Hoax Museum Blog: Animals

The Mystery of the Mouse-Like Kitten — About a week ago Smerk posted a link in the forum to a story about a cat who supposedly gave birth to a kitten that looks like a mouse. The story reads:

According to the owner of the cat, the litter included 5 regular kittens, and one that more resembles a mouse. The owner says the nose, mouth and ears look like that of a mouse, but the rest of the body is that of a cat. The mother cat doesn't seem to notice or mind. She's nursing and taking care of it, just like the kittens.

The thing is, when you watch the accompanying video you can see that the "kitten" doesn't just slightly look like a mouse. It really looks like a mouse. But why would a mouse be living with a bunch of cats? To clear up this mystery, I contacted Sarah Hartwell, who runs messybeast.com. I figured that if anyone could shed light on this mystery, it would be her. Her verdict: That's no kitten! Here's what she writes (reproduced with her permission):

It is just a rodent that the cat has adopted. I've added information to http://www.messybeast.com/freak-misc.htm
Possibly the mother took the rodent back to the nest and then her maternal instincts overrode her predatory instincts. This is not uncommon if the prey is the same size as her kittens and makes similar noises and especially if it doesn't run and re-trigger her predatory instinct. Alternatively it went into the nest attracted by potential food while the mother was absent and because it had ended up smelling like the kittens she didn't view it as prey. Once it starts acting like a mouse again i.e. jerky movements and instinctively fleeing, she will treat it like prey. Possibly it isn't acting like a mouse due to being injured by her if she hunted it. You may have seen documentaries on confused lions, usually inexperienced juveniles, that adopt young prey animals because the terrified or injured prey stops acting in a prey-like manner and this confuses their instinct to kill it.
There are several cases of young squirrels being fostered on nursing cats and the maternal instinct overriding the predatory instinct. On the other hand, but involving the same 2 instincts, in cat colonies, there are plenty of cases of kittens being killed by other females because their movements and sounds triggered predatory instincts and they were treated as prey (my friend's cat was a female that hunted another cat's kittens because of confused instincts).

Update: Boing Boing speculates that the rodent in question is a kangaroo rat.

Woolly Pigs — I've heard of the Vegetable Lamb, a creature from medieval folklore that was part plant and part animal, being a lamb whose belly was attached to the ground by a thick stem. (It survived by eating the grass around itself.) I've also heard of the Woolly Horse, a creature that P.T. Barnum claimed had been found by explorer John C. Fremont in the Rockies and which was "part elephant, deer, horse, buffalo, camel, and sheep." (It was actually just a horse that happened to have curly hair, and which Barnum, not Fremont, had "discovered" in a barn in Connecticut.) Now the Woolly Pig can be added to this list of curly-haired curiosities.

The Woolly Pig is a pig that looks like a lamb, thanks to a curly coat of hair. Yes, it is a real creature. Its proper name is the Mangalitzas. A farmer in Shropshire has just introduced these pigs to England, importing them from their home in Hungary. The website of the Pilgerweidli Organic Farm has a good description (and better picture) of these creatures:

Mangalitzas are an ancient breed of Woolly pigs from the area of Austria-Hungary... At one time their meat products were in demand all over Europe to such an extent it was traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange and a hundred thousand animals a year were sold from Hungary to the West. In Switzerland the pigs were a very important product where they were slowly overtaken in importance by the dominant "English" style animals which are more suited to "intensive" rearing.

Pet Buffalo — My wife was watching the Home & Garden channel this afternoon (she's addicted to it), when a show came on called "Pet Pads" that featured Jim and Linda Sautner of Alberta, Canada, who keep a 1650lb pet buffalo named Bailey in their home. Remembering that I had recently posted about a woman with a pet moose, she called me in to see the show. It was pretty interesting. The buffalo had been trained to wipe its feet on a mat, as well as to turn on the light (the light was touch sensitive, so the buffalo only had to touch it with its snout). Of course, the buffalo didn't live in their home 24 hours a day. There was a pen for it out in the barn. I figure that since I saw the pet buffalo on TV, it must be a true story. (Kidding, but there are plenty of articles online about the Sautners and their oversized pet, so I'm sure it's real.)

Most buffalo can be quite aggressive, but Bailey was raised by the Sautners since he was a calf and has always been very tame. Also, the Sautners operate a buffalo ranch, so they know how to handle the creatures. I don't think keeping a pet buffalo would be a good idea for most people.

   

Goldfish in Fake Breasts — I seem to have been posting a lot about goldfish, with recent posts having included items about blind goldfish, trained goldfish, forgetful goldfish, and swallowed goldfish. So when I came across this story about goldfish used as fake breasts, I knew I had to post it:

FISH have feelings, too, according to the folks at PETA, who are taking aim at writer Josh Kilmer-Purcell. The author, whose best-selling memoir, "I Am Not Myself These Days," chronicles his double life as an ad exec-cum-drag performer, was put on notice last week by the animal-rights group's "Fish Empathy Project" for alleged cruelty to goldfish. As his whip-cracking alter-ego, Aquadisiac, Kilmer-Purcell donned a pair of clear plastic breasts filled with live goldfish. Says PETA: "It would be, for you, like living in a covered bathtub that's constantly moving, tossing you around as you defecate in it. It's filthy, painful and terrifying for these animals."

When PETA puts it that way, it kind of reminds me of how I felt once back in college when I had a particularly bad hangover (minus the defecating part). But seriously, it does seem unnecessary for Kilmer-Purcell to use real goldfish in his fake breasts. He could substitute plastic fish for the real ones, and most people would probably never know the difference. (Here's an article about Kilmer-Purcell in the Fairfield County Weekly, where I found the picture of him as Aquadisiac.)

Fur-Bearing Crab — Dethcheez saw the picture of the fur-bearing lobster, and emailed me these pictures of a fur-bearing crab. I assume it's fake, with the fur glued on, though I could be wrong. (I would have thought the picture of the furry lobster was fake also, if the creature wasn't written up in a scientific journal.) As Dethcheez points out, the furry crab looks a lot like one of those troll figurines with the wild Don King hair. Whether real or fake, I'd like to get my hands on one. It would look cool sitting in my office. I'd also like to buy a mounted fur-bearing trout. I've been searching for one for ages, but haven't been able to find any for sale.

The Fur-Bearing Lobster — Science has long recognized the existence of the fur-bearing trout, which lives in the rivers and lakes of North America. Now its Pacific cousin has been found: the fur-bearing lobster (scientific name Kiwa hirsuta). According to the BBC, "A US-led team found the animal last year in waters 2,300m (7,540ft) deep at a site 1,500km (900 miles) south of Easter Island, an expert has claimed. Details appear in the journal of Paris' National Museum of Natural History."

So what is the purpose of the fur? Scientists speculate that "the 'hairy' pincers contained lots of filamentous bacteria... The bacteria detoxify poisonous minerals from the water, allowing K. hirsuta to survive around the vents."

An interesting theory, but it seems to me more logical to assume that its luxuriant coat developed to protect it from the cold waters of the depths, as is the case with the fur-bearing trout.

[Note: Despite what the above text might imply, fur-bearing trout are a tall-tale. Furry lobsters are real.]

(Thanks to Kathy for the link)

The Kitten Killer of Hangzhou — A series of pictures showing a woman crushing a kitten to death with her stiletto heels is causing an uproar over in China. The pictures first appeared on the internet and have recently been published by some Chinese newspapers. The woman in the photos has been dubbed the Kitten Killer of Hangzhou, because the background scene has been identified as Hangzhou. I've been able to locate four of the pictures in the series, but I think there are a few more (far more graphic) ones. Here are the ones I found (I don't have larger versions):

Image 3 (possibly disturbing)	Image 4 (possibly disturbing)

The big question is: Who is this woman? One theory is that the images come from a Japanese shoe advertisement. Another theory identifies the kitten killer as a "37-year-old woman from Hubei province with the internet identity 'Gainmas.'" The London Telegraph elaborates:

She had registered a website in Hangzhou and - the ultimate evidence - had bought a pair of stilettoes on eBay last year. She was also registered with QQ, a popular Chinese message service, where she wrote of herself: "I furiously crush everything to do with you and me." Before her QQ address went dead, its owner had several conversations. In one, she is coy, saying "So what?" when asked if the pictures are of her, and then, when asked again, replying: "In theory." When confronted by a reporter, she became defensive, saying: "Suddenly hundreds of people are on my QQ and cursing me. What's the problem if I crush cats? It's a type of experience. You wouldn't understand."

The Telegraph goes on to note:

No one seems to have suggested the serious possibility that the photographs could be a hoax - created by picture-altering computer software. But in the face of tight control of self-expression, young Chinese are seeking wildly different forms of sensation or satire on the state of society.

Without having seen all the pictures (and better quality ones), it's hard to judge whether or not they're real. But it certainly seems like this has already become the Chinese version of Bonsai Kitten (with the added twist that it may be real... in which case it's definitely disgusting).

Update: A "Crush" video is circulating around (you can find links to it in the comments, if you're interested) that makes it pretty clear the woman really did step on a kitten. Also, an article in the Shanghai Daily reports that the lady, and the guy who produced the video, have been identified. The producer, who is a camera operator at a TV station, has apologized. However, the woman, who works as a nurse at a hospital, has disappeared, leading to concerns that kitten commandoes may have abducted her (or something along those lines).

Pet Moose — Thanks to Adam Downs for forwarding me these images that are doing the rounds. I haven't been able to find out any information about them (such as who the woman is, or when the pictures were taken), but they're accompanied by this caption:

This lady, who lives just on the outskirts of Thunder Bay, Ontario, has a friendly Bull Moose who has become her friend. He likes to stick his head into her house and is very friendly.
Pictures taken at her home last week. He wants in. Helping himself to a drink. Come on in and have a snack.
Also she took a picture of a Buck [male deer] in her Backyard by the apple trees in the morning at her house. For anyone who thinks living in a big dirty city is the best.. "THINK AGAIN SHE SAYS".

I don't see any reason to doubt that the information in the caption is correct.

Overpopulated Mouse Colony Perishes — Henry Rosenbaum emailed me with the following description of a hoax, followed by a question:

For 30 years, from the mid-1960's, I lived in central Michigan, about a four hour drive from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where my wife and I often visited for weekends. I well recall an exhibit at one of the major museums that featured an enclosed cage/environment with a number of mice and a descriptive explanation to the effect: The mice were limited in the amount of space they were afforded, yet they were provided all the food and water their colony required, regardless of its numbers. The display stated they had at first healthily thrived and multiplied but as their supported numbers greatly increased without any increase in territory, the members became first combative and then homosexual, with the ultimate dying out of the colony despite the unlimited physical resources. Of course this was to illustrate what (perhaps as Malthus had predicted?) would ultimately happen to man if population growth was not checked.

I believed it was shortly after I left Michigan (mid-1990s) that I read in a West Coast newspaper that the museum had acknowledged the exhibit was a hoax made up in the minds of its (two, as I recall) researchers. I neglected then to clip the article and have for the last couple of years been unsuccessfully trying to re-locate the information of the hoax and its details. I had hoped it might be mentioned in your book and then attempted to research your web site under both mice and rats with variations as well as under several subject matters, all without success. I would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.

I had never heard of this experiment/museum exhibit before (which is why it's neither in my book or on the site). Does it ring a bell with anyone?

Trained Goldfish — Christine sent in a video of four goldfish who have apparently been trained to swim in synchronized patterns. They're definitely the best-trained goldfish I've ever seen. In fact, I didn't even know it was possible to train fish, but a quick google search reveals that I'm wrong. The Clicker Training site shows a film clip of a trained fish (it's the second movie down), and also has a discussion about training fish. Which isn't to say that the movie of the four trained goldfish is real, but I can't see how it's been faked. The clip looks like it was a segment on a Japanese news show, which actually makes it more believable. (If it looked like an advertisement, I'd dismiss it right away as a fake.) I'm listing its status as undetermined, but I'm leaning towards believing that it's real.

Related Posts:
Jan 31, 2006: Goldfish Have No Memory
Oct. 25, 2005: Do Round Bowls Make Goldfish Go Blind?

Jesus Pets — Jesus Pets points out a serious problem that born-again Christians must face if they own a pet: Many Christians believe that animals do not go to heaven. So when Jesus comes back and you return with him to heaven, will there be somebody to take care of your dog or cat?

Happily, they offer a solution: We are assembling a community of heathen pet-lovers to care for pets that are “left-behind.” We are coordinating with feed mills and kennels in preparation for your post-apocalyptic pet care needs.

Clearly this is tongue-in-cheek, though it's a clever idea. (I'd happily agree to look after someone's animal for a fee in case of rapture, since I anticipate being left behind.)

If you poke around the JesusPets site a bit more (follow the Jesus Links link), you'll find hundreds of pages full of links to religious sites. Each of these link pages runs google ads. So what I think is going on is that someone created the JesusPets page as a ploy to get lots of people (like me) to link to it, thereby increasing its pagerank. This, in turn, will increase the pagerank of all those link pages running the ads and, in theory, generate plenty of ad revenue. Whoever dreamed up this scheme is definitely going to be around post-rapture. (via J-Walk)

Frozen Squirrel Breaks Windshield — Norwich Union, a UK car insurance company, has published a list of the ten weirdest claims it received in 2005. Topping the list is this:

"A frozen squirrel fell out of a tree and crashed through the windscreen on to the passenger seat."

Unfortunately Norwich Union doesn't say if it found the claims to be legitimate. It only says that it received them. In the case of the frozen squirrel, you really have to wonder if it could be true. I suppose a squirrel could freeze to death up in a tree, and it could then fall onto a car parked below. But it would have to fall pretty far to pick up enough momentum to crash through the windshield. Though maybe the car wasn't parked. Maybe it was moving. This is clearly a case where more details are needed. (via The Guardian)

Fish Spells Allah and Muhammad — Oscar, who's a fish, lives in a tank in Waterfoot, England. He's attracting quite a bit of attention because markings on one side of his body seem to spell out the name Allah in arabic script, while markings on his other side seem to spell out Muhammad. Since I don't know arabic, I'm not in a position to judge how much the markings look like these words. But at least saying that markings spell a word is a bit more cut-and-dry than saying that markings look like Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or someone else whose appearance is unknown. (And now that I think about it, I suppose the Muslim ban on images of Muhammad means that the world will never get to see pieces of toast or frying pans bearing the image of Muhammad.) People who have examined Oscar are quite confident that the markings haven't been painted on in any way. I'm sure Oscar's new-found status as a miracle fish won't hurt the price the pet shop owner can fetch for him. (Thanks to Paul Farrington for the link.)

Pets In Uniform — Wouldn't it be great to have a picture of Fido dressed in a military uniform to keep on the mantel? Unfortunately actually dressing Fido in the uniform can be a hassle, but thankfully there's now an alternative, PetsInUniform.com:

Imagine: your dog, cat, or other pet in full military regalia. We make this fantasy a reality. Using the latest digital techniques, we combine a photo of your pet with the uniform and background of your choice.

I don't think this would work for my cat, since she imagines herself more as royalty than as military.

What Happens When Dogs Attack a Bull — This series of images of two pit bulls attacking a bull are a couple of months old (though they're new to me). They recall those images of a mule attacking a mountain lion. Despite looking rather surreal (especially that one of the dog suspended in air above the bull), not to mention bizarre (what were the dogs thinking?), they are real. This scene occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, outside of New Orleans, when the two pit bulls, crazed with hunger, decided that a bull would make a great dinner. They were wrong. A reporter for the Sunday Telegraph witnessed the scene:

Like a wrestling tag team, the bitch and the dog attacked with awesome ferocity, leaping at the bull's head and latching on to its muzzle. The stricken bull repeatedly shook the dogs off, flinging them up to 15 feet in the air. But they took turns to keep up the attack, exhausting the bull which was by now smeared with blood. Even after the bull trampled the bitch, leaving it dazed, the dog stepped up its attack... It was too dangerous for an unarmed witness to intervene but The Sunday Telegraph flagged down a National Guard truck. Seeing what was happening, a soldier shot the bitch in the head. The dog paused before resuming the attack. It took two bullets to stop it dead.

Goldfish Have No Memory — Popular legend has it that goldfish have no memory, which is why they're happy to swim around in small glass bowls. (Actually, I had never heard this legend before, but my wife had.) Now researchers in the UK have debunked this legend. The Telegraph reports:

The urban legend of the amnesiac fish has been dealt a new blow by a study which shows that goldfish can learn to avoid parts of their tanks where they receive electric shocks for at least 24 hours, probably longer... The new study was conducted by Rebecca Dunlop, Sarah Millsopp and Peter Laming at the Queen's University of Belfast and is published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science... The Belfast team showed that goldfish can remember accurately where in their tanks they receive electric shocks. The stronger the shocks, the less likely the fish were to return to the sector of the tank where they had received them. The team reported similar results with trout.

Giving fish electric shocks sounds a little cruel, but I guess you can't test them with flash cards, or put them in a maze. Of course, the legend of the forgetful fish might have arisen because goldfish are oxygen-deprived and near blindness from being kept in those little round bowls.

Fighting Dinosaurs Fossil — Zkato wants to know if the fossil of fighting dinosaurs found on the website of the Nakasato dinosaur Center is real. The fossil does sound a little too good to be true:

One Protoceratops, a herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur, perished in the struggle with a carnivorous theropod, Velociraptor. After their death 80 million years ago, both skeletons were fossilized, then finally unearthed in 1971 in fully articulated forms without having been smashed.

However, not only is it real, it's one of the most famous fossils in the world. It was found in Mongolia in 1971, and was exhibited in 2000 at the American Museum of Natural History. An episode of Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet included a computer-graphic reconstruction of the struggle between the protoceratops and the velociraptor. The fighting dinosaur website seems to be circulating around right now because someone linked to it on digg.com.

The big mystery is how the two dinosaurs managed to get buried alive while fighting. Dinosaur Planet's theory is that "the animals were most likely fighting on a rain-soaked sand dune which collapsed preserving them mid-battle." Or they could have gotten stuck in a sudden sandstorm. A few other theories are outlined in a post on cryptozoology.com.

32-pound Cat — I love fat cat pictures, and here are some good ones, courtesy of Kieran Charette who reports that they were taken at a vets office in Vancouver. Apparently the cat is perfectly healthy. Just large. 32 pounds, to be exact. (Which makes him 8 pounds lighter than Sassy, aka Munchkin.) I don't see any reason why these pictures would be fake. (Although the datestamp on the pictures--09/01/2007--is obviously wrong.)

Budgie Enjoys Cross-Stitching — Birds can be very clever, but so clever that they'll take up stitching as a hobby? I'm not so sure about that, though that's what Sandra Battye claims of her three-year-old budgie, Spike. She says:

"She would sit on my shoulder and watch me for hours. One day I just sat and didn’t stitch. It seemed to frustrate her. Then suddenly she picked up the needle in her beak and began cross-stitching herself. I was staggered. Now I can’t stop her. She still gets a bit confused at how the patterns work but she is very good at pulling and pushing the needle through the fabric."

Cross-Stitcher magazine gave Spike its Young Cross-Stitcher of the Year Award for 2005. I'm willing to believe that the budgie might enjoy picking up the needle and tugging on it... but actually maneuvering the needle through the fabric is a bit harder to believe. Though sometimes animals do amazing things. I'd like to see a video of Spike in action before I list this as real. I'm curious how much help the owner gives the budgie. (Thanks to Melanie Brock for the link)

Rescued Cat and Frogkitten — The expression on this cat's face is pretty wild, but I don't see any evidence of photoshopping. I found the image on this Russian livejournal site, so I'm guessing it might be a Russian fireman who just saved the cat.


This little guy, however, ("frogkitten" -- whose image has been floating around the internet for years) has definitely been photoshopped.