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Penguin Pets
Ellis D writes "It looks like pengiuns could make a good house pet according to an article over at ScienceDaily Mag. "
Once again I just want an AIBO- they feed/recharge
themselves. I imagine feeding a
penguin would be a somewhat frightening experience. But
a puffin would be so cute *grin*.
I would prefer a Misoto.
Remember that Budweiser commercial (dooobie doobie doo.....)
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-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Yea, having a pen-pen would be great. As long as it could sit at the table reading a newspaper and drinking a beer.
Ok, let me get this straight: there's a hormone in the blood whose level is an indicator of stress. How do you measure this hormone without stressing out the penguin? Presumably, you have to take a blood sample... I think if a researcher runs up to a penguin and jabs a needle into it, you're going to get an inflated value.
Perhaps there are other ways. Hmm... anyone know any good hacks for measuring chemicals in penguin blood without freaking out the penguin? Here's all I can think of, so far:
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The penguin logo sucks. I MUST GO!
:P
Yes, you must.
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a penguin exploding or imploding.. that would be something i'd pay to see
Oi, cats are cool
i had a goat once and when it died of malnutrition we picked it up and put it in a trashbag and placed it on the curb.
hehehahah,i'm sorry, this had me rolling around the floor laughing
Just because the LINUX mascot is Tux the penguin doesn't mean that every article related to penguins needs to be posted.
The article is about people visiting penguin habitats, not the other way around.
And as someone mentioned, they stink.
As the alt tag for the little bare-foot icon says: "Its funny: Laugh".
I recall a few months ago that my mom, whos obsessed with Animal Planet and Home & Garden TV and all those other channels that have the pet shows, she told me that they were able to breed penguins that can live in North American climates and that can be kept as pets. I'll look around later tonight when I'm bored and see if I can find some info to back that up, then post a link.
But will penguins get their own beer from the fridge?
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A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
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A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
I suspect that if someone did build one it would not have The Penguin at it's heart. :-(
Penguins falling over was debunked by the AFU crowd. Follow the link for more details. dave
I live in the South Island od New Zealand and we have a few native species of penguins.
The most common is a species called little blues.
They are about as big as a small chicken.
Just recently there was a current affairs story on TV where somebody was having serious problems with penguins nesting under their house. Apparently their chicks make a lot of noise, and they smell quite strongly of fish. I don't think that these birds would be much fun to have as a pet as I think they have a tendency to nip.
Also in NZ I think it's illegal to have tham as pets as they are very strongly protected, another problem those people in the TV story were having as, to move them required special permission from the authorities.
We've always had birds. When we were in Greece, my grandma kept chickens right behind her house. We use to chase them all day. Then we had a duck when we were in Gibbons, it was better than a dog (no sloppy kisses!) And over the years we've had seven budgies. One of them died recently and now the one left behind is super friendly, tho he figures I have nothing better to do than stand in front of the cage with his yellow mirror so he can look at himself and kiss it. When I go to sit back down, he ruffles once, ruffles twice, then swoops at me.
At least a penguin can't do that!
Penguin eggs - like large chicken eggs, but with a bright red yolk...mmmm
Penguins are also very susceptible to fleas and ticks and are so noisy even with triple glazing we couldn't shut out the noise when we lived in the Falklands!!
Dogs are unique in their ability to be companion animals. Most dogs love people and view them as members of their own pack. It is hard to imagine a penguin running up to a strange human and demanding to be petted, but dogs do it all the time.
Please adopt a dog, cat, bird or rabbit from your local animal shelter, and stay away from exotic and/or illegal pets.
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
that's be cool, especially for college..."But, professor, Tux DID eat my homework!!!!" :-)
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ANIME FAN MODE
Wow, now I really can have a Pen-Pen!
Oh...or a Tux I suppose, but Pen-Pen is better.
/ANIME FAN MODE
Tom Byrum
My house is already too cold as it is. Besides, how would you get it to sit on top of your monitor all the time?
NOT THE FIRST POST!!! WOO HOO!!!
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Ok...now that I've READ the article it doesn't really have anything to do with having penguins as pets. Perhaps the article should have (-1, Offtopic) next to it. :-)
Slashdot: It's not news unless we say it is.
Tom Byrum
British pilots would do this in the Falkland Islands for amusment. Sounds pretty funny to me, the sight of 10,000 penguins slowly falling over backwards in unison.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
...about how Air Force pilots would fly over flocks of penguins on the ground. The penguins would turn their heads up to look at the plane, and the penguins weren't bright enough to realize that if they turned their heads back too far, they'd fall over. Supposedly these pilots would do this a lot just to watch an entire flock of penguins fall over on their backs.
Was this just an urban legend? Anyone else know anything about this?
Anyone else remember that book from grade school? A man got a lot of penguins and kept them in his basement after they multiplied and outgrew the icebox. Imagine having a basement full of little Tuxes :)
-- K
when their offbeat trivia piece on penguins gets 50,000 hits. I wonder if they'll figure it out.
support gun control: take guns from cops
Hey, if they can do a dog, why not a Penguin?
I was at the New England Aquarium a couple of weeks ago and watched them feed the penguins. They eat fish out of the keepers' hands. They were the small, noisy kind, though. Might be harder with an emperor penguin.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Plus, as far as I know, penguins are akin to taking a shit wherever they damn well please. So if your happy little penguin takes to using that open computer on the floor as a toilet.....
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I hope nobody seriously tries to keep a penguin for a pet.
Once the novelty of owning a penguin wears off, and cruel owners flush them down the toilet, there will begin a penguin plauge in our sewer system!
There shall begin an underground Linux movement, and those who aspire against us shall have their asses bitten in the bathroom by hungry penguins!
MwaHAAHA!
Try feeding a puffin. Have you noticed the shape of their beaks? Kind of unusual. They're about as wide at the base as they are long. This, obviously, makes it easier for them to bite down real hard on you finger, and to even cut it clear off.
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Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
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A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
Nah, it doesn't say that... you can't have penguins as pets because, #1, it's illegal everywhere in the US i believe, #2, this just says that they get *less* frightened when people are around.. they're still doing 40 head checks a minute (which is pretty fast...), so they're quite worried about predators when people are there. They may adapt quickly to having people in their habitat, but I doubt they adapt quickly to being in the habitat of people.
It is an offtopic comment to a neato article, though.. and grats on getting it posted.
this
It may be illegal, but that hasn't stopped many people from having exotic pets of all kinds. If they are caught, there are always ways to accomodate the legal rules, execpt if you happen to have a big cat or something that frightens neighbors. The rule is if someone complains, you have some explaining to avoid some very stiff fines and penalties.
Where would you find a can of pickled herring guts? I mean, it's not like you can just run over to the 7/11.
Tux is not a logo. He is a mascot. Just as the KDE dinosaur is a mascot, not a logo. Mascots CAN be cute, cuddly, and all that jazz.
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
Chicks dig penguins.... hehe... and they're like birds and stuff
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
this article is a good example of why I do not call behavioral guessers "scientists." I did not see a certain possibility mentioned, and I doubt highly that the "scientists" considered it at all. The reason I doubt this is because I have examined many behavioral guessing studies and have never seen this angle considered... What I am refering to is this: will the people of the /. community conceed to me that it is possible that the penguins who nested near the trail perhaps were less nervous -in general- than the ones in remote areas? First, the ones in remote areas already show themselves to be less social by simple fact that they are in a remote area vrs closer to the rest of the penguins. Second, the trail presumably has been there for a while (at least a few years), but I would venture to say that penguins probably make a new nest each year. Point being, the penguins who were less nervous around people still showed signs of stress, just less of it. Never the less, they made their nests close to and withing the main group (to which the trail leads) because they were more social penguins than the others. This, and this alone, explains why they are less nervous. If no man had ever been there, I assert one could still find the same results by comparing penguins in the more remote areas to the ones who are closer together. Now, granted-if someone wanted to have a penguin as a pet, it would make sense to have a more social penguin. This is how domestication takes place, after all. You take the group that is the most docile, most social, or whatever quality you want. You breed those. From the new batch, you take the most of that group, and breed those. So on and so forth. This study proved nothing more than something that should be common sense: within a society (be it penguins, humans, dogs, whatever) there are some members that are more social than other members. The more social members tend to group together, by nature of their being more social. The less social tend to be more isolationistic (if thats not a word, it should be). The trail, according to the article, goes into the heart of the penguin colony-therefore where the most social penguins are. I think I've made my point in as many ways as possible now... oh, BTW, someone mentioned that the article said the less frightened penguins still did 40 head-turns a minute, vrs the 200 from the others. the article never says it is 40 a minute. It didn't specify the time span at all, actually. It says that "after 15 minutes of exposure" it was 40 vrs 200. They might have meant "DURING 15 mintes of exposure.." because to say "after" means it came "after" (duh) the 15 mintes. So, it is possible that the 40 head turns were within 15 minutes, otherwise the time is unspecified. Makes more sense. The nervous ones did it 200 times-can you imagine how fast -that- would be, if it was in 1 minute?
We could breed pet penguins and use the money to fund OSS projects and Alternative OS development.
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