CREATURE FEATURES - Animal & Pet News, Clues and Views

Creature Features features creatures and more... as time goes by we'll look at news, reflect on views, and generally muse about animals, pets and their owners, and who's to say which is which?

When Joseph Merrick (the "Elephant Man") stridently shouted "I am not an animal! I am a human being!", did he inadvertantly infuriate our furry friends? When David Byrne of Talking Heads sang "Animals think they're pretty smart," was he also inferring that "Animals think! They're pretty smart!"?

Questions for the ages to be sure, but our longstanding and ongoing fascination with pets and animals of all sorts remains remarkable regardless of rhymes or reasons. We hope you enjoy these posts for their own sake and for the sake of the subjects. (image via Gilbert Shelton, © Rip Off Press, Inc.)

Portable Pet Stairs Help Furry Friends Get On & Off Your Furniture

by Creature Features

The Pet Stairs Slope from Japan's Iris Plaza was designed to help pets safely navigate the oft-difficult journey from floor to sofa and back. What's that you say? You didn't know the vast chasm separating floor and sofa instills within your pet a sense of indescribable dread? Well then, you're a bad pet owner and you should feel bad!

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Extinct “Scissorhands” Fossil Arthropod Named After Johnny Depp

by Creature Features

A half-billion year old fossil of a previously unknown lobster-like creature has been given the name Kooteninchela deppi in honor of actor Johnny Depp. The small but formidably clawed ancestor of many modern insects, spiders and crustaceans possessed a fiendishly spiky set of claws that immediately reminded researchers of Depp's well-loved film character, Edward Scissorhands.

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Bird-Flavored Ice Cream Is Cheep & Delicious!

Bird-Flavored Ice Cream from Japan's Torimi Cafe

by Creature Features

A Japanese small bird festival decided to add a little “taste” to the visitor experience by creating and selling ice cream specially formulated to evoke the flavor of sparrows, parakeets and cockatiels.

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Instagram + Cats = Nyanstagram!

by Creature Features

Inspired by Instagram, the popular online photo-sharing and social networking service, Nyanstagram allows users to digitally filter photos of their cats and share them with others on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking services.

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Chinese High School Student Finds A Rat Head In His Fried Rice

by Creature Features

“There's a rat in mi kitchen, what am I gonna do?” If you're UB40, you make a record. If you're a Chinese high school's cafeteria worker, you simply shrug, slice and serve it up with rice.

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Cat Sushi Combines Japan's Two Favorite Obsessions

by Creature Features

“Neko-Sushi is an extremely unusual life-form consisting of a cat on top of a portion of sushi rice” according to Tange & Nakimushi Peanuts of Japan, creators of a deliciously cat-tastic website & gift shop.

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Celebrate The Cicadas' Return With Cicada Earrings From Japan

by Creature Features

Cover your ears, the cicadas are coming! Hundreds of millions of Brood II Periodical Cicadas are about to emerge from their 17-year-long slumber along America's east coast. If that sounds good, you (or your Mom) might as well look good as well by sporting a pair of snappy cicada earrings.

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Radioactive Goldfish Found In Ohio Nuclear Plant

by Creature Features

A pair of goldfish found swimming in a lemonade pitcher is no big deal, unless the fish were radioactive and their pitcher was discovered inside the restricted-access steam tunnel of the Perry Nuclear Generating Station near Cleveland, Ohio.

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The White Cat: One Man's Tale Of One Tough Tomcat

by Creature Features

“There goes the toughest, most independent cat in the neighborhood,” observed one dog-walking neighbor as he watched Pikachu regally stalk across his front yard. He was absolutely right – though technically a pet, the small white cat with a short dark “haircut” was the unchallenged Top Cat in the 'hood.

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Giant Pandas Traumatized By Giant Chinese Earthquake

by Creature Features

A devastating earthquake in China's mountainous Sichuan province not only shattered human lives, homes and area infrastructure, it left dozens of endangered Giant Pandas at the region's panda centers shaken in more ways than one.

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