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Category: Animals

By The Generalist Posted on November 8, 2021November 7, 2021

Hybrids of lions, tigers, jaguars, and leopards

You’ve probably heard of the liger and the tigon, offspring of a lion and a tiger together. But what about tiguars, tigards, liguars, lipards, jaggers, jaglions, jagupards, leogers, leopons, and leguars?

Categories: Animals
By The Generalist Posted on October 29, 2021October 28, 2021

The origin of green

A billion years ago or longer, a photosynthesising bacterium found its way into a proto-plant cell. The bacteria and the cell became symbiotic, each helping the other to survive and thrive. All land plants today are descended from that chance meeting.

Categories: Animals, Plants
By The Generalist Posted on October 20, 2021January 25, 2023

Let the buyer beware of magic stones

The famous legal phrase caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) entered common law because of a 17th century dispute over a magic bezoar stone.

Categories: Animals, Early modern history, Europe, Health & medicine, Politics & law
By The Generalist Posted on October 11, 2021October 9, 2021

The blob from the stars

The 1958 horror film The Blob was inspired by a real event in 1950: a close encounter between four police officers and a star jelly.

Categories: Animals, Film & television, Plants
By The Generalist Posted on October 4, 2021January 25, 2023

Animal helmets

The Vikings may not have worn horned helmets, but the ancient Greeks had helmets covered in boar tusks and the Dayak of Borneo had helmets covered in fish or pangolin scales.

Categories: Ancient history, Animals, Europe, Fashion & design, Military, Southeast Asia
By The Generalist Posted on September 29, 2021January 25, 2023

Castaway rabbits and cattle

Rabbits and cattle were introduced to a remote island near Antarctica as food for shipwreck survivors; they bred there in isolation for more than a century.

Categories: 19th century history, 20th century history, Animals, Oceania
Norwegian cow
By The Generalist Posted on September 24, 2021September 23, 2021

Cow magnets

If you’re a bovine veterinarian, one of the tools in your arsenal might be the cow magnet.

Categories: Animals, Health & medicine, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on September 17, 2021September 16, 2021

Sheep fruit

Behold the fabulous creatures of myth and legend! The dragon, the phoenix, the basilisk, the roc, the unicorn… and the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary?

Categories: Animals, Early modern history, Medieval history, North & Central Asia, Religion & belief
By The Generalist Posted on September 15, 2021January 25, 2023

The ant in the devil’s garden

Within the extraordinary biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest lie circles of a single tree species – the devil’s gardens. And these pockets of uniformity are created by ants.

Categories: Animals, Plants, South America
By The Generalist Posted on September 13, 2021September 11, 2021

Llama berserkers

According to animal breeders you should avoid bottle-feeding baby llamas, because when they grow up they might go berserk.

Categories: Animals, Food & agriculture, South America
By The Generalist Posted on August 30, 2021August 29, 2021

Hedgehog flavour

In 1981 Phillip Lewis released potato chips flavoured like roasted hedgehog. In 1982 the UK government prosecuted him for false advertising because the chips did not contain real hedgehog.

Categories: 20th century history, Animals, Europe, Food & agriculture, Medieval history, Politics & law
By The Generalist Posted on August 20, 2021August 19, 2021

Battle queen bee

Queen bees emerge from their cells with a war cry and proceed to murder competing queens. But when she’s old, she’ll either leave the hive or be killed by her own workers.

Categories: Animals
By The Generalist Posted on August 19, 2021August 19, 2021

The horseback kissing game

The Turkic sport kyz kuu involves a man, a woman, two horses, a kiss, and a whip.

Categories: Animals, Games & sport, North & Central Asia
By The Generalist Posted on July 23, 2021July 18, 2021

The gannet’s dive

Gannets have evolved some very strange adaptations that make them some of the best divers in the natural world.

Categories: Animals, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on July 15, 2021July 13, 2021

Vegetarian spider

Bagheera kiplingi is unique amongst spiders: it’s a vegetarian.

Categories: Animals, North & Central America
By The Generalist Posted on July 6, 2021July 5, 2021

Left snail

The shells of almost all common garden snails coil to the right. Almost all.

Categories: 21st century history, Animals, Europe, Health & medicine

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