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'Vampire' Squirrel Has World's Fluffiest Tail
sciencehabit (1205606) writes Few scientists have ever seen the rare tufted ground squirrel (Rheithrosciurus macrotis), which hides in the hilly forests of Borneo, but it is an odd beast. It's twice the size of most tree squirrels, and it reputedly has a taste for blood. Now, motion-controlled cameras have revealed another curious fact. The 35-centimeter-long rodent has the bushiest tail of any mammal compared with its body size.
Oh yeah, just let that critter suck ya dry.
I for one welcome our new Vampire Squirrel overlords.
Gonads and Strife https://www.youtube.com/watch?... with this new Squampire
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I guess we have to discuss any way we can of getting a little tail.
Its not like it comes easy for us.
Hmm, let me guess...
News for nutters, stuff that squeaks?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/m...
She provides plenty of reasons for the research there. Moreover, the article says nothing about the Smithsonian paying for this research. She just happens to be a world expert on these squirrels and is working there, likely because they have a collection of preserved specimens that she is using in her studies. Given that the Smithsonian is providing their collection of preserved specimens from this species for her research, I wouldn't be surprised if what the universities and research institutions tied to this effort have to offer are the funds to engage in the expeditions. You'll be pleased to know that neither George Mason University nor the research station based in Spain are US federal government institutions.
Mind you, I'm not attempting to make any sort of political statement with this post, I'm merely seeking to point out the lack of a factual basis for most of your assertions.
Fulffffffffffffffffffffffffffeh!
[x] Touch fluffy tail
Local legends suggest that Rheithrosciurus, which is thought to mostly eat giant acorns, can be savage. Hunters say that the squirrels will perch on low branches, jump onto a deer, gash its jugular vein, and disembowel the carcass. "It sounds pretty fantastical," says a skeptical Roland Kays, a zoologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. "Even more than its fluffy tail."
This sounds far too awesome to be fact checked.
I stole this Sig
Squirrel with huge, fluffy tail and a taste for blood?
"It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!"
In a forest in Borneo, a small group encounters a surprisingly large squirrel with an exceedingly bushy tail. It is grooming itself. 1: "Its soooo cute." 2: "Hey look... Another one." 3: Looking tense, he firmly grasps 2's shoulder, and in a muted growl, "Look in the trees." The camera pans up and around showing what could be thousands of squirrels perched on branches in and around the small group. The squirrels stare at the group motionlessly. The camera starts to slowly back up and away from the scene, and just as the squirrels become difficult to individually distinguish, they descend in brown furry waves upon the hapless group, whose screams scare up a number of birds from a distance tree.
Quit your yappin. When I was your age, we used a wood-burning Slashdot. Old Tindery, we called it. Of course, back in those days, we didn't have the internet, we had to connect to it with a couple pieces of copper wire and some old fishing line, which back in those days was known as "trout twine". You could pick up a coil of trout twine and a shiny red apple for a nickel down at Bailey's Drug, but there was a nickel shortage due to the war, so I had to use five red cents which I got from picking a barrel full of cucumbers down in Birchton. "Greeny Sausages", we called them. I could eat a greeny sausage all day. Maybe two, but never three, because then my aunt would give me a whooping with her hickory switch for being greedy. And oh, you don't want to see Aunt Margie's hickory switch. It was a mule's leg in length and made of the most knotty hickory a lad ever did see...
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
It's in the science section. It's news about science. Slashdot is more than just maths and computers. Science is more than just Physics.
Oh yeah, finally some real science.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Looks like you forgot your meds today, bro.
So, we're doomed right? No aliens, no nukes, no super volcanoes, no religious apocalypses, no zombies, this will be the end of us.
You sound like the "Grumpy Old Man" character on "The John Boy and Billy Big Show".
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist...
He's got huge, sharp... er... He can leap about. Look at the bones!
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...be sure to bring the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
'nuff said.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
My 100% heterosexual and male marine biology degree wishes to contest your postulation.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
...they put every other ingredient in shampoo claiming it helps with body and volume (don't see how those are different), so why not add blood? Or even "vampire squirrel blood"?
yes - here it is on a science graph and everything
http://xkcd.com/435/
New series on the WB coming to you this fall:
Fluffy the Vampire Squirrel Hunter.
Join Fluffy and her team of misfits battle the increasing population of Vampire Squirrels.
Ya, sorry, I know it's stupid, I'm out of weed currently.
Be seeing you...
Kinda like how the Aussies have the threat of dingos. Can't wait for the SyFy adaption called "Squirrelgeddon" that will hopefully not include sparkly, drama queen squirrels... or maybe that would be good for comedy spoof.
for the San Acitos Dirt Shrew.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Did you wear an onion on your belt, too? Or was that just the fashion up around Springfield?
That is all.
Melissa Hawkins was not involved in the research for this project, and was only used to get a soundbite for the news piece. The first author on the paper was their teenage daughter, followed by her moth who is an independent scientists, and then father who has a position at Australia National University but was working with an Indonesian conservation organization. Unless you did a ctrl-F for "Smithsonian", you would have seen most of this before getting to the line you quoted.
In photography, "pan" means to turn left and right. For up and down you want "tilt." Thus a camera cannot "pan up."
Fair enough, but if you get to pull out of funding the Smithsonian, I get to withhold my tax dollars from military spending.
Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara
About the size of a medium dog, and does ok as pets. Also used in Enpanadas as the Catolic Church says they are like fish.