"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." James M. Barrie Peter Pan.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Careful out there .....

some just don't take trespassing lightly

see caption under pic

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From: http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/10/01/29/

Who knew?

Platypus  


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The platypus looks, for all intents and purposes, like a joke. A slapped together set of features and parts of other animals, evolving in the island obscurity of Australia. Wait, what country? Oh you know exactly where this is going now...that's right, even the comically misshapen platypus will do you in. For all their bumbling charms, platypuses have a number of points in their favor. Firstly, they're damned fast swimmers. They can also hunt their prey by detecting the electrical fields generated by their muscular contractions. That's right, they can track by telltale signs of your body's electricity. How badass is that? Not only that, but the Platypus is one of the few venomous mammals to be found. Only the males pack this heat, on the spurs of their hind legs. While it's powerful enough to kill animals around the size of a dog, it won't kill you. But you might just wish it had. The pain is so excruciating that it's completely incapacitating, and can last for months. You also get edema, starting at the site of the wound, and then rapidly spreading. That's when weird fluids building up beneath your skin, making the effected area all swollen and lumpy.


from  15 Cute Animals That will cause you horrible harm

Cat got your tongue?

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Size really does matter !

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Colt 4.5


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Dipoldocus really is three times the length and two times the height of a double decker bus


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An Early Submarine - 50's era?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Mars Alert!

These are photos of the Red Plant. I'd say are unique!

Jan 27th, Mars will be closer to Earth than any other time between 2008 and 2014.

Below, this image is from the floor of the Hellas Basin, a 1,400-mile wide impact crater. The landforms look almost as if they flowed like a viscous material.

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Below, this image looks remarkably like groves of trees growing among Martian dunes but, the trees are an optical illusion. They are actually dark streaks of sediment on the downwind side of the dunes. They were created by escaping gas from the evaporating carbon dioxide ice below. The bottom of the ice melts into vapor and moves toward holes in the ice carrying dark sediment along with it that is then deposited when the gas escapes.

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Below a dune field on the floor of a crater made by an asteroid impact.

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The High Seas Highway

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Elvis

“The image is one thing and the human being is another...It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”


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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Mouse vs Leopard

and the mouse wins!

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    This mouse danced with death when it tucked itself into the lunch
of a hungry leopard. Like a little child and seemingly unaware of the beast towering over it,

the mischievous rodent grabbed at scraps of meat thrown into the African Leopard's
enclosure. But instead of pouncing on the tiny intruder, the

12-year-old leopard, called Sheena, appeared to be afraid of the daring mouse and kept her distance. At one stage she tried to nudge the

mouse away with her nose, but the determined little guy carried on chewing away until he was full.


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Excuse me? A perturbed Sheena the leopard looks on as a cheeky mouse nibbles her food at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire.

The extraordinary scene was captured by photography student Casey Gutteridge at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire.

 

The 19-year-old, from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, who was photographing the leopard for a course project, was astounded by the mouse's behavior.

He said: 'I have no idea where the mouse came from - he just appeared in the enclosure after the keeper had dropped in the meat for the leopard.

'He didn't take any notice of the leopard, just went straight over to the meat and started  feeding himself.

'But the leopard was pretty surprised - she bent down and sniffed the mouse and flinched a bit like she was scared.

'In the meantime the mouse just carried on eating like nothing had happened.




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...but even a gentle shove does not deter the little creature from getting his fill...

'It was amazing; even the keeper who had thrown the meat into the enclosure was shocked and said he'd never seen anything like it before.' 

Project owner Jackie James added: 'It was so funny to see - Sheena batted the mouse a couple of times to try to get it away from her food.

'But the determined little thing took no notice and just carried on.' 

 

Sheena was brought in to the Santago Rare Leopard Project from a UK zoo when she was just four months old.

She is one of 14 big cats in the private collection started by Jackie's late husband Peter in 1989.


It's the first time Fran has seen a real Lion

resemble the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz!!

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Monday, January 18, 2010

1958 Pre-Beatles

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A punch that feels like a .22 calibre?

A shrimp guards her eggs from predators in this close-up underwater photograph. But the bright colours of the peacock mantis mask a fearsome defence - a punch that feels like being shot by a .22 calibre pistol, and has been known to crack glass in aquariu

A shrimp guards her eggs in this close-up underwater photograph.

But the bright colours of the peacock mantis mask a fearsome defence -

a punch that feels like being shot by a .22 calibre pistol, and has been known to crack glass in aquariums

Going green in the board room

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Followers