Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Whale Carcass found 1000 Miles Inland — A few weeks ago the body of a beluga whale was found far inland, 1000 miles away from the ocean, washed up on the bank of the Tanana River in Alaska. No one seems to have any clue how the thing got there. Sylvia Brunner, a researcher at the University of Alaska Museum of the North speculates that But given the unlikeliness of a whale traveling that far inland, researchers did consider the possibility of a hoax, though they were pretty quick to rule this out. Link Olson, a curator at the museum, noted that: Unless it was a crazed prankster like Porky Bickar who airlifted the thing in, just to mess with people's minds. Or, another possibility, the whale is a rare subspecies of beluga: the Upland Beluga, similar to the better known Upland Trout, a type of fish that nest in trees and are scared of water.

Fake ‘Love’ Cows — Ambreed, a New Zealand cattle breeding company, has developed a fake cow to collect semen from bulls. The fake cow is "a small go-kart with natural cowhide on its roof" (kind of like a Real Doll, but for cows). It's been exhibiting this fake cow at the Fieldays agricultural exhibition in New Zealand, promoting the device with live "sex shows" of bulls mounting the device. Here's how it works: I tried to find a picture of the fake cow, but haven't been able to find one. (Thanks to Gary for the story.)

Genpets (shrinkwrapped pets) — Meet Genpets, the cute, cuddly (kind of ugly) pets of the future, that come shrinkwrapped in plastic: It should be pretty obvious that Genpets aren't real, though the Genpets site is well designed. The Genpets site is the creation of artist Adam Brandejs. Apparently he's actually been hanging these things in store windows. And the real-life versions of them look like they're alive, thanks to some robotics and circuitry. He writes: (Thanks to Torbjørn Solstad for the link)

Real-life Bonsai Kitten — Bonsai Kittens grown in jars are a hoax. But this video (warning: text ads on the site may not be safe for work) shows a kitten that manages to get in and out of a glass jar quite well. (And the video seems to be real.) It's amazing what some cats can do. My fat cat could never have managed this.

Boa Eats Kangaroo — I don't have any information about this series of photos, other than that it shows a boa eating a kangaroo. And the photos appear to be real. I found them on a Russian-language website.

Wild Goose Chase — I'm not quite sure what's going on in this story, but it's not often that a wild goose chase literally happens, so I thought it was worth posting. Chris Kaye reports for KSL local news in Utah: So did the dispatcher send Sergeant Spencer to pull over the car with the goose as a joke? Or had some people really stolen a goose from the Utah Botanical Gardens? And if so, why?

Giant Jellyfish — Peter Wenker sent along this picture of a giant jellyfish. He doesn't think it's real, and I'd agree. I know that giant jellyfish do exist, such as the ones that recently appeared off the coast of Japan, but those were about the size of a washing machine, not the size of a truck. I've never heard of a jellyfish this big. So is this picture another product of Worth1000?

Update: Accipiter found a version of this same photo minus the diver, which would seem to indicate that the version with the diver has been photoshopped. (Unless it was the diver who was photoshopped out, but that seems very unlikely to me... [Wait a second, on a closer look it does seem that something might have been removed from the version without the diver. This will require more investigation.] ) The page he linked to also had some interesting jellyfish trivia, such as "The largest jellyfish ever found was a lion’s mane, with a bell 2m (7ft) across, and tentacles extending more than 35m" and "A collection of jellyfish is known as a smack."

Sheep Thinks She’s A Dog — It's not quite as dramatic as the cases of humans raised with wolves, but it's interesting nevertheless. Rolo the Sheep was raised with collies, and now seems to believe that she's a dog. The BBC reports: I'm not sure what my cat thinks she is. She definitely considers herself better than other cats, but also better than us humans. She probably considers herself a deity.

DVD-Sniffing Dogs — The Press Association wire service is reporting that "Two black Labradors have become the world's first dogs to be trained to search for counterfeit DVDs." The two dogs, Lucky and Flo, were trained by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact). In their first assignment "Lucky and Flo were put to work at FedEx's UK hub at Stansted Airport in Essex where they immediately identified packages and parcels containing DVDs for destinations in the UK."

Okay, obviously these dogs can't have been trained to sniff out counterfeit DVDs specifically. Why would a counterfeit DVD smell any different than a regular DVD? But still, the idea of using dogs to sniff out DVDs at all seems absurd to me because I can think of many totally legal reasons why people would be shipping DVDs to each other.

I don't see any reason to believe this news isn't real. However, it doesn't seem to have been posted yet on Fact's website. [Update: it's now on their site.]

Vet Fakes Death of Dog — I've heard of faking the death of people, but I've never before heard of a case of someone faking the death of an animal. Until now. The Chicago Sun Times reports on this bizarre case of a Pennsylvania couple who thought the vet had euthanized their epileptic dog, but then found out he had only pretended to do so:

A couple who thought they were watching their epileptic dog being euthanized actually witnessed a simple sedation procedure concocted so the veterinary clinic could later give the canine to another owner, they claim in a lawsuit... the lawsuit says, the dog was given a sedative to make it appear she was dead. The clinic then gave Annie to a new owner, Gene Rizzo of northeast Philadelphia, who cared for the dog until he had her euthanized Nov. 2.

I just don't understand the motivation of the vet here. Was he trying to make a buck by selling someone a sick dog? Or did he not think the dog was sick enough to be euthanized, but didn't want to tell that to the couple?

Petting A Shark — Nettie forwarded me these pictures that are circulating around in Australia accompanied by this text:

A riding buddy of mine's father has some crazy fishing friends! These were taken down at Windy Harbour - off the South Coast of WA [Western Australia] near Northcliffe. See how close they are to shore!!

Nettie writes "I'd assume they were real enough as we do get some pretty big sharks around here although you'd have to be a complete moron to do what these guys are doing." True, but I'm guessing that the caption is wrong... that the guy in the picture isn't just some "crazy fishing friend." If you look closely at his shirt, you can see that it has a corporate logo on it that includes the word 'Shark' (the only legible word). So I'd assume the guy is a professional and knows what he's doing. Though I'm not sure what exactly it is that he's doing (or where he's doing it).

Diving Tiger — I came across this cool picture of a tiger diving into water. My first thought was that it had to be fake, but from what I can gather (via machine translation) from the comments below the image, the photographer, Sergey Bidun, says that it's real. And he links to other, less spectacular, pictures from the same series. One question that people seem to be asking is why the tiger's claws aren't out. My guess is that it's been declawed.

There's an exhibit like this in Las Vegas where you can see the tigers used in the Siegfried and Roy show. At least, there was the last time I was in Vegas. (I don't know if Siegfried is still doing that show alone, or was it cancelled after Roy's accident?) But I don't think this picture was taken at that exhibit.

Update: Sergey Bidun posts that he took this picture at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo.

Mrs. Foote Attacked By Millipedes — Recently the South Australia Sunday Mail reported on the case of Mrs. Foote, an elderly woman who is under attack by millipedes:

AN elderly Kapunda woman says she feels as though she is living in an Alfred Hitchcock movie - under attack by thousands of writhing millipedes... "Every morning, I get a broom and have to sweep my way out of the front veranda to go and pick up the newspaper, I'm sick and tired of sweeping up." Mrs Foote said the creepy crawlies now encircled her house, despite numerous calls to the Light Regional Council for help.

The reporter probably got a chuckle out of the lady's name, but the millipede invasion itself is real. Australian newspapers are reporting that regions in South Australia are suffering from massive invasions of Portuguese millipedes. The Advertiser shares a few facts about this pest:

The Portuguese millipede first appeared in South Australia in 1953 at Port Lincoln. It probably came from either the eastern states or direct from Europe. Millipedes were not recorded in Perth until the 1980s... The Portuguese species found the cool, wet winters of Adelaide so suitable that its numbers increased rapidly... In the 1970s, the numbers of millipedes in the Adelaide Hills were so huge that people would remove bucket-loads of millipedes from their houses every day. The Belair-to-Adelaide railway line was regularly stopped because the oil from squashed millipedes made the track too slippery to carry the trains... The then Department of Agriculture tried a number of biological control methods, with a parasitic nematode the most successful. Since the release of the nematode in the late 1970s, millipede numbers have slowly reduced, although they are still the most common animal in the suburban garden.

(via the rambler)

Tree-Nesting Elephant — How did the elephant get up in the tree? I'm guessing photoshop since, as far as I know, elephants are not known to be tree climbers. I don't have any information about the source of this image, but it wouldn't surprise me if it came from a worth1000 contest, or something of that nature.

Cow In A Car — Two pictures, found on flickr (here and here on Alex Laurie's photostream) of a cow in a car:

 

The info accompanying the images states that they were "taken by a friend of a friend in Slovenia." It looks more like a calf than a full-grown cow, so I suppose it would be possible to stuff the animal in the back of your Volkswagen and hit the highway with it. Given that there are two images, and they don't appear to be photoshopped, I'm inclined to say the photos are odd, but real.

Giant Rabbits — A lot of people have been emailing me these two pictures of giant rabbits, wanting to know if they're real. (Even my wife emailed them to me.) So I figure I better post something about them.

 

I state in Hippo Eats Dwarf that "The bigger the animal, the taller the tale you're likely being fed." So most of the time if you see pictures of animals that are grossly oversized (such as these big roosters), the pictures are fake. But these rabbits are an exception to that rule, because they're real. They're giant rabbits, specially bred for size. They can reach weights of up to 20lbs. The rabbit on the left is called Herman, and the one on the right is Robert. Robert is the current record holder for world's largest rabbit.

It seems like there's been a flurry of stories about giant rabbits in the news recently. There was the story about a Devil Rabbit that's been decimating vegetable patches in Felton. As well as the one about a marriage of two giant rabbits that was condemned by the RSPCA. Rabbit stories must be proliferating now because of the approach of Easter.

Related Post:
November 6, 2003: British Giant Rabbits

Fake Zebras Face Extinction — Thanks to Big Gary for sending me this story about Tijuana's fake zebras, which are facing extinction. The Tijuana zebras are donkeys painted to look like zebras. Tourists like to get their picture taken with them. It's a decades-old tradition. The Reuters article explains:

"It all started in the 1930s when someone decided to paint the donkeys up with stripes so that they'd look better in black-and-white photographs," recalled Jorge Bonillas, a sprightly 75-year-old who has worked with the animals since 1941.

But now tourism to Tijuana has been drying up because of fears about the violence of its drug wars. (I'm guilty of avoiding the place... the last time I went was over ten years ago, even though it would take me less than half an hour to get to the border from my house.) And as the tourist trade shrinks, the zebra workers are finding it harder to make a living. Sad.

Big Gary also forwarded me an article about the financial problems facing Erich von Daeniken's (of Chariots of the Gods fame) Mystery Park in Switzerland. It too, like Tijuana, is failing to attract visitors. My guess is that it's in the wrong location. It should really be somewhere like Las Vegas, not Switzerland. Big Gary notes that "If the park has to close, maybe they can send the unemployed Tijuana zebras there to retire."

Cy the Creationist Kitten — Cy the one-eyed kitten, whom many people refused to believe was real, has found a permanent home at the Lost World Museum, a creationist museum that will be opening later this year in Phoenix, NY. John Adolfi, owner of the museum, will use Cy to support his argument that mutations can not be the driving force of evolution because "The mutations I have seen, like Cy, are either neutral or negative." Evidently Adolfi has never bothered to read a Biology textbook (or he only reads creationist-approved ones) because every explanation of evolution that I've read states quite clearly that the vast majority of mutations are negative. But the more I think about it, the more appropriate it seems for a blind, one-eyed kitten to be a symbol for the Creationist view of the world. So maybe Cy has found the right home. (Thanks to everyone who sent me links about Cy. I got quite a few emails about this.)

Buying Strawberries Out of Season Kills Hippos — A story about the threat to hippos posed by consumers buying strawberries out of season appeared in a few papers last week. Because of the story's proximity to April Fool's Day, it seemed like it might have been a joke, but apparently it wasn't. The reasoning behind the warning is that Kenya is a major supplier of strawberries to Europe. But in order to keep up with the demand for year-round strawberries, Kenyan farmers are draining Lake Naivasha, which is home to thousands of hippos. So if you buy fresh strawberries in the middle of winter, you may end up causing the death of a hippo in Kenya. Dr. Harper, of the University of Leicester notes:

"Almost everybody in Europe who has eaten Kenyan beans or Kenyan strawberries, and gazed at Kenyan roses, has bought Naivasha water. It will become a turgid, smelly pond with impoverished communities eking out a living along bare shores."

Just something to feel guilty about as you enjoy your strawberries and cream.

Bird-Feeder Thief — Thanks to Peter Wenker for sending along these pictures of a bird-feeder thief. Though I don't have any details about where or when they were taken, there's no doubt in my mind that they're real, since bears are notorious bird-feeder thieves. The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department even has instructions on their website titled "Don't Let your Bird Feeder Become a Bear Feeder!" Their recommendations include: "Stop all bird feeding by April 1, or as soon as snow melts;" and, "Clean up any spilled birdseed and dispose of it in the trash."