When they find one near Loch Ness, I'll be excited

MORE dinosaur news:

Rare dinosaur unearthed by digger

A nearly complete fossil of a plesiosaurus was uncovered by a Syncrude heavy equipment operator in an oil sands area, Alberta. It is believed to be around 40 million years older than other plesiosaur fossils, making it the oldest plesiosaur discovered to date.

image by Sue Sabrowski - Royal Tyrrell Museum

from The Globe and Mail

No one is safe, not even Drop bears

I've been in a glass cage of emotion! No internets for weeks, which has made me feel very out-of-tune with the world... but the first thing I did read was the multiple murderous hippopotami in South Africa.

1. Farmer gouged to death by pet hippo Humphrey who was 'like a son to him'
2. Escape from the jaws of a hippo

While hippos are pretty dangerous in general, I was intrigued to know if there had been any honey badger attacks (specific aren't I). I didn't find any honey badger media but I did find this:

Koalas under attack from cows

Who'd have thought that a cow would be spooked by a koala enough to have a murderous streak. They are thuggish in their approach too. So watch out for the koalas, Eastern Staters. Next we'll be hearing about cows with guns...


Another article I found was this:

Melogale cucphuongensis sp.nov

This is a new species, unknown to science referred to as a "ferret-badger". It's interesting looking enough. At first I thought they called it a ferret-badger because they had no idea which one it was more closely related to; then I did a little more research and found the strangest handful of cute, ferret-badgers. They look a little like Palm civets to me.

A species of Melogale, Chinese ferret-badger
(image from Scienceblogs)

Sadly, they're still here

Happy Rapture Day everyone...

Well, it wasn't a very happy Rapture Day. We still have the crazies, purists and holier-than-thou to put up with until the next "OMG! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!" Looks like we scientists are going to suffer a little longer. *sigh*

Our livers were safe too; Raptor Jesus was also absent today. No Velocirapture either.

Pretty average day really.