I Fondly Remember the Disgusting Smell of Sugar Crisps cereal...

Did you enjoy the Super Bowl this year? I have never been a huge  TV sports fan but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it this time around. I am normally one of those who watch the big game to discover the new commercials. The only ad that truly caught my attention this year, was the Budweiser commercial featuring the heartwarming story of the horse who recognized his first owner. It shook my childhood memories and reminded me of a long lost furry friend I once had...

The next morning, I went on a wild goose chase all over the house to find two old Polaroids. I am not sure if I kept them in an album that I left at my parent's house up in Canada, or if they moved with me and are still buried somewhere in the unopened moving boxes since this past summer...I still haven't found them, but I will keep looking.

These two photos were the only ones I had of happy kiddie me holding my puppy named Chico. Back when I was four or five, we lived in a triplex apartment complex with my parents, brother, grandmother, two uncles and an aunt in Longueuil city. While we didn't seem to be crammed enough, one of my uncles brought home two German Sheppard pups. They named them Chico and Mino.

I barely had any toys growing up. These puppies were the best thing I ever got to play with. Chico was my favorite pup. He had a little mole on his left cheek and had the softest look on his eyes, as if he worried whether I was ok. He had this compassionate head tilt and and a soft, constantly concerned frown where his brows would be, if he had any. I found so much comfort in him and we bonded so greatly.

Barely a few weeks later, on a school morning, I woke up and realized in horror that both puppies were gone. My parents decided we were overly crowded in the apartment and that they required too much attention.  I wished they warned me ahead so I could hug Chico goodbye. I was so sad but I wasn't allowed to display my anger and sadness to anyone. Because I was only a child, I was ordered to just accept their decision and move on. And so I did.

I did a pretty good job at letting him go. But whenever someone poured themselves a bowl of disgusting Sugar Crisp cereal, I was reminded of Chico. I started hating that cereal a little less since Chico was gone as they reminded me of him. With his bionic dog ears, he would run up to the kitchen before they even had time to finish pouring their milk. I hated the smell of those cereal, which reminded me of roasted coffee beans, back then. Now, I'm sure I would get a little teary if I smelled them again.

Many years later, while I was working at my parent's store, the one in the Villeray neighborhood, a huge German Sheppard dog ran into the store, followed by a middle-age man. The dog ran without hesitating around the counter and jumped on me and licked me. This wasn't uncommon though, and most dogs would do that whenever they came into the store. Perhaps my father would give them treats. But this dog was different. He was persistent and kept on kissing my hands and thighs with his snout, and stared right at me. And then, I saw a mole on his right cheek. " Could it be you, my Chico?". I quickly chased that thought and was too shy to ask his owner anything. When they left, the dog dragged his paws and didn't seem to want to leave and his owner whistled and said " Come on Chico! Let's go buddy!". It was such a happy and sad moment at the same time. I am almost 100% certain it was him....

Phalllic Fish

An interesting article about the fish with its genitals on its head...(I can't find a more appropriate time to call something a dick head... *chuckles*).

Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world

Species: Phallostethus cuulong
Habitat: surface waters of the Mekong River in Vietnam

The male fish, a Phallostethus cuulong just 2 centimetres long, weaves between drifting vegetation in the sluggish waters of a canal. He closes in on a female, swims alongside her and tries to mate with her.

But to an outside observer, he seems to be doing it wrong. His head is right next to the female's, but he's at a 45-degree angle so his rear end is well below hers. Sounds misguided, but actually he's doing it exactly right – it's just that his gonads are on his head.

This is the challenge faced by all priapiumfish, a little-known group of Asian fish that have their reproductive organs on their chins, just behind their mouths. How does this Cronenbergian arrangement work?

Phallic fish

P. cuulong is only the 22nd known priapiumfish, which are named after the ancient Greek fertility deity, Priapus. They all belong to a family calledPhallostethidae and live in south-east Asia.

The new species was discovered in July 2009 by Koichi Shibukawa of theNagao Natural Environment Foundation in Tokyo, Japan. He saw one swimming alone in a canal near the Mekong River in Vietnam, and managed to catch it in a net. Working with colleagues at Can Tho University in Vietnam, he realised it was a new species.

Male priapiumfish don't have a penis like humans and other mammals. Instead they have a unique organ called a priapium, which faces backwards and looks like a muscular nozzle. It's actually a modification of the fish'spectoral and pelvic fins.

The priapium of P. cuulong has two attachments, both of which look frankly dangerous. At the bottom near the tip, there is a forward-facing serrated saw, or ctenactinium. Further forward, right under the head, there is a forward-facing rod called the toxactinium.

Machinery of love

No one has seen P. cuulong mating, but based on observations of other species it's likely that the saw and rod are used for grasping the female during mating. One goes on either side of her head, holding her still while the male transfers his sperm.

To help with this, the priapium tends to be shunted to one side. The six maleP. cuulong that Shibukawa found all had theirs on the right: other species tend to be left-priapiumed, or a mixture of the two.

The system seems to work. The oviducts of female priapiumfish tend to be stuffed full of sperm, so pretty much every egg gets fertilised.

Why, evolution, why?

We don't know why priapiumfish evolved their peculiar gonads, says Lynne Parenti of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

They belong to a big group called the Atherinomorpha, which includes many other species with modified fins that transfer sperm. In most cases, like guppies and splitfins, it's the anal fin that's modified. The priapiumfish are a variation on this theme, Parenti says.

It's not just the reproductive organs that are attached to the priapiumfish's head: so too is its bottom. The fish's anus is on its priapium, slightly forward from the genital opening. Its guts perform a U-turn to reach it.

"There's not much going on at the back of these fish," Parenti says.

Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. ~Ben Williams

Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative  ~ Mordecai Siegal

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me, they are the role model for being alive. ~ Gilda Radner

The dog is the only animal that has seen his god. ~Author Unknown

My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am  ~ Author Unknown

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.  ~ Roger Caras

The most affectionate creature in the world is a wet dog.  ~Ambrose Bierce

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.  ~Author Unknown

Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies.  ~Gene Hill

Sweet Roxie, our furry friend, you will be missed. I hope you will find millions of happy treats, yummy bones and larges fields to run around in dog heaven.  Rest in peace little Roxie. You lived a nice long happy life and were very well loved. :*(

Need Coffee =D

I was watching an episode of the Planet Earth documentary with my honey when these bighorn mountain sheep appeared.

Me: "Look at those poor sheep! They look so tired and beat up with their eye bags! They look like they did not have coffee!"

My husband: "They didn't. "

And his response made me laugh so much. So simple but it's the type of subtle humour that he injects in our daily life that keeps the passion going and brings so much joy into our lives. I love my husband!

Patriarchal Fish...The Amazing Story of a "Pimp" Fish :) (A very interesting read)

by Michael Marshall

Species: Labroides dimidiatus

Habitat: laying down the law on coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific

If someone has committed a serious crime, most people agree that they should be punished more harshly than if they had committed only a minor misdemeanour. That way, people will be deterred from doing anything really heinous, like molesting children or talking at the theatre.

But this idea that the punishment should fit the crime isn't universal. Humans practise it, and some other animals also punish their fellows for bad behaviour, but until now none has ever been seen systematically varying the severity of the punishment.

Now it turns out that one animal does punish just like a human: the bluestreak cleaner wrasse. But their carefully nuanced punishment of "cheats" is really an elaborate plot to oppress their females.

Reef salon

These tropical fish are one of many species of cleaner fish that remove parasites such as lice from much larger fish. The clients get a valuable service and the cleaner fish get food. Local fish may visit the cleaners every day, and even wide-ranging beasts like sharks will occasionally drop in.

Bluestreak cleaner wrasse have small home territories called cleaning stations. Each male maintains a harem of around 16 females dotted around his territory, who help him service his clients.

These clients recognise cleaner wrasse by their small size and the blue stripe running along their sides. The cleaner wrasse stroke their clients to cement the relationship and ensure that they don't attack them.

Mmmm, mucus

But the wrasse have a serious conflict of interest. Although they will eat parasites off their clients, they actually prefer to eat the clients' mucus. As a result, they are tempted to take a bite out of the client – despite the risk oflosing its custom, or even being attacked.

Nichola Raihani of the ZSL Institute of Zoology in London and colleagues reported last year that male bluestreaks punish their females if they bite a client. Deprived of future foraging opportunities, the males chase the females around and try to bite them. In response, the females refrain from further misbehaviour.

Raihani has now found that the males chase offending females for longer when their crime is more serious. She presented captive pairs with artificial "clients" – actually plexiglas plates – that carried two pieces of prawn, which the wrasse love, and either four or eight fish flakes, which they don't like as much. If either fish ate the prawn the plate was taken away, but they could eat as much fish flake as they pleased.

When the female ate a piece of prawn from a plate that had eight fish flakes – thereby depriving the pair of all those fish flakes – the male chased her more than if the plate had only four fish flakes. When a second eight-fish-flake plate was offered, females who had experienced this severe punishment were less likely to eat the prawn.

"Harsher punishment makes them cooperate more," Raihani says. The males must somehow be judging the seriousness of the females' crimes and punishing accordingly, something no other non-human animal has ever been seen doing.

The system may sound just, but it is actually systematic sexual oppression.

Feminism for fish

All bluestreak cleaner wrasse are born female. The largest individual in a given area changes into a male and dominates the remaining females.

That means each male is under constant threat from his attendant females. If one of them manages to grow bigger than him, she can change sex in just two days and potentially take over his territory.

For a female to grow bigger than her male, she needs to eat more than him. So taking chunks out of client fish could work well for her: she gets a particularly nutritious meal, but her partner gets nothing because the client fish leaves in disgust.

Accordingly, Raihani found that males were more likely to dole out harsh punishments if their partners were a similar size to them. Such large females would have been on the cusp of changing sex, so the males controlled their behaviour more strictly.

For bluestreak cleaner wrasse, fish mucus – the illicit eating thereof – is a feminist issue.

Eating like a sparrow :P

A sparrow decides that it is too hard a flight to go south in the winter and refuses to migrate when the other birds leave.

Winter sets in and finally gets so bad that even the sparrow realizes he needs to head south. But he is no sooner in flight than ice forms on his wings and he falls to the ground. There on the cold, hard ground he is freezing to death until a cow comes by and flops on him. The warmth of the cow's droppings began to warm him up and he feels so good he jumps up and starts singing. The farm cat hears him and pulls him out of his messy condition, cleans him up and eats him! The morals of this story are:

[1] Not everybody who craps on you is your enemy.

[2] Not everybody who gets you out of crap is your friend.

[3] If, and when, you do get out of crap keep your mouth shut!

That hamster...What a ham! ;)

Last week, I caught up with a good old friend from high school. She was that kind of friend who saw magic and created magic wherever she went. She sees people in a way that no one sees and saw me when I wouldn't dare look at myself in the mirror. Being a teenager was hard, but Elyssa made it easier for me to see what was in front of me. Passion. Magic. Dreams.

She is such a free spirit and I've always been inspired by her positive and warm energy. I think she was the first kindred soul I have crossed path with. As I was unraveling my current life hurdles and frustrations, and disappointment in certain people, she put a light on my foggy thoughts and gave me those kind words of wisdom: " When you don't understand someone, just think of that person as a hamster. Another entity, or creature so different from you that you cannot have any expectations anymore. They do what they do because they are hamsters. It is in their nature. That is all. " So I now see my world filled with hamsters....and as a wombat, I must sit back and embrace the marvels of Mother Nature....

Bear Claw Cookies

There may be a very cold week-end coming ahead with chances of snow, but this cute overload of mommy polar bear love makes me all warm and fuzzy (they also make me write all weird because they are TOO CUUuuuute!). Cocooning is the word of the week-end and let's all snuggle and stay warm. :)