Odd & Amusing Eco News From Around the Globe


Don’t Eat That: How do you keep the critically endangered northern quoll (a marsupial) from eating toxic cane toads? Shower its habitat with toad sausages that make the quoll nauseous, deterring it from eating the poisonous invasive species. Read more: The Times (UK); Journal of Applied Ecology; www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html


Bubble Gum Prom: A Iowa teen is taking the “bubble dress” to a whole new level: Elizabeth Rasmuson made her dress, and her date’s vest, from Wrigley’s gum wrappers. Now that’s some innovative recycling.

In the Nose: A new species of leech seems to prefer living up the noses of people and animals. So what do you name such a creature? Tyrannobdella rex, which means tyrant leech king. These suckers have been around for a long time, AMNH’s Mark Siddel told the BBC: “Some ancestor of our T. rex may have been up that other T. rex's nose.” Read more: PLoS One.

Monkey Diaries: The mystery monkey of Tampa Bay—a rhesus monkey that’s been eluding Florida officials for the past year—has been caught on video for the first time. We’re still jealous of his gowing number of Facebook fans: it’s climbed from 50,000 to 73,000 since we last wrote about it three weeks ago. Damn monkey. Everybody loves a rebel.

Tall Tale: Today, Big Jake is officially being named the world’s tallest horse. The Wisconsin-dwelling, nine-year-old Belgian gelding stands just shy of 6’11”, nearly three inches taller than the previous Guinness World Record holder.