3d model comparison: Aurochs cranium versus modern cow. Hiking with these in the landscape would be... exciting.

HT: Searun at Querencia

 Sloth bears! (with excellent photographs)

...it isn’t surprising that this [necrophagous] habit in armadillos has led to various concerns and superstitions: the idea that armadillos might excavate graves and consume the recently deceased is present in several areas, most famously in the Paraguayan Chaco. There are also all kinds of rumours about armadillos being especially abundant, or especially plump and healthy, in or near cemeteries.

An odd tidbit lifted from this longer piece from Tetrapod Zoology on predatory armadillos.

While the story of how they extracted proteins from dental enamel, then reconstructed the DNA, to link this giant ape to orang-utans is cool, the main takeaway is: there were ten-foot tall giant apes and I have missed them by a mere 1.9 million years. O tempora!

War elephants.

Lambing season!

As an aside, the piebald lambs like this flecket are noticeably friendlier. Another data-point for the domestication/neoteny theory.

Shetland markings. Warning: rabbit hole.

Rossetti gleefully reported to William Bell Scott on September 28, 1869 that the wombat had effectively interrupted a long and dreary monologue from John Ruskin by patiently burrowing between the eminent critic’s jacket and waistcoat. This must have been a marvellous thing to watch happen.

 Apparently Rossetti and his circle had quite a thing for wombats.

Triviality: if you can run a 400m in under 60 sec., you are moving as fast or faster than a (British, pre-war) cavalry charge.

Source: Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry, 1880-1918, by Stephen Badsey.

Creating a 'cavalry' tag for this, 'cause you're going to hear a lot more about it.

Extinct gibbon found in Chinese tomb (possibly that of Shi Huang Di's grandmother)

International Buffalo Bodypainting Festival: not false advertising, I'm happy to report!

Dogs poop in alignment with the earth's magnetic field

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

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.”

How was your Thanksgiving?

New jaguar sighting in Arizona

Do cows stand about in line with the earth's magnetic field? Maybe. Certainly an interesting use of Google Earth as a research tool.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Reindeer can see UV light:

"...there are some very important things that absorb UV light and therefore appear black, contrasting strongly with the snow. This includes urine - a sign of predators or competitors; lichens - a major food source in winter; and fur, making predators such as wolves very easy to see despite being camouflaged to other animals that can't see UV."

Biggest bear ever:

A prehistoric South American giant short-faced bear tipped the scales at up to 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) and towered at least 11 feet (3.4 meters) standing up, according to a new study.

The previous heavyweight was a North American giant short-faced bear—a related extinct species—that weighed up to 2,500 pounds (1,134 kilograms). The largest bear on record in modern times was a 2,200-pound (998-kilogram) polar bear shot in Alaska in the 19th century.

Did the immigration of bison from Eurasia cause large mammal extinctions in the late Pleistocene? An interesting line of inquiry, though I'd definitely want to see a good account of the effects of another immigrant from Eurasia, one with two legs, taken into account.

Hat tip: Skolai Images.

Update: Or did it have something to do with a comet shower?

Surprised I missed this till now: Ocelot spotted in southern Arizona.