All you beasts wild and tame Bless the Lord

Male beluga whale mimics human speech

SAN DIEGO (AP) — It could be the muffled sound of singing in the shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets' Swedish Chef.

Surprisingly, scientists said the audio they captured was a whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human that divers initially thought it was a human voice.

Handlers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego heard mumbling in 1984 coming from a tank containing whales and dolphins that sounded like two people chatting far away.

It wasn't until one day, after a diver surfaced from the tank and asked, "Who told me to get out?" did researchers realize the garble came from a captive male Beluga whale. For several years, they recorded its spontaneous sounds while it was underwater and when it surfaced.

An acoustic analysis revealed the human-like sounds were several octaves lower than typical whale calls. The research was published online Monday in Current Biology.

Scientists think the whale's close proximity to people allowed it to listen to and mimic human conversation. It did so by changing the pressure in its nasal cavities. After four years of copying people, it went back to sounding like a whale, emitting high-pitched noises. It died five years ago.

Dolphins and parrots have been taught to mimic the patterns of human speech, but it's rare for an animal to do it spontaneously.

The study is not the first time a whale has sounded human. Scientists who have studied sounds of white whales in the wild sometimes heard what sounded like shouting children. Caretakers at the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada previously said they heard one of the white whales say its name.

Link:

• Male beluga whale mimics human speech

Koala surprises canoeists by hitching ride in Australia

(BBC)  A group of canoeists on Australia's Gold Coast were surprised over the weekend to see a koala swimming near the bank of a river and even more shocked when it crawled into one of their canoes and hitched a ride.

Although it is not unknown for the marsupials to take to the water, experts believe the animal might have felt trapped on a tidal bank in Tallebudgera Creek and decided the canoe was its best way to escape.

Link:

• Koala surprises canoeists by hitching ride in Australia

Robins: The Perfect Murder Machine

The 10 weirdest new species of 2012

A mushroom named after SpongeBob, a sneezing monkey, and a blue tarantula top this year's list of Earth's most bizarre residents

(The Week) Rainy days are downers for the newly discovered Rhinopithecus strykeri monkeys, who start sneezing at the slightest drizzle. 

It's estimated that Earth is home to at least 8 million living species, and every year scientists add 15,000 to 20,000 new discoveries to that tally. But thousands of species are threatened with extinction, too, thanks to habitat destruction, climate change, and other factors. For the past five years, in an effort to bring attention to the biodiversity crisis, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University has worked in conjunction with biologists worldwide to cobble together the newly added animals and plants they find most interesting. More than 200 organisms were nominated, but only a few were selected. In no particular order, here are this year's 10 strangest additions to the world's living things:

1. The SpongeBob SquarePants mushroom

The Malaysian mushroom that "lives in the rain forest, under a tree" is nearly as strange as its Nickelodeon namesake, says Wynne Parry at LiveScience. The resilient fungus, known scientifically as Spongiforma squarepantsii, can be squeezed and wrung, but still returns to its original form.


Photo: Thomas Bruns

2. A monkey that sneezes when it rains

This strange-looking monkey has black fur and a white beard, with a stubby, upturned nose that causes it to sneeze whenever it's raining. "To avoid inhaling water, the monkeys supposedly sit with their heads tucked between their knees on drizzly days," says LiveScience's Parry.

Photo: Thomas Geissmann/Fauna & Flora International

3. A walking cactus

At first glance, the newly discovered but long-extinct organism looks like a small, two-inch cactus. But Diania cactiformis is actually a worm-like arthropod with a hard exoskeleton and multiple legs, and may even be an ancient ancestor of modern spiders and crustaceans.

Photo: Jianni Liu

4. The Devil's worm

These tiny 0.02-inch long worms were discovered nearly a mile inside a South African gold mine — the deepest a multi-cellular organism has ever been found, says Thomas H. Maugh II at the Los Angeles Times. "It was named Halicephalobus mephisto from the Faust legend because it survives at high pressures and temperatures."

Photo: A.G. Borgonie, Ghent University, Belgium; Scanning electron microscope (SEM) image, face view of H. mephisto

5. An orchid that only blooms at night

In Papua New Guinea, a rare orchid named Bulbophyllum nocturnum opens up around 10 p.m. and closes early the next morning. As far as experts know, it's the only nocturnally blooming orchid.

Photo: Andre Schuiteman

6. A parasitic, egg-laying wasp

This tiny Spanish parasite, Kollosmosoma sentum, is constantly on the prowl for ants. In a blink-of-the-eye sting that lasts just 1/20th of a second, the wasp is actually laying eggs into the ants' abdomen. (Watch a video here.)

Photo: C. van Achterberg 

7. A blue tarantula

What's furry, has eight legs, and is blue all over? This "breathtakingly beautiful" iridescent tarantula from Brazil — the first creature from the country to ever make the list.

Photo: Rogério Bertani/ Instituto Butantan

8. A high-altitude poppy

The rare flower named Meconopsis autumnalis looks like an ordinary yellow poppy. So what makes it special? The flower only grows in the thin-aired mountains of Nepal, well over 10,000 feet above sea level.

Photo: Paul Egan

9. A meaty millipede 

The Crurifarcimen vaganas from Tanzania is 6.3 inches long and boasts 56 pairs of legs, making it the world's largest millipede. Researchers have dubbed it the "wandering leg sausage" thanks to its uncanny resemblance to the tubular meat product.

Photo: Brovad

10. A kite-like jellyfish

This "strikingly beautiful but venomous box jelly" was first sighted in 2001, but has become increasingly prevalent around the globe. Over 300 entries were submitted in an online competition to name the translucent species before the name Tamoya ohboya was officially selected. Presumably, the name was inspired by the yelps ("Oh boy!") uttered by victims of the jellyfish's sting.

Photo: Ned Deloach

Link:

• The 10 weirdest new species of 2012

Pets With Newt

Inspired by the many supporters and volunteers “with Newt” who bring their pets to our campaign rallies and events, we’ve launched “Pets with Newt”!

Are you a pet owner with Newt? Share a picture of you and your “pet with Newt” today...

See Pets With Newt

• Pets With Newt 2012
• Newt Gingrich Facebook Page

Animals with a Sense of Humor

h/t to Kendall Harmon at the TitusOneNine Anglican blog

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Here Comes the Circus

Animal

You Are Animal

A complete lunatic, you're operating on 100% animal instincts. You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you're downright scary. But you sure can beat a good drum. "Kill! Kill!"

h/t to Tara

Put the Lime in the Coconut