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angry pig oink oink oink

August 4, 2010 | category: animal kingdom , television

He’s a pig who’s angry

ANGRY PIG!!

He’s a pig who’s angry

Oink! Oink! Oink!

He’s a pig who’s angry

so don’t let him catch you

eating pork or pork byproducts!

sea lion vs octopus uncut, via sea lion critter cam

April 30, 2010 | category: animal kingdom

Through the perspective of a sea lion camera mounted on back of the animal, viewers are shown an uncut, underwater battle between natural predator and prey of the ocean.

l'ours (the bear): by jean jacques annaud: the cougar scene

April 13, 2010 | category: animal kingdom , movies

Wow. Wow. Woooooow.
I’ve got to find this movie and watch it all the way through as soon as possible. The cougar scene is so gripping and filmed from the animal’s perspective. You get a sense of the raw tension between predator and prey in this clip.

The director of “Quest for Fire” creates yet another film in nature with almost no human dialogue in this picturesque story of an orphaned bear cub who is adopted by an adult male bear and must avoid hunters. Bart the Bear stars in this anthropomorphic fantasy

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bouncing pebble toad of venezuela

March 31, 2010 | category: animal kingdom

Tiny pebble toads of Venezuela have a unique defense strategy when being hunted by tarantulas. Since they are so light, they are able to make their bodies rigid and bounce down long hills of rock to escape predators! Pebble toads are communal breeders, making a single nest potentially larger than 100 toads.

The pebble toad was featured on an episode of BBC / Discovery’s LIFE. You can check out a video featuring the toad below.

Notice: The toad does not hop, it slowly crawls its way across the landscape, adding to the bizarre characteristic of the animal.

30 hornets vs 30,000 bees

March 14, 2010 | category: animal kingdom

This is one of the most epic videos I’ve ever seen filmed of bees and hornets in battle. It’s a little less of a battle and more like a slaughter. I wasn’t aware of this violent “take no prisoners” behavior by hornets until seeing this. I started to feel kind of bad for the bees. I wish they had some way of fighting back to at least make the conflict more even. How they got the camera angles and incredible compositions, I wonder.

festo bionic aqua penguin and air penguin

March 5, 2010 | category: animal kingdom , science , technology

Watching Science Channel and saw these crazy robots!

The swimming “aqua” penguin is very impressive, but check out the flying “air” penguin. It’s suspended by helium and has ultrasound transmitters that allow groups of them to float in the same space and avoid one another.

Now all I need is a bunch of these flying around in my room.

With the AirPenguins, the engineers from Festo have created artificial penguins and have taught them “autonomous flight in the sea of air”. For this purpose, control and regulating technology had to be further developed into self-regulating biomechatronic systems, which could also play a future role in adaptive production.

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sleeping grizzly bear bean bag

October 25, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

Wouldn’t it be rad to sit on one of these while you played your favorite games or watched a fantastic movie? Better yet, don’t tell you family about it and invite them over for dinner. “Hey dad, check out the majestic mammal hibernating near the footstool. It keeps the robbers away.”

You are looking at a bear shape big bean bag. It is a imitation of a lively hibernating Grizzly bear. The graphics on the bean bag is knitted, instead of printed. It can be functioned as a chair, a sofa, or it can be a awesome decoration for you home. The bean bag cover can be taken off for washing.

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piglet squid

September 30, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

Say hello to the piglet squid, a curious critter of the sea.
Here it is in normal “piglet” form.

Mr. piglet undergoes a transformation when it fills itself with surrounding water.
….it starts to look like a certain friend of Jim Hensen, eh?

The Banded Piglet Squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi) is a small squid of the genus Helicocranchia. Adults of this species are mesopelaegic.
The average size of adult H. pfefferi is 100 mm in mantle length (ML). The body consists of a large funnel with small paddle-like fins. They have small tentacles above their eyes. The funnel does not have valves but contains a dorsal pad with three papillae as organs.[citation needed] Paddle-shaped fins are attached to a part of the gladius. H. pfefferi has a single ocular photophore and does not have photophores at its arm tips.

kuroshio sea, the 2nd largest aquarium in the world

July 26, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

This steady shot of an aquarium features small schools of fish, giant stingrays, and massive whale sharks swimming together.

The main tank called the “Kuroshio Sea” holds 7,500-cubic meters (1,981,290 gallons) of water and features the world’s second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters. Whale sharks and manta rays are kept amongst many other fish species in the main tank.

zombie fire ants controlled by phorid flies

May 19, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

Does Invasion Of The Body Snatchers sound like something reserved for the silver screen only? Perhaps not, thanks to the strange and unique life cycle of the phorid fly. Instead of personally caring for their larvae, this winged insect opts for converting prey into a living nursery, zombie style.

In South America female phorid flies have developed a bizarre reproductive strategy: They hover over fire ants, then inject their eggs into the ants with a needle-like appendage.

The egg grows and the resulting larva generally migrates to the ant’s head. The larva lives there for weeks–slurping up the brain and turning the ant into a “zombie,” in some cases compelling the ant to march 55 yards (50 meters) away from its colony to avoid attack by other fire ants.

Finally the baby fly decapitates its host and hatches, exiting through the ants head, as shown in the pictures in this gallery.

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eagle uses cliffs to hunt for goats

March 19, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

A Golden Eagle displays creative hunting strategy, preying on goats much larger than itself by throwing them off a cliff face.

I knew eagles could fly with a lot of weight, but was surprised when it carried an entire goat in mid-air in this documentary. The strength of its talons and payload capacity seem to defy physics. Go to minute 5 on the clip to watch.

Warning:
This video is graphic in nature depicting the cold harsh reality of predator vs. prey.

giant stingray in thailand could be world’s largest

March 13, 2009 | category: animal kingdom

Stingrays are one of my favorite animals. It’s surreal how they glide through the water, especially in large groups when migrating. One giant stingray is just as impressive, especially when it tips the scales at around 600 pounds.

In central Thailand an enormous freshwater stingray was captured, tagged and released during a National Geographic expedition.

Dr. Zeb Hogan, a biologist from the University of Nevada, Reno helped tag and release the animal. It was estimated to be somewhere between 550 and 770 lbs, but was never officially weighed.

Hogan stated he has seen one other freshwater stingray that was larger in surface area, but not as heavy. The world record for largest freshwater fish is 646 lbs. for a Mekong catfish, which was also caught in Thailand. The stingray was tagged with an electronic device which emits signals researchers can track with listening instruments. The species is considered to be threatened because of habitat loss.

Research on freshwater stingrays is being conducted jointly between the University of Nevada, Reno, the Thai Fisheries Department, a sport fishing company, and the National Geographic Society.

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angry pig oink oink oink

sea lion vs octopus uncut, via sea lion critter cam

l'ours (the bear): by jean jacques annaud: the cougar scene

bouncing pebble toad of venezuela

30 hornets vs 30,000 bees

festo bionic aqua penguin and air penguin

sleeping grizzly bear bean bag

piglet squid

kuroshio sea, the 2nd largest aquarium in the world

zombie fire ants controlled by phorid flies

eagle uses cliffs to hunt for goats

giant stingray in thailand could be world’s largest

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