"The idea that there might be arboreal voles is not that radical – after all, tree-climbing and tree-dwelling are all over the place within muroid rodents – but what’s especially odd about Arborimus is that it’s only the females that live in trees; males (while capable of climbing) live in subterranean burrows or in piles of vegetation. In order to meet up with females (who might be 30 m up in the trees), the males do of course climb, and they also build nests in trees during the mating season (this lasts from February to September). Nevertheless, it seems that we have a fundamental difference here in how males and females partition the habitat. Is this reflected in their morphology? I don’t know, and I don’t know if anyone else knows..."

-Darren Naish waxing astonished re. obscure, freaky voles (The tree voles under discussion live in Oregon and California, which I didn't know before today.)

 TIL - Apparently, Northwest native languages picked up their words for house cat from kitty-calling sounds:
Nimiipuutimt (Nez Perce): picpic ('c' goes 'ts')
Lushootseed (Snoqualmie): pišpiš
Chinook Wawa: puss'-puss

Contrast Shoshone languages, which seem to have simply grabbed the English: kedi, kiidi, kaattu

If you like this sort of thing, here's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? in Nimiipuutimt.

Washington, man... where cattle rustling is white-collar crime.

Exhibit A:

Cody Easterday, has admitted to a scheme in which Defendant [Easterday] has falsified records and submitted fictitious invoices in order to defraud Plaintiff [Tyson] out of more than $225 million. Among other things, Defendant has manufactured documents in order to hide the fact that it was reporting to Plaintiff approximately 200,000 cattle that simply did not exist

Exhibit B: 

A newly filed federal lawsuit alleges WSU researchers stole blood samples and trade secrets used in a proprietary genetic test to rate the beef tenderness of cows prior to slaughter.

Re. the latter I will note that the term "Callipyge Gene" is really wasted in being applied to tenderness of beef.

 

 For all you liguistomasochists out there: Tongue twisters in Klallam, a Coast Salish language from Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Click on them for sound.

Here's a map of Klallam toponyms if your interests that way tend.