Rose Cat's Rambles

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Alcadia viridis, a nerite snail, Macaya National Park, southwestern Haiti, Hispaniola
Photo by Eladio M. Fernandez
The Silent Sliders (many more photos of various snails and similar animals)

( nine more pics, all child/work-safe; a snake, some bugs and a spider, but they’re cute as hell, I promise )

Because you know how bunnies are.

…OK, I admit it. I just couldn't stop! (Because, y'know, BUNNIES.)

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From this article about the Easter Bunny and the holiday’s origins: What Does the Easter Bunny Have To Do With Easter?

( twenty-one more pics, seven GIFs and five embedded videos; all are child/work-safe )

One of these went to Darrell Issa, who unfortunately is the U.S. Representative for my district.



( relevant cartoons )

This is Monifa, which means "lucky," at three weeks of age. She was born at the Taronga Park Zoo, but it was a difficult birth, and her mother was having a hard time of it afterwards, so Monifa was hand-raised.



( two more videos )

Also posted to splodefromcute.

Today I got an email newsletter from the San Diego Global Wildlife Conservancy, regarding Bai Yun's sixth cub, born at the San Diego Zoo on July 29 2012. (My initial post about it is here).

The cub is a month old now. Its sex can't be determined yet and it is still unnamed. (In accordance with Chinese tradition, pandas don't get their names until they are 100 days old.)

( Pictures and videos behind the cut )

My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves, books by Jean Craighead George, were among my favorites in childhood. I did not, however, know at the time about her lifelong closeness to the natural world. I’ve never read her memoir about her family’s experiences with the many wild pets they kept. (The animals were free to leave at any time, and eventually most of them did.) I’m surprised that my father never introduced me to the book, given the wild pets he'd had in his youth.

I was going to write further about her with quotes from her obit, but it’s a fascinating article and I wouldn’t know where to start. So I’m just going to post the whole thing here.


From The Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2012:

Newbery award-winning children’s author
BY VALERIE J. NELSON

( An owl who regularly took showers with family members was the subject of his own book. )