Newly discovered sarcophagi of the Chachapoya, fascinating archaeology in a spectacular setting.

Via the excellent Bones Don't Lie.

How to coax a bullfrog into winning the Calaveras County jumping competition? Mimic a predator, of course.

Oarfish in California!

What to do next time you're bored on a plane? Take 15th-Century Flemish-style self portraits in the lavatory, of course!

Holy moly! An earthquake in Pakistan just created a new island! It's a small island, but still.... Now that I'm living in a place where I can see fault scarps cutting our very small and young alluvial fans, this makes my flesh crawl a bit.

Functioning mechanical gears found in insects

Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrews subsist on "a diet roughly equivalent to 100 percent beer".

The first color photograph of red sprite lightning

This is one righteously pissed off birder. Odious and Peculiar heartily approve!

Hat tip: Chas.

What it's like to be swallowed by a hippo

Also, sweet justice: Houston teen who found himself with a slew of severe injuries after the ashes from the cigar he was smoking mixed with the “combustible mixture” in his pocket while he and a friend were going to “blow up turtles.”

Pagan wild men of Europe: they remind me a bit of Kachina costumes in this neck of the woods. More here, though you'll have to navigate within the site on your own: look for Wilder Mann.

Via Chas, of course.

A scale-less Antarctic fish with gin-clear blood

Just because: Glacier Dragon!

Hence.

Images of a giant squid in its natural habitat! Who says there's no good news these days? They did it by means of near-infrared light: beautiful images of a beautiful animal, even if it's just a little one.

De Montaigne invents craigslist.