A while back ago, I was accused (admittedly not without some justification) of always focusing on the negative. But atheists, skeptics, freethinkers don’t always focus on the negative. I think that it’s where we have a lot to say and to talk about, but it isn’t everything about us. No, an atheist’s life is not all beer and skittles.
We see the awesomeness too. So, starting today, I’m going to try and focus on some good things, some amazing things… brought to you by the universe.
Today, I’d like to show you something near and dear to my heart…
This gorgeous animal is a so-called King Cheetah. It’s not even a sub species though. Just plain ole Acinonyx jubatus. The coat markings are a recessive trait that only appears in southern African populations.
I love cheetahs, I’ve always loved cheetahs. They only look like wimps compared to lions and leopards, but watching them run is poetry in motion. These are very powerful animals.
The current thinking is that there was a massive (almost total) die-off of cheetahs about 10,000 years ago. The population is extremely homogeneous. In fact, skin grafts from one animal readily take on any other animal, even if they are from different continents. That being said, some additional research is showing that there is some diversity, so they aren’t totally in danger from disease.
Another interesting tidbit is that juvenile males will often form small packs (2-3 individuals, usually related) and hunt and live together for quite a while.
Here’s another awesome and mostly unknown critter.
Just looking at it, you can tell it’s not a dog or a cat… and you would be right. But it looks like some weird ass mixture of the two. It’s neither… indeed, it’s not even a felid or a canid.
It’s a member of the family Eupleridae (which tells you everything, I know). The family has ten species in seven genera and all of them live on Madagascar. These are mostly small carnivores and very closely related to mongooses.
This picture is of a fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox). Here’s your Latin lesson for the day. Ferox means fierce or wild. Crypto means hidden. Procta… well… that’s a little more delicate (ask a guy… or better yet, don’t). Procta means anus. This animal is literally called “fierce hidden anus”. There’s a little pouch that hides the anus. This thing has all kinds of weird genitalia related features.
These are all threatened and only live on that one island.
