The page cannot be found

Most people have heard of the Ring-tailed Lemur (above) and could suppose that it is the only species. However, there are many varieties of Lemur, a lot of which are beautiful and incredibly rare. Take a look in to the planet of the lemurs and discover for yourself the wonderful diversity of this lesser known family of animals. Image Credit Flickr User Tambako the Jaguar

The Red-ruffed LemurThis exquisitely colored species is critically endangered and part of its habitat in Madagascar has recently been made in to a National Park. This may at least ensure the survival of some of the species but as it is unable to tell where it is safe for itself, many of the animals live outside the park’s boundaries and are still prey to humans as ‘bush food’. Who could possibly bring themselves to eat this delightful animal in the full knowledge that it is nearing extinction?

The old proverb is true. In a cat's eye, everything belongs to cats. That includes, well, everything - including your sink. What has a certain use for us may be interpreted as useful in an altogether different way by our feline friends.  So it is with that useful household item, the sink.  Cats love them - but for very different reasons to us.  Prepared to be bemused and amused at the same time.  The words are related - we need no better excuse. So, because they can so can we - welcome to the world of cats in sinks.

They may always be quite certain what they are doing there themselves, as Phoebe the gorgeous Persian here seems to be indicating with that rather sullen but perplexed look on her face.  Perhaps that old Moroccan saying is true, after all - you cannot teach an old cat to dance.

If you were asked to think of a large mammal of the American prairie you might well say the bison, coyote or wolf, a measure of how much these species have settled in to our general consciousness. Yet there is one unique American animal which is less known but is perhaps the most charismatic of the Great Plains. Many refer to it as an antelope but that is far from the truth. A true American native, the Pronghorn has sojourned across the deserts and plains of North America for at least a million years: but an antelope it is not. Its closest relative is the giraffe.

The pronghorn is found nowhere else in the world except the interior western and central north of America. At first sight it certainly does resemble the antelope of the Old World but it is thought to be a classic example of convergent evolution. This is where species develop to inhabit at least two separate places in the world but which share features and behaviors which mean they may resemble each other despite no shared ancestry. To the untrained eye, their appearance would suggest that they are related species even when they are not.

Sometimes you should take things a little more literally!  This charming picture was taken outside of the Dolphin Restaurant in Sultanahmet, Istanbul.  We would not dream of giving places which would serve up cat for lunch or dinner a molecule of the oxygen of publicity! Yet, for at least one day there really was cat on the menu at the Dolphin Restaurant!

You have probably seen the grey. You may even have encountered or at least heard of the red. However, have you ever seen a black squirrel? Take a look at this small but dark beasty of the forest.

This is the black squirrel. Out of the squirrel population of the United States and Canada perhaps only one in ten thousand is black. However, this is not a separate species in itself. It is in fact a sub-group of the grey squirrel and, little by little their numbers are growing. In fact in some areas they outnumber the greys. However, this black coloring is not a recent trend among the squirrel community – research indicates that in the days before the European settlement of the America the black squirrel was probably much more numerous than the grey. 

The National Bird of two countries - Zimbabwe and Zambia – the African Fish Eagle is a bird that, with its gorgeous snow white head, once seen is never forgotten.

The Eagle is found in most parts of the continent – as long as you are south of the edge of the Sahara Desert.  Also known as the African Sea Eagle it is found anywhere near where there is water containing fish.  It has a distinctive call which immediately identifies it, but what really stands out is its magnificent plumage.

Up close you can see the almost perfectly spherical balls that the crabs engineer.  They are meticulous in their method to say the very least.

Spring is nature's way of saying, Let's party!  ~Robin Williams 

Sometimes you have to whip your camera out in a second to get the photograph. When Flickr photographer Peretz Partensky was traveling the Silk Road in Tashkent, Uzbekistan he managed to capture this amazing shot. What we don’t see, however, is the way that the dog charged the cat and the way the ferocious feline stopped her in her tracks by hissing and thrusting a paw in the air. Yet this, taken a second or two afterwards captures the dramatic moment, in my mind, perfectly. This little cat is giving the dog her marching orders! You don’t frighten me!

Whoever said a boy’s best friend was his dog may have gotten it wrong! In this case it might just be a sheep.  However, we suspect that this young Afghan boy might have a barbecue on his mind rather than a lifelong friendship, which might explain the rather resigned look on the sheep’s face!


Image Credit Flickr User peretzp

Until he took this picture, Flickr Photographer Urtica was pretty sure he had never photographed a luna moth. It was on a short list of things he had decided if he ever did photograph, he would simply have to just retire the digicam.

Joking aside, he had the mercury vapor lamp and the white sheet out, and this little guy was hiding between the sheet and the shed door - he didn't find him until after he was breaking down the setup for the night. Patience it seems has its own rewards!

There are only two emotions that belong in the saddle; one is a sense of humor and the other is patience. That goes for both horse and rider.  Yet when it comes to jokes, horses have heard them all.  No doubt you have as well, but as they say – the old ones are, well the old ones.  At least these effervescent equines can laugh at these poor jokes with without this becoming a tale of whoa.

A horse trudges slowly into a pub and orders a drink.
“Evenin’” says the barman, “why the long face?”

A horse walks into a smart cocktail bar.
The doorman says: “Wait you can’t come in here without a tie.”
The horse goes out to his car, looks in the trunk and gets a set of jump leads, which he ties around his neck.
He goes back in and says to the barman: “This alright?”
The barman says: “Hmm, ok... but don’t be starting anything.”

A poorly-looking horse limps into a bar with a bandage round his head. He orders a glass of champagne, a vintage brandy and two pints of Guinness.
He downs the lot and says to the barman: “I shouldn’t really be drinking this with what I’ve got?”
“Why, what have you got?”
“About $2 and a carrot.”

A racehorse owner takes his horse to the vet. “Will I be able to race this horse again?,” he asks
The vet replies: “Of course you will, and you’ll probably win!”

A stallion and a mare where due to get married, but the stallion didn't show up at the church. He got colt feet.

One day a man passed by a farm and saw a beautiful horse. Hoping to buy the animal, he said to the farmer: "I think your horse looks pretty good, so I'll give you $500 for him."
"He doesn't look so good, and he's not for sale," the farmer said.
The man insisted, "I think he looks just fine and I'll up the price to $1,000."
"He doesn't look so good," the farmer said, "but if you want him that much, he's yours."
The next day the man came back raging mad. He went up to the farmer and screamed, "You sold me a blind horse. You cheated me!"
The farmer calmly replied, "I told you he didn't look so good, didn't I?"

Three race horses stood in their stalls. One said to other others: "I ran 20 races and I won 15 of them!" he bragged. The next said with a snort, "Well, I ran 30 races and won 25 of them!" Then the third horse spoke up proudly, "Yeah, I ran 41 races and won 39 of them!" This seemed to settle the topic when the horses noticed a Greyhound outside their stalls. The Greyhound said, "I ran 100 races and I won 99 of them." The horses looked at each other in amazement and one gasped, "Wow! A talking greyhound!"

A cowboy goes into a bar, has a beer, walks outside and finds his horse has been stolen. He walks back into the bar, fires his gun through the ceiling. "Which one of you mothers stole my hoss?" he yells. No one answers. "All right, I'm gonna have one more beer and if my hoss ain't outside by the time I finish, I'm gonna do what I dun in Texas." He drinks another beer, walks outside, and his horse is back. So he gets on it and gets ready to ride out of town. The bartender walks out of the bar and asks, "Say pardner, what happened in Texas?" The cowboy turns to him, and says, "I had to bloody walk home."

A horse walked into the Ice Cream shop. "I'll have a chocolate ice cream cone," the horse said. The Ice Cream Man, John, gave the horse the cone. The horse, having a $10 bill in his wallet, gave the money to John. Since John thought the horse wouldn't know a thing about money, he gave the horse one dollar back. "Thanks for coming," John said to the horse. "We don't get that many horses around here!" The horse replied, "Well, it's no wonder for $9 a cone!"

An American tourist was driving in County Kerry in Ireland, when his motor stopped. He got out to see if he could locate the trouble. A voice behind him said, "The trouble is the carburetor." He turned around and only saw an old horse. The horse said again, "It's the carburetor that's not working." The American nearly died with fright, and dashed into the nearest pub, had a large whiskey, and told Murphy the bartender what the horse had said to him.

Murphy said, "Well, don't pay any attention to him, he knows nothing about cars anyway."

The nuns at a small convent were happy to learn that an anonymous donor had left his modest estate to them. Each nun had been left $50 in cash to give away as she saw fit.
Each nun announced how she would spend her bequest. Sister Catherine Ann decided to give her share to the first poor person she saw.
As she said this, she looked out the window and saw a man leaning against the telephone pole across the street, and he indeed looked poor.
She immediately left the convent and walked toward the man. He had obviously known better days. The good nun felt he had been sent by Heaven to receive her offering.
She pressed the $50 into the man's hands and said, "Godspeed, my good man."
As she left, the man called out to her, "What is your name?"
Shyly, she replied, "Sister Catherine Ann."
The following evening, the man returned to the convent and rang the bell. "I'd like to see Sister Catherine Ann," he said.
The nun at the door answered, "I'm sorry, but I cannot disturb her right now. She's in the chapel. May I give her a message?"
"Yes," said the man gleefully. "Give her this $100 and tell her Godspeed came in second at Belmont."

A horse walks into a bar, across the room, up the back wall, across the ceiling, down the front wall and then up to the bar. The bartender gives the horse a beer, he drinks it and leaves. A guy sitting at the bar looks perplexed and asks the bartender "Hey, what's that all about?" The bartender replies, "Don't take it personally, he never says 'Hi' to anyone."

A guy walks into a bar and there is a horse behind the bar serving drinks. The guy is just staring at the horse, when the horse says, "What are you staring at? Haven't you ever seen a horse serving drinks before?" The guy says, "No, I never thought the parrot would sell the place."

A cowboy walks into a bar. Upon leaving, he realizes that someone has painted his horse. The cowboy yells, "Which one of you painted my horse?" A seven foot tall hulk of a man says, menacingly, "I did." The cowboy realizes he is in trouble and replies, "Why, thank you - the first coat's dry!"

Apologies beforehand if you end up itching like a mad thing by the time you finish reading this.  However, bedbugs, which were once thought to have been almost eradicated are enjoying a massive bug renaissance. With the invention of DDT in the 1940s it was thought that the itch and rash would become a thing of the past. Yet like a scratch that you just can’t itch the humble bedbug has made an enormous comeback.

Above is a bedbug ingesting its meal of blood from a human host. What can only be described as an epidemic has broken out in the United States and, where the US goes the UK follows. The bedbug population of the United Kingdom is now booming. In both countries the problem is at is greatest since the Second World War. If you are getting freaked out by the site of one, screw your courage to the sticking point now.

Now the National Pest Management Association in Kentucky is predicting nothing less than a worldwide pandemic of Cimex lectularius. Yet how do they get in to your bed in the first place? They are not like that other blood sucker – the vampire: they do not have to ask permission to enter your home.

Plus, when they are doing it like they do it on Discovery Channel, it doesn't make them any more attractive. Their usual route in to your domicile is through luggage and clothing and often second-hand furniture. Unfortunately the cleanliness of your home is not a barrier – they often move from the Smiths to the Jones via cavities in the walls and floors.

An infestation from a distance can look bad - but not the end of the world.

Take a closer look though and it looks like the aftermath of a battle of Klendathu.

Then they feed on your blood, like the nymph above.  In fact, you can see the blood filling up and swelling its abdomen. You usually don’t feel a thing because they inject an anesthetic so you don’t notice and swat them. So that they can suck to their hearts content they also inject an anti-clotting agent – which keeps the blood flowing nicely.

If you are bitten too often it can create a rash or even eczema. As they like to stay close to their source of food – you – they can be found usually in the seams of mattresses and on furniture around your bed. Often they will live on the headboard, ready to jump you once you fall asleep. The bites are notoriously difficult to diagnose as they look like any number of things.


They are not nocturnal as such but that is when they are most active. When you fall asleep the warmth that you produce as well as the carbon dioxide from your breath attracts them like moths to the proverbial. However, there is some good news – they do not carry disease. So if you wake up one morning with enormous buboes under your arm it is most likely another source.

The females can lay hundreds of eggs, usually at the rate of one or two a day and they can live a long time between a feed, which means you can’t just abandon a bed for a year and then return to it thinking they will be gone. They won’t be. Here is what National Geographic have to say about the issue.



Scientists are not sure why they are making a comeback now. It could be the increase in international travel but it may also be that they have become resistant to the pesticides used to kill them. Whatever the reason, try not and let the bedbugs bite.