a breathy, pronounced, forced exhalation” that happens exclusively during playtime. She concluded that it’s the canine equivalent of a chuckle. Subsequent tests proved that dogs really like the sound of laughter. One study found that dogs who were played the sound of canine laughter became significantly less stressed and more sociable. The question of what makes a dog laugh though remains unanswered. Darwin’s friend George Romanes reckoned it was a “good joke”. Maybe Finn is proof he was right. Cats, on the other hand, don't laugh. The strange, curling of the top lip they frequently perform may look like an expression of amusement but in fact this is a method of heightening their sense of smell during the mating season. The technique, known as the Flehmen Response, is common in horses, zebras and donkeys too. Cats do signal happiness in different ways, however. They perform a kneading action with their paws. The action is known by various names, from skronking and paddy pawing to making muffins.

Play It Again, Tom

Dogs can smell electricity, cats can sense epileptic fits. Dogs prefer Bach to Britney Spears, while cats would rather take drugs than eat chocolate. Strange new facts about man's favourite animals - cats and dogs - are being unearthed on a daily basis, it seems. The most curious of these - a dog's bark last on average 0.2 seconds, cats have a secret ultrasonic language - are the subject of my new book, Play It Again, Tom, and an accompanying new blog. If you're not scientifically inclined, don't worry. There are lots of crazy Youtube clips of skateboarding pugs and piano-playing pussycats too!

Revealed, The World's Sharpest-Tongued Creature- And It's Not Simon Cowell

Scientists have discovered the world’s sharpest and most powerful tongue. And - shock, horror - it doesn’t belong to Simon Cowell.
As National Geographic are reporting “the giant palm salamander of Central America (Bolitoglossa dofleini) captures fast-moving bugs with an explosive tongue thrust that releases over 18,000 watts of power per kilogram of muscle”.
The scientist behind the discovery, Stephen Deban of the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, says the salamander's ballistic tongue-firing mechanism is similar to an arrow being shot from a bow.
The "bow" is provided by elastic fibres in the salamander's mouth that stretch to store muscular energy and then release it all at once. The bony tongue is launched with an initial burst of energy and flies forward under its own momentum.
The salamander’s extraordinary weapon allow it to fire it’s sticky-padded tip to reach prey in a few thousandths of a second.

A Week On The Wild Side, January 21st, 2007

Some things that have caught my eye in the past couple of weeks:

Insect Porn Reveals The Shocking Truth: Spiders Squeak During Sex

The year is barely a month old, but already I may have stumbled across the most bizarre scientific discovery of 2007.
To judge by the truly weird, arachnopornography available at Live Science.Com , female physocylus spiders make a loud squeaking noise during sex. As someone once said, words surpass description.

Seahorses Are Doing It For Themselves

Male seahorses are unique creatures. Not only do they give birth to their young, they also start the whole processs by fertilising themselves. A new study by the Zoological Society of London reveals that their sperm leaves their bodies then re-enters it again via a brood pouch where its eggs then develop. Seriously weird.

Man's Best Friend

The dog really is man's best friend, at least if the latest research is to be believed. Leading canine expert, Deborah Wells of Queen's University, Belfast, claims that people with dogs have lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels than those who don't have a pooch around the house. Dog owners are also healthier than cat owners, Wells claims.

Going The Whole Hog

Thought you might be interested in this piece I wrote for the Family section of last weekend's Guardian. Might explain a little about my strange, possibly unnatural fascination with animals! AB.

I WAS SEVEN when a large sow taught me one of the more valuable, if painful, lessons of my young life: pigs really don't appreciate being ridden, rodeo-style. My moment of enlightenment came one Sunday afternoon, in a muddy pasture on the smallholding where I grew up. Filled with that blend of bravado and brainlessness that only boys of that age possess, I decided to climb on board the fattest of our half dozen or so porkers and "break it in". (I'm fairly certain the idea had been planted by watching a bunch of leathered cowboys taming a steer, earlier that day on Bonanza.)

No sooner had I grasped her leather harness and clambered on board her broad, bristly back, than the sow had shaken off the indolence that had defined her personality since she'd arrived with us and begun performing a passable imitation of a bucking bronco. I held on for all of three seconds before being catapulted, head first, into the mud. The physical bruises faded soon enough; the scars this delivered to my boyhood pride took longer to heal.

Scientists probably don't have catastrophic interactions like this in mind when they talk about the benefits of having animals around. Their arguments tend to focus more on the advantages dogs, cats and hamsters bring in terms of stress-release and proto-parenting, teaching children responsibility and environmental awareness. I have no doubt there is merit in all their assertions. But, it struck me recently, the curious incidents that filled my childhood may offer one or two extra, unheralded arguments in favour of spending our lives close to animals.


When I was 11 or so, for instance, my father and I found a fox cub injured in the woods nearby and brought it home. We nursed it on bottled milk for a few weeks. We converted an old sideboard into his home, even gave him a name, Carlo. No one was more enthusiastic about our new charge than my father, who was fired by memories of his own childhood when he too had reared a stray cub. I remember sensing that our shared responsibility for this poor creature had somehow brought us closer.


One morning I woke up to discover the fox had battered its way through the side of his home and fled. He was gone but he hadn't forgotten. A week later an already more mature-looking Carlo reappeared in a roadside hedge near the entrance to our lane. Rather idiotically, I assumed he'd come back to say thanks. So, unbelievably, did my father. When he kneeled down to stroke the fox, Carlo bit him so hard he almost severed a finger. I'd never seen so much blood. The memory has been locked away ever since, a piece of family lore. Naturally, neither my father nor I has ever trusted a fox since.


In the rural community in which I grew up, animals were part of the daily fabric, especially to my large circle of uncles, many of whom were steeped in the more arcane traditions of country life. One was an accomplished poacher who taught me how to tickle trout. It's a skill I have yet to practice in the Thames tributary that now runs by my home, but you never know when it might come in handy.


Another farming uncle taught me how to spot a sheep that was ready to spontaneously combust. (Hint: if a ewe has been stuck, lying on its side, suffering from "bloat" for several hours and the temperatures are in the 90s, don't light a match anywhere nearby.) Yet another showed me how to read the weather-forecasting skills of cattle and birds. In truth, this was less impressive. It being west Wales, the only weather they tended to predict was rain, which didn't really put them in the Nostradamus class.


The most useless trick a relative passed on to me, undoubtedly, was how to hypnotise a chicken. To my amazement, I saw that by tucking the bird's head under its wings then moving it around slowly in a cyclical fashion, it froze rigid, as if in suspended animation. Unsurprisingly, the beauty of that particular party piece lay in its comedy value. The mere mention of it was enough to reduce the most miserable aunt to laughter. That's another important facet animals bring to family life, of course, as the producers of You've Been Framed have known for decades.


I've spent the bulk of the past 30 years in London, far removed from the rural world in which I was raised. (In reality, it has almost disappeared. Few of the older generation remain and almost all of the old traditions have died away, too.) As a consequence of this, my two young children, Thomas and Gabriella, have missed out on the kind of first-hand animal encounters I took for granted. There have been, of course, memorable moments at zoos and rescue centres, bird parks and nature reserves. Like every other urban family, we've driven round Longleat with baboons attached to the windscreen wipers and wondered at John Aspinall's gorillas at Howlett's in Kent. On holiday in Brazil, we even shared our home with iguanas, macaws and macaque monkeys. The joy these experiences bring the children almost always makes me regret their transience. I feel sad the only foxes they encounter are city scavengers. I often wish they too could do something as daft as learning the art of chicken hypnotism.


This all changed a few months ago, however. It was then that animals - and the simple, sometimes silly pleasures they bestow upon family life - made a small, very small, comeback.


As parents, my wife and I had been resistant to the children's pleas for a cat or dog for a blend of practical and medical reasons. Our home was too confining for a decent-sized dog (and I see no point in having any other). A cat - or any other furry creature - would almost certainly have exacerbated the mild asthma our son, Thomas, occasionally suffered. (Irony of ironies, his first bout was probably triggered by straw mites, encountered during an otherwise brilliant visit to a Devon farm during lambing.) With the latter problem seemingly fading with age, however, our arguments had begun to seem ever more facile.


Then, a year or so ago, I began writing a book on curious animal facts, an assemblage of all the strange things science has taught us about the subjects my country uncles probably knew instinctively. (Cows may not be able to detect rain but, it seems, sharks are capable of detecting bad weather with unerring accuracy.) As talk of how fish communicate by farting (the bright spark that discovered their bubble language named it Fast Repetitive Tick, or FRT) and how mice serenade each other with ultrasonic song flashed across the breakfast table, the children detected the final semblance of their parent's anti-animal resistance melting away. They seized the opportunity with ruthless efficiency. Our home now echoes to the twittering of a four-month-old budgie called Georgie.


Already Georgie is providing the more mundane and obvious benefits those scientists like to talk about. He is a shared responsibility, a warming, unchallenging presence that defuses the stresses of domestic life, a source of entertainment and education. (Did you know budgies are among the most monogamous of all birds? It's partly to do with the fact that females take vicious revenge on a straying male. If he lived in the wild, Georgie would be a hopeless cuckold.)


But he is also beginning to fulfil the role the cows and chickens, foxes and fish played in my country childhood. For a start he generates laughs to rival those produced by talk of hypnotised chickens. You had to be there, of course, but for us the memories of the comic manner in which he fell off his newly installed swing during his first week can produce laughter so violent we fear the children may spontaneously combust.


The little bird's positive influence on the children is already clear. Their Sunday mornings are dedicated to clearing out and cleaning the cage. The budgie's bath times are conducted with diligence and good sense. Pocket money was put aside for a range of Christmas presents for him. He is handled with care and respect. Provided the children keep up their excellent attitude towards the tweating newcomer, other birds - and, who knows, a guinea pig - may follow.


I haven't quite recreated the strange animal-filled landscape of my youth. But I do feel somehow re-connected to the pleasures that a constant, non-human presence can bring. In my more fanciful moments I dream of transforming our home into a place where all manner of animals lie in wait, each of them with a memorable, preferably danger-laced, lesson to deliver Thomas and Gabriella. My wife often accuses me of turning the house into a pigsty. Perhaps we could go the whole hog and stick one or two in the garden.

A Week On The Wild Side, December 10th, 2006

Some things I've noticed in the past week.

The Year's Best Video Nasties
Ever seen an anaconda swallow the world's largest rodent, the south American capybara, or a giant octopus lock tentacles with a shark? Ever witnessed a puffer fish outwit an otter or a black mamba snacking on a squirrel? Didn't think so. Well, feast your eyes on National Geographic's top ten video clips of 2006. Just the thing now that Planet Earth has come to an end on the BBC.

Frosty The Ice Frog
The Australian Sunday Telegraph has been having great fun reporting on how a small frog that had been accidentally turned to ice in a freezer was successfully defrosted, at least for a while. This isn't quite the surprising news it seems. In fact, some types of frog - in common with other species - deliberately place themselves in a state of frozen, suspended animation so as to survive the Winter each year.
The common wood frog, for instance, is able to withstand the Arctic Winter by turning itself into an ice cube. The frog allows two thirds of its body water to freeze, thereby stopping its heart, brain and breathing functions and slowing its metabolism to a crawl. As long as its body temperature doesn’t drop below about 20° Fahrenheit (–6° C) its body will survive on the glucose in its system until the Spring thaw.
Similarly, some breeds of American alligators can survive the winter by freezing their snouts in ice, leaving their nostrils to breath for months on end.

Why Kitty Gets So Forgetful
Scientists at Edinburgh University may have explained why cats get so scatty in their old age. The rather disturbing truth is reported on the New Scientist's excellent daily blog.

All Together Now, Aaaaaaaah
Can't resist cute film footage of pandas? Then here's an early Christmas present, courtesy of Atlanta Zoo and the Associated Press.

City birds rap, rural ones sing country.

Birds, it seems, have different musical styles that vary according to whether they live in the town or the country. While rural birds like to sing traditional melodies, their urban relatives prefer more modern, rap-style rhythms.
A major study, carried out by a Dutch university and reported here, recorded the singing of great tits in ten major European cities, including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Prague. They then compared their musical efforts with tits living in forests.
While the country birds sang slower, more melodic and “traditional” songs, the study found that urban birds sent out calls that were shorter and faster and were also sung at a higher pitch. The city birds experimented with calls of between one and five notes, while those in forests stuck to the more normal combinations of two, three and four note tunes, the research found.
The authors have concluded the city birds are having to adapt to compete with background noise of the city in order to attract mates.
"Our data show that the adjustment of individual great tits to local noise conditions is not a local phenomenon but occurs throughout Europe and probably in all noisy urban areas,” say the authors of the paper, published in the journal Current Biology.
"Urban birds often experience very noisy conditions while singing, which may influence the efficacy of their acoustic signals. Male birds typically sing to defend a territory and to attract mates.If their song is not heard by the targeted audience they have to physically fight off intruders, and attracting females may be difficult."

A Week On The Wild Side, December 2nd, 2006

Spice Girls

Female wasps fight dirty. When they are losing a confrontation with another wasp, they shoot a substance similar to pepper spray from their heads. They fire the red hot chemical in their opponent’s face then run away a new study reported in National Geographic news revealed this week.

Which bit of the word killer didn’t you understand?

There is a reason why they call them killer whales, as a San Diego zoo keeper was reminded this week. The Times reports the unfortunate incident here.

This Christmas, Why Not Eat A Goat Fetus

Tired of fthe traditional turkey for Christmas? Then why not try this unusual Indian delicacy, served on special, family occasions - roast goat fetus. Why do I suddenly fancy a meat free Christmas dinner this year?

Augustus B On The Air

Already successfully launched in the UK, the book now seems to be generating some publicity in the US. The hugely popular American magazine Parade has just posted some extracts and I've also started doing some publicity on American radio, including a couple of nationally syndicated shows. This morning I was a guest on the USA Radio Network’s Daybreak USA with Al Lerner and Scott West. I’ve also recorded an interview with Mike Carruthers for his long-running show Something You Should Know . You can, hopefully, listen in to them online. There are more inteviews in the pipeline. I'll keep you posted.
AB

A Week On The Wild Side, November 25th, 2006

Some things I noticed this week:

Pigging Out: Python Style

What would happen if an extremely greedy python tried to eat an alligator whole? This BBC story has the grisly answer.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

Insomniac bears are wandering the woods of Siberia, scaring the living daylights out of locals. According to news reports the bears can't settle down to their normal hibernation because of the unusually warm weather.

Happy Fetusus

Every now and again, a wildlife film-maker does something so extraordinary it leaves you awe-struck, simply lost for words.
The National Geographic channel have just completed such a film. It's called Animals In The Womb and is precisely that: a collection of amazing ultrasound images of unborn dogs, dolphins, elephants and other animals. Visit the Animals In The Womb site to get a preview of the film and view a breathtaking gallery of photographs, including a 12 month old elephant foetus (it already weighs 26lbs and is 18 inches long) and a heart-melting image of three, incredibly peaceful looking golden retriever puppies curled up in their mother's womb. Happy Fetuses indeed. Remarkable stuff.

Panda Porn Update

Last week I mentioned that zookeepers in Thailand were showing giant pandas pornographic dvds to get them in the mood for mating. Well, the Press Association are reporting that it paid off. Reports that Chuang Chuang the male panda was spotted smoking a cigar afterwards haven't been confirmed yet.

What Not To Get Rover This Christmas

Wondering what to get your dog for Christmas? Well whatever you do, don't get Rover a robot companion. The shops are full of these yapping little automatons at the moment. Some of them are rather cute. But as this film clip of what happened when a team of researchers tried to introduce Sony's AIBO robot dog to another canine demonstrates, real dogs don't take terribly kindly to them. In the understatement of the year, the researchers concluded that :“It seems that at present there are some serious limitations in using AIBO robots for behavioral tests with dogs." Apparently the AIBO's warranty doesn't cover injuries to the robots by dogs. Now there's a surprise.

A Week On The WIld Side, November 17th, 2006

Things that caught my eye - and ear - this week:

Not So Happy Landings

Now we know why a dastardly leopard seal is the villain of the new animation movie Happy Feet.
The leopard seal stalks the Antarctic waters in search of emperor penguins, often striking when the birds are most vulnerable - as they enter and leave the water.
As this gruesome National Geographic footage shows , whether a penguin escapes the seal’s clutches or not is often a matter of luck. Some enter and leave the water safely, others make not so happy landings...

How To Control A Spooked Camel

Things you really need to know: No 19199. This is WikiHow’s rather excellent advice on how to regain control of a freaked out camel. I particularly like the tip about not pulling too hard on the reins in case you yank out the peg implanted in the camel’s nose.

Rip Van Winker?

Struggling to teach your dog to come to heel? Getting frustrated at how long it's taking to get your budgie to talk? It could be worse. Imagine spending forty years trying to get your tortoise to wink.

The World's Weirdest Sounding Dog

How Does A Barkless Dog Sing? In a very, very weird voice, that’s how.
The Basenji is the only breed of dog that can’t bark. But as this recording of a Basenji accompanying a flute reveals, they can make a whining sound that really doesn't seem to be of this world.

Why Pandas Watch Pornography

Every species needs a little something to add spice to their love lives now and again.

So it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that those most reluctant of romeos, male giant pandas, watch pornography to get in the mood.

Chuang Chuang, a male in captivity at a zoo in Chiang Mai in Thailand, has been frustrating his keepers by avoiding his female room mate, Lin Hui, with whom they want him to make panda babies.

They've concluded Chuang Chuang simply doesn't know about the birds and the bees, so have started showing him videos of other pandas, caught in the act, as it were.

"They don't know how to mate, so we need to show the male how through videos," project chief Prasertsak Buntrakoonpoontawee told Reuters news.

To maximise their chances of getting Chuang Chuang in the mood, scientists have advised he is shown the movies when he is most relaxed and receptive. So he is settling down to his panda porn immediately after he’s had his dinner.

We all wish him luck I'm sure.

A Week On The WIld Side

Some animal stories that caught my eye during the last week.

Crows are the world's cleverest birds. They are gifted mimics, can make their own, elaborate tools and even know how to play possum in order to lure their prey. But the unbelievably cunning birds caught on the Youtube film available here have got to be the smartest crows of the lot. Who needs a nutckracker when you've got the rush hour traffic to do the job for you? Amazing.

Tarantula venom is as hot as chilli powder, apparently.

Even killer whales need a little "me time". National Geographic have footage of an orca giving itself a full body massage and a seaweed rubdown.

And finally, is this the perfect dog?

Visit Me At MSN Entertainment

As I mentioned last week, I'm being a guest blogger at MSN this month. Never fear, I will continue to post here as and when the muse descends. But if you've enjoyed the kind of stories you've read here over the past few months you'll find more of them on my space at MSN Entertainment. Hope to see you there soon.
Augustus B

Lounge Lizards: Why Some Reptiles Love A Party

So now I know why this giant iguana came to visit our room when we were on holiday in Brazil. He was a lounge lizard - on the look out for a party.
Scientists have just discovered that reptiles have personalities, with “asocial” ones preferring their own company and others - like our friend the green iguana - enjoying a bit of a social life.

In a long-running experiment, Julien Cote of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France collected together a group of wild pregnant lizards. When their offspring were born he tested their reaction to the scent of other lizards. He then watched them interact with other lizards as they grew up.
The lizards that showed an aversion to the scent of lizards tended to shun the company of other reptiles when they grew up. He called these “asocial”. The ones that had been attracted to the scent actively sought out places where there was a high population of lizards.
Scientists are excited about the results. They seem to indicate that animals have distinct personalities, which mould the way they interact in the world.

Carnival Of The Animals No 4 - November 3rd, 2006

Welcome to the fourth Carnival of the Animals.


The sloth is a much-maligned creature. Name another animal that's had one of the seven deadly sins named after it?
Most of us know it's not exactly the prettiest or the most dynamic of creatures, spending an average of 18 hours a day asleep. A few of us probably know that it moves so slowly fungus grows between its toes. But until I got this great post from Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing Of The Day I certainly didn't know the female of the species can shriek like a Hollywood scream-queen or, even more interestingly, that sloths provide a home for a veritable menagerie of other creatures. "One effect of the sloth’s languid pace of life is that it can’t be bothered to groom itself. This turns out to be beneficial to several varieties of algae and mold that grow inside the sloth’s hollow hairs," Joe explains. But it's not only algae that are attracted to this hirsute haven. Beetles have been found in their hundreds living on a single sloth and there is a type of moth (Bradipodicola hahneli) that lives exclusively in the sloth's hair. "Not only does it feed on the algae, but it also deposits its eggs in the sloth’s droppings, where they pupate and hatch, and then fly off to look for another sloth to live on," says Joe.
So perhaps it's time to re-evaluate the sloth. He may be slow, deeply unattractive and lazy, but no one can fault his generosity. And that's definitely no sin.

Another animal that gets a bad press is the panda, or more specifically panda mothers.
Much of the blame for the near catastrophic decline in the giant panda population has been laid at the door of the female of the species. They can only conceive once a year and are receptive to males for only three days. If they produce twins - which they do in sixty per cent of cases - they will only care for one of the cubs, leaving the other to die. But as ZenKitty at Echoes of Cold Moon saw at first hand, the panda's maternal instincts can be as strong as those of any other animal.

Squirrels aren't exactly the most popular creatures either, at least, not when they run up your stairs and hide in your house. Regular contributor Mad Kane has posted a cautionary tale about just such an invasion - and the curious impact it had on her marriage.



Some other things that caught our eye this week:

Elephants joined humans, great apes and dolphins as the only species known to be able to recognise themselves in the mirror. But did they like what they saw in the morning, that's the question?

Red wine drinking mice have delivered an early Christmas present for the world's gluttons.

And finally...

Robin Hood, eat your heart out! Have a look at this fantastic film of an archerfish landing itself some insect lunch.

Those Koala Babies: Not Quite So Cute As They Seem?

My children's reaction as they watched breakfast news this morning was probably echoed in every kitchen in the country, if not the world. "Aaaaah, they're so cute," they cooed, staring saucer-eyed at the television. "Can WE have one of those daddy?"
They were talking, of course, about the world's first test-tube koalas.
As you'll probably know, the trio of koalas are the result of an artificial insemination programme being run by an Australian university. Scientists there plan to build up a koala sperm bank (now there are three words I never thought I'd string together in a sentence) to help protect the dwindling species.
My problem this morning was this. I know a little about the koala. And they're reputation as the world's cuddliest creature is ill-deserved. For a start, koala babies don't just eat eucalyptus leaves - as is commonly thought. They also eat their mother's own faeces, which - whilst it helps their immune system - makes them rather unpleasant to be around. Second, koalas are notoriously promiscuous and prone to a number of sexually-transmitted diseases, including chlamydia. (Is it any wonder there's a need for a clean batch of sperm at the bank to preserve the randy blighters?) Third, they are lazy slobs. Koalas spend most of their day asleep, and even when they're awake pass away the time, er, resting or eating. Finally, koalas are a menace to human society. For one thing, they can be vicious if handled wrongly. Second they have fingerprints that are identical to those of humans. The similarity is so great they can cause complete chaos when Australia's CSI-style forensic teams arrive at crime scenes.
So as I sat there with the kids, I had two options: one to keep quiet and coo along at the adorable little furries. Or two, explain that they were looking at a bunch of violent, lazy, poo-eating creatures with weird fingerprints and loose morals. As you've probably guessed, I went for option one. Well, I figured, they had enough frights on Hallowe'en last night.

Carnival Of The Animals No 3 - October 27th, 2006

Welcome to the latest edition of Carnival of the Animals.


I'm writing in haste this week, partly due to pressure of work and partly
because I'm guesting as a blogger at MSN Entertainment.
It's early days yet but feel free to pop in and have a look.


OK, on with this week's submissions.

Animal communication is a beautiful thing, well most of the time. Among the more unpleasant discoveries I've come across in recent years are the fact that, in order to talk to each other, herring break wind, llamas spit in each other's faces, and, as Hueina Su confirms at Echoes of Cold Moon lobsters use another, deeply unpleasant bodily fluid to get their message across. As Hueina says: "Obviously, lobsters have entirely different social etiquette from us humans. You'd be happy that you're not dating a lobster after reading this!"

We've had posts on the world's first allergy free cat. Here, courtesy of michelle, is another one.

Regular Carnival of the Animals poster Madeleine Kane is back with A Poodle Tale

Jason Homan submitted an interesting post on barking problems in dogs. Worth a peek, or is that Peke?

Staying with dogs,Yvonne DiVita posted a nice item promoting a good cause Adopt a Shelter Dog Month.

As the Pythons would say, and now for something completely different.
Avant News posted a thought-provoking piece entitled Turns Out God Doesn't Particularly Care About Humans It's worth a read, if only because it leads you to other headlines, such as:
- Nuclear Device Destroys Crawford, Texas
- Howard Stern Claims Fatherhood of Madonna's Malawi Baby
- God Rebukes Bush for Presumption of Blessing
- Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie to Defuse North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions
Excellent.

That concludes this edition. As I said earlier, sorry for the haste. Not enough hours in the day. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the animals
using our carnival submission form. Until then...

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carnival of the animals, blog carnival.

Carnival Of The Animals No 2 - October 20th, 2006

Welcome to the second, weekly Carnival Of The Animals.

I have a confession to make. Until this week, I'd never heard of the binturong.
Now, having been introduced to the creature by a fascinating post from JBruno at the voltagegate I feel like I know all there is to know about the animal otherwise known Arctictis binturong, the Malay Civet Cat, the Asian Bearcat, the Palawan Bearcat, and just simply the Bearcat. The first thing is it isn't even a bear or a cat, it's civet. And as JBruno explains, it's got an interesting evolutionary history.
The binturong has lots of rather endearing traits too. It can make a chuckling sound when happy, it sleeps suspended above the ground on branches and secretes a musky smell that is very much like popcorn. Its most impressive assets, however, are a false penis and a prehensile bushy tail, which can be used like an extra, fifth hand. Apparently it's unique among mammals in being able to use its tail like this.

Bio-luminescence, the ability to generate light independently, is a gift limited to few species. Perhaps the best-known is the Brazilian "railroad worm" which glows with a red light on its head and a green one down its side. As Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World reports in an interesting post, scientists have developed a new strain of zebrafish that are fluorescent. "Normally zebrafish are white with black stripes, but these zebrafish have been genetically engineered to produce a fluorescent protein that makes the fish glow," she explains. The fish are being sold as pets under the name GloFish but, Sandra explains, are intended eventually to be used as pollution detectors too. "The idea is that you could put detector fish into water, and if the water contained pollutants, the fish would glow". Illuminating stuff. (Sorry)

Lastly, if you'd like to know the answer to questions like 'Why don't dogs make good dancers?" or "Why is a dog's nose in the middle of its face?" then visit Surfer Sam who will reveal all.

Other things that caught our eye this week:

As the old north of England saying goes, there's 'nowt (nothing) as queer as folk'. Well, actually, there is. In fact there are about 500 species in which homosexuality is perfectly common. An eye-popping exhibition currently being staged in Oslo is dedicated to the animals who practice the love that dare not tweat, bark or roar its name. The exhibition website is here. Take a look at what the two male dolphins are doing to each other.

I Am The (Hungry) Walrus: The winner of this year's wildlife photograph of the year is a truly astonishing image of a walrus dining on an underwater feast of clams. The BBC has the story and a link to the picture here.

And finally, the news everyone has been waiting for. (Well everyone within a 400 yard radius of the world's noisiest sleeping equine.) Rocky the horse isn't snoring any more.