Coral Snakes and the Fart of Death

By D. Filipiak

Coral snakes are poisonous snakes. They’re also small and pretty quiet. So how can the snakes warn other creatures not to mess with them?

By farting. Check it!

When provoked, coral snakes make a popping sound by expelling air from their cloaca, a single opening for the urinary, reproductive and intestinal tract, to startle the threat.  Scientists disagree about the behavior's purpose. Some have speculated that it is a mating call, but Gemano said that in his research, the fart was always associated with an aggressive-defensive behavior.

It's very important that you read this story from "Iceland Magazine"

Here's the lead—finish the rest of it here!

Shampoo made of cow urine based on an old Icelandic tradition 

Icelandic entrepreneurs are now marketing shampoo with cow urine as one of its ingredients. Women soaking their hair in cow urine was a common practice in Iceland for centuries when soap was a far fetched luxury. It was believed to work miracles on the hair, leaving it revitalised and shining. 

The new hair soap is called Q Shampoo (Q literally sounds in Icelandic like the Icelandic word for a cow “kú”).

Happy Sunday!

Wow, language can be so . . . fun.

In Swedish and Norwegian, a 'tappen' is the plug by which the rectum of a bear is closed during hibernation.
— The OED (@OED) April 22, 2015

Steve Irwin was cool

Let's learn about birds!

From a correction in the New York Times:

And that's the sweet truth

Via Christina H.

out of all the things we eat that were barfed up by other animals honey is my favorite

What the heck?! Who could be responsible for this?

Hey, want to buy some dinosaur poop? (It's botryoidal!)

As readers of The Big Book of Gross Stuff know, coprolite is fossilized poop. How did it get fossilized? It’s really old!

For example, that long dinosaur poop above is between five to 34 million years old. What laid it? Dunno. We just have the poop. But it was almost certainly a dinosaur. (I mean, that thing IS over a yard long!)

What’s weird is that people buy coprolites. And this one is actually for sale; below is its auction description.

ENORMOUS AND RARE COPROLITE

This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of dinosaur feces ever to be offered at auction. It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow coloring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length. The passer of this remarkable object is unknown, but it is nonetheless a highly evocative specimen of unprecedented size, presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40 inches in length overall.

Estimate $8,000-10,000

UPDATE: This may be a fake! (Or what one writer called a "faux-poo.") 

Nature documentaries are the best

Via.

Headline of the Day

Via Motherboard.

"This newly discovered fish has an anus behind its head"

Headline of the Day

There's an orb-web spider known as Cyclosa ginnaga has a unique survival mechanism. It looks like bird poop! And guess who eats bird poop? NOBODY. (Discovery News)

Best in Show! (Tarantula Division)

The British Tarantula Society had its annual spider show... and look who this year's winner was!

Yep, that Socotra Island Blue Baboon tarantula is a real keeper. How do I know that? Well, as the article states, an award-winning tarantula “should have a full, glistening coat, an alert, active demeanor, correct proportions, and bright coloring. The legs—all eight of them—should be upright and perfectly poised. The abdomen shouldn't show signs of overfeeding but be lean and rounded.”

Also? RUN AWAY—GIANT SPIDER!