BEARSCARE

Bảo Lộc, Vietnam — A scientist vacationing in southern Vietnam has discovered a new lizard in one of the most unlikely places. “I was on a quest to find the best Phở in southern Vietnam,” begins Dr. Frederick Garfield, professor emeritus at Christopher Columbus University’s Benson College of Herpetology, “and I had no intention of eating lizard; I gave that up years ago!” It turns out that, as Garfield was browsing the menu at Nam Dinh Diner, he was quite taken with a grilled lizard dish. “They seasoned it with lime, basil and a hint of honey. And no, it didn’t taste like chicken at all. It was so delicious that I asked the chef to show me where the meat had come from.” And the rest is history unfolding in front of our eyes: the first new lizard species in over 120 years.

There are approximately 650 species of reptiles, of which only 22 are lizards. “You wouldn’t think it,” Garfield continued, “but lizards, as a subgroup, are extraordinarily homogenous. The only taxonomoligcal family with fewer distinct species is Hominidae.  But this one, it was the tastiest.”

The interesting thing about Leiolepis ngovantrii, known locally as ngon vật, is that all members of the species are female, just like in Jurassic Park. Unlike Jurassic Park, however, these lizards reproduce through cloning. “The locals explained to me that, upon maturity, an individual is allowed to burrow several feet into a nutrient rich topsoil-compost slurry. After two weeks, a visibly weakened lizard emerges followed, a month later, by an exact, though younger, copy.

“I have already assembled a team of graduate students here at CCU and am raising funds for a trip back to Bảo Lộc. This is the first big herpetological breakthrough of the new millennium and the finest moment of my career,” remarked Dr. Garfield, reclining behind his desk, a snifter of cognac in hand. “I wasted 35 years on snakes. I’m a lizard guy now.”

And eaten. That’s right, some locals in the Philipines came across a buttonquail on the island of Luzan and thought enough of it to photograph it (see below, courtesy of National Geographic) before selling it to a market as food. Humans 1, buttonquails 0.

Source

Everybody, WATCH OUT! One of my worst fears has been confirmed: pet treats at PetSmart containing peanut butter can kill your pet. This is particularly disturbing because Giuseppe (my pet python) gets really squeezy when he doesn’t get his favorite peanut butter treats. Just stay tuned and I’ll let you know when peanut butter treats are safe again.

PS: What the hell is “salmonella” anyway?

So, readers have been asking me about Knut, the polar bear quite a bit. Well, I’m sick of it. So, here’s an update on FLOCKE: she’s fine. Don’t worry. As far as I can tell from the following picture, Flocke is growing up to be a respectible polar bear just like her first cousin, Knut. Although I don’t advocate bears eating seals, she’s going to start getting pretty bored soon. I believe there are some excellent soy-based imitation seal products out there, so let me be the first to recommend to Germans (Deutschlanders) they buy this stuff. It’s environmentally responsible since the soy is grown with replaceable fuel sources.

Today we went to the zoo in DC. Here is an incomplete list of animals we saw and my personal feelings on them:

1. Pandas – AWESOME
2. Lions – sweet
3. Tigers – similar to lions
4. Anaconda – scary/sweet
5. King Cobra – deadly (stay away from these)
6. Prairie dog – opposite of (5)
7. Elephants – Very large and friendly. These were the Asiatic variety.
8. Cow – I felt bad about my lunch
9. Orang utan – Me 10,000,000 – 100,000,000 years ago
10. HIPPO – wet

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgkOKLRQjlo]
I have nothing to add.

More bear news. I don’t have much to say about this, but I’m just putting here to be complete. Here’s what happened:

• Mom hears dog barking
• Dad finds out dog had chased bear up a tree
• Little kid claims the dog had jumped on the bear and “chewed it”

It’s HIGHLY unlikely the bear would put up with a dog chewing on it. What’s much more likely is the peace-loving bear just wanted to avoid conflict and knew he couldn’t reason with the dog on the ground.

Here’s the link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/08/07/pkg.bear.treed.wtlv

This is absolutely tragic. These sickos in Peru dress up their Guinea pigs, take them out for parade and slaughter them. And then they eat them right then and there. Hey! I have an idea! Let’s take a bunch of PEOPLE and parade them down Broadway and eat them. How about that?

This has been a great summer for the bears. Two black bear attacks (one fatality), me seeing black bears, a baby bear with burned feet . . . and now this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAPuwp2tsIU]

Here’s how my mornings start. I wake up, fall back asleep, wake up again and look out the window for bears. But guess what? I never see them–lame. I would kill to live somewhere where this could happen (like Alaska).

One day I plan to be rich. And rather than put my money in some stupid bank, I’ll put in Jell-o. Here’s how it would work.

• Let’s assume $10,000,000 is “rich”
• Right now Harris Teeter’s is selling 6-packs of sugar-free Jell-o for $3.79. Each cup is 3.333 oz, so that’s $0.1895/oz. Not bad at all.
• $10,000,000 = 52,770,448.549 oz = 3,298,153.034 lbs. of Jell-o
• That’s 1,649 tons of Jell-o, which is really quite manageable and disappointing.
• If I had $1,000,000,000, I could buy 164,900 tons of Jello-o. That’s more than two Nimitz Class aircraft carriers*.

*Light loaded. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz_class_aircraft_carrier