Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

Bear On The Green — Michael Perkins sent in this image (click the image to enlarge), asking whether or not it's real. I've never seen the image before, so I don't know where it comes from, but it looks like a fake to me. The background image of the bear in the woods seems to have been pasted onto the foreground image of the golfers. Note the unnaturally straight line where the green meets the forest directly behind the flag.

Where Is Toby? — First there was Save Toby, a site on which some guy (whose name apparently is Bion) threatened to eat his pet rabbit if he hasn't received $50,000 by June 30 (apparently he's already raised almost $30,000, which is pretty amazing, if true). Now there's Where Is Toby, on which one of Bion's friends offers to expose Bion's full contact information... for $5,000. I guess this will appeal to rabbit rights activists who want to send Bion hate mail. A while back someone also had a Cook Toby site up, but that now appears to be gone. However, Screw Toby is still up. (Thanks to David Emery for giving me a heads up about this).

Suicidal Chicken — I've posted before about dogs who commit suicide, so when I saw this story about a chicken who committed suicide I thought I better add it to the site:

The man's son said that the chicken probably decided to kill itself being unable to lead the horrible life in the provincial village. The chicken is a vulnerable and sensitive bird that might not have the energy to handle stressful situations. Most likely, the Russian suicidal chicken has lost the will to live. The poor bird was not left hanging on the fence: it was cooked and eaten.

Maybe I'll have to start a new category for suicidal animals.

Art Cats — Artists work in all different kinds of mediums. Some work in oil. Others in stone. Dave Powell's medium is cats. He breeds cats and then displays them as art in plastic containers. He tries to breed for mutations such as polydactylism. He seems a little sensitive that people won't think his cat-in-a-box displays qualify as art, but he argues that they are since anything created with 'artistic intent' is art. I actually disagree. I think that art is whatever art critics define as art. In other words, it's up to the audience to decide what qualifies as art, not the artist. But as a cat lover, I'm perfectly to happy to regard cats as art.

Big Squid — Edna Barrie has forwarded along some pictures of large fish (and one large frog). I don't see any reason to think any of these aren't real.

Lion vs. Midgets — A faux BBC news article describing a match between one lion and 42 unarmed midget fighters has been linked to by a lot of sites. However, the article is now clearly labelled as a fake. Apparently what inspired the article was a debate some guy was having with his friend about who would win in a hypothetical fight between one lion and 40 weaponless midgets. He created the fake BBC piece in order to convince his friend that the lion would win. Personally, I don't think it matters if it were 40 midgets or 40 pro-basketball players. The lion would still win, because a lion has claws and sharp teeth, and people don't. Plus, the lion is a lot stronger. Incidentally, I just learned that 'midget' is considered a derogatory term. But I don't think the author of the faux article was too concerned about being PC.

Cow Urine — Apparently cow urine is the hot new drink in India. I'm not sure what people believe to be the health benefits of it, but there's a brisk market in sales of the stuff. The only problem is the nasty smell:

A few suppliers even have suggestions for battling the odour. "You can kill the smell if you add some essence while consuming it. But if you store it in a bottle again, the odour returns," says Lakshmanananda of another ashram in Gandipet, on the outskirts of the city.

Demand is so strong that it's even spawning a market for fake cow urine:

As cow urine does booming business, can the fakes be far behind? The city has a supply of about 500 litres a day, but now buffalo urine and that of other animals are being passed off as the real thing. "Spurious products have sprung up from nowhere," says Prashant Kumar Vyas, a supplier from Siddiambar bazaar.

Snake in Breakfast Food — Seems like people are suddenly finding all kinds of things in their food. A boy in England just found a two-foot long snake in the box of his breakfast cereal:

Ms Willett, who was eating breakfast with her son at the time, said she first thought the snake was a free gift.
Describing the incident, she said: "My lad, he went to open his cereal and luckily enough I was behind him because a snake popped out.
"I just screamed. I grabbed the box off him and found some Sellotape." ...
An expert called in to examine the corn snake, which is non-venomous and feeds on mice and birds, said he was sure the animal had been kept as a pet in England and had been well looked after.

She thought it was a free gift? That would be an unusual surprise toy: a Happy Meal with a free snake! (thanks to Iain and Melanie for the links about this)

Liger On Display — I know that Ligers are Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal, but I didn't think they were real. Apparently they are. One of them is on display at a Siberian zoo. Its father was a lion. Its mother was a tiger:

"This was not the result of a scientific experiment," RIA Novosti quoted zoo director Rostislav Shilo as saying at the time. "It's just that the lion and the tiger live in neighboring caves in the Novosibirsk zoo, and got used to each other. It's practically impossible in the wild."

The Zonkey — I believe that I may have a new creature to add to my tall-tale creature gallery: The Zonkey. It's a cross between a zebra and a donkey. Except it's real, so therefore it doesn't actually qualify for entry into the gallery. The zonkey's name is Alex, and he was born on Barbados. And exactly how did he get sired? Well, apparently there were only two zebras on this farm in Barbados, a male and a female. The male got sick, so the female "became friendly with a donkey". The result was Alex, the zonkey. They just had to name him Alex, didn't they. (thanks to Teddy for the link)

Spider Milkshake — Here's a lovely set of images that's going around. I really wish I hadn't seen it, but too late now. It's totally safe for work, but if you have any kind of fear of spiders you might not want to look at it. The question is, is it real? Well, I suppose someone easily could have sacrificed a spider for the sake of creating the images. I don't know how else they'd create the picture with the chopped up spider bits. But in the final image it doesn't look like the guy is actually drinking the milkshake. He's just holding it up to his mouth.

Mouth-to-Beak Resuscitation — A guy in Colorado, Uegene Safken, is making headlines because of his claim that he resuscitated a chicken who had fallen into a tub of water and seemed to be dead. He says he gave it mouth-to-beak resuscitation.

Safken said he first swung the chicken by the feet to revive it. When that failed, he continued swinging and blowing into its beak. "Then one eye opened. I thought it was an involuntary response," Safken said. The chicken's beak opened a little wider, and Safken started yelling at it: "You're too young to die!" "Every time I'd yell at him, he'd chirp," Safken said.

Nice story. I have no idea about the likelihood of it being true.

Octopus Camouflages Itself — Luc emailed me a link to this clip of an octopus camouflaging itself, wondering if the footage is real. The camera approaches what looks like an underwater bush, and then out of nowhere this octopus appears, squirts ink, and races away across the ocean floor. I actually remember this clip doing the rounds a year or two ago, and although the octopus's camouflage seems to be some kind of Hollywood special effect, I believe that it's real. According to a version of the clip that can be found on efootage.com, the footage was taken by biologist Roger Hammer (I think I'm hearing that last name correctly, but the sound on the efootage clip is awful). I have no idea who Roger Hammer is, but it might be the same Roger Hammer who works at the Miami-Dade Parks Department and is a specialist on Florida plants (author of Everglades Wildflowers). I'm trying to find a picture of the Miami-Dade Roger Hammer to compare him with the guy in the news clip.

Bovine Unite — The cows are plotting something. They're meeting in secret COWncils. They're even keeping blogs. I'm not sure what it's all about, but it seems that 05.05.05 is the date when the cows will show their hand (or hoof, as it may be). (via Metafilter)

Pet Pillows — I love my cat, but the idea of making a pillow out of her seems a bit ghoulish to me. But those who fancy the idea can have pet pillows prepared by Jeanette's Taxidermy. However, you have to make sure you follow the instructions carefully: "Please freeze your pet immediately upon passing to insure there will be no hair slippage.  Double bag to insure no freezerburn." This is similar to VIP Fibers, the company that will make a sweater out of your pet's fur, which I posted about last year. The difference is that VIP Fibers doesn't require your pet to be dead first.

Spoon-Shaped Egg — Since I posted a story last week about an egg with a tail, when I came across this other story about a spoon-shaped egg, I knew I had to post it as well. Both eggs come from China. Could it be something they're feeding the hens over there?

A Chinese hen has produced a spoon-shaped egg. The hen is owned by Huang Yazhou, a railway worker from Huaibei city, Anhui province, reports Chinanews.com. One morning, Huang awoke to hear the hen, which he bought from a market two months ago, making weird noises. When he checked, Huang found the hen had laid a spoon-shaped egg, 8.5 centimeters long and 35 grammes in weight.

Canine Behavior Modification Plug-in — Comfort Zone® with D.A.P.® Canine Behavior Modification Plug-in. Is there any chance this thing would actually work? It's a plug-in unit that will diffuse "natural pheromones of the lactating female [dog]" within a room. These pheromones give puppies "a sense of well-being and reassurance" and supposedly they'll do the same for over-anxious adult dogs. Within a couple of days your stressed-out pooch will be as mellow as can be. My parents have had some dogs with nervous-type personalities. Whenever there was a thunder storm one of their dogs, Mollie, would spend hours pacing back and forth and panting, no matter what we did to try and comfort her. Somehow I can't see that a plug-in room freshener would have made any difference. (via Snarky Malarkey)

Tall Tail Egg — Ananova brings us the 'Tall-Tail' Egg:

An egg in China has been found with a tail. The egg, found by chef Wang of at his restaurant in Anyang city, Henan province, is normal size, but has a tail that is 3 cm long. It is not known why the egg has the tail reports Dahe Daily. Wang says he wants to hatch the egg and see what will come out.

(via Liquito)

Roommates, Roaches, and Armadillos — Here's an unusual urban legend that I haven't heard before. It involves a group of students at Texas A&M University who are sharing a house together. It's in the genre of 'roommate horror stories'. According to the story, one of the students is an entomology major and keeps a collection of giant Africanized cockroaches in a terrarium. But during a party the terrarium breaks and the roaches escape, only to start breeding like crazy in the house. To solve this roach problem the students set loose some baby armadillos (since armadillos eat roaches). But soon the armadillos start breeding, without making much of a dent in the roach population, until eventually the house is full of a lot of roaches and a lot of armadillos. At this point the roommates decide to get some shotguns and shoot all the roaches and armadillos, but only succeed in busting up the house. And to make a long story short, the armadillos eventually start tunneling beneath the house, creating a sink hole that causes the entire building to collapse and fall into the ground. So in other words, the animals win in the end. The students are left with a bill for $25,000 in damages, courtesy of the landlord.

Do Dogs Commit Suicide? — In the past six months five dogs have fallen to their death off a bridge in Dumbarton, Scotland. This fact does not seem to be disputed. What is controversial is whether or not the dogs fell because they committed suicide. Or did they think they saw something and accidentally leapt? In the most recent case a woman claims that she was out walking her dog when it suddenly ran away from her "vaulted over the parapet and plunged 40ft to its death."

Some animal behaviorists are dismissing the notion that suicide was the cause of the dogs' deaths, arguing that dogs never commit suicide. Personally, I'm not sure what to think. I did once hear about a dog who was so despondent after its master died that it walked out to some train tracks and lay there until a train ran it over. However, I'll concede that this story may be an urban legend because I can't remember where I heard it. And I doubt that five dogs in a row would commit suicide in the same place. However, this bridge in Dumbarton does have a spooky history. In 1994 a guy threw his two-week-old son off of it, believing that the child was the Antichrist. So believers in the supernatural are having a field day with this case.