A Thai ad from all the way back in 2005 — ancient by internet standards — for Bridgestone tires. Giving too much away might ruin it for those who have not seen it but I will say this, he deserved better than her. That poodle was a slut.

Dog Suicide [YouTube]

A goblin shark attempts to ward off a scuba diver. Having never seen one of these in motion, the Alien style jaw protrusion came as a bit of a surprise. The translucent skin appears so gauze-like, I half expected them to separate from the shark completely.

Goblin Shark [YouTube]

Freshwater rays? Ha! They’re nothing! Might as well be goldfish for all I care. No, as far as rays go I want something bigger, something meatier. Something like this behemoth.

Caught near Hainan Sanya, China, this massive stingray weighs in at 3300 pounds and measures 16′ 6″ across. The ray, which was caught with a net, took three hours to land. The struggle, unfortunately, killed it. The gargantuan ray was sold for the princely sum of around $1500.00. Stingray meat is a delicacy in many restaurants and the bones and organs are used in Chinese medicine.

Giant Stingray [qq.com] : Weird Asia News

This short film, by Polish stop-motion animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, tells the story of Duffy (known as Fétiche in France). A stuffed animal, Duffy is on a quest to bring his young mistress, sick with scurvy, an orange. It is a quest that will take him through Hell and back. Starewicz was a master of his craft, sometimes employing the use of insect carcasses — their limbs reattached with wax — as puppets. Duffy proved to be one of his most popular creations, and Starewicz featured him in three more films. If you’re a fan of stop-motion animation The Mascot is a must see.

Update: Switched to a YouYube playlist as the original player, located here, kept auto-playing.

The Mascot [YouTube] : MONSTER BRAINS : Fantastic Animation

It’s not that Larry didn’t like the excitement, the traveling, the danger, and the gasps of the crowds; quite the contrary in fact. At the end of the day, however, he was forced to admit that, those perks aside, the sad truth was that the pay was shit, his fellow performers were idiots, and the food was never going to be as good as the food back home, on the savanna. Needless to say, it was not long before his ennui began to creep into his performances.

Wall of Death [vintagephoto]

A promotional piece for Samsung’s new NV24 HD camera. The clip, featuring a safari, yawning lions, “Banana Boat Song”, and some questionable computer animation, teeters precariously on the edge of absurd and insipid just before losing its balance and plummeting into the abyss when the half eaten corpse of an antelope rises briefly from the dead to sing a verse and, perhaps, jiggle its entrails.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Amazing Yawning Lions [YouTube] : Thanks, Brain!

Zeb Hogan, a biologist who is searching for giant freshwater fish as part of the National Geographic Society’s Megafishes project, poses with a 44lb, giant freshwater ray (Himantura chaophraya) caught in the Maeklong River in Thailand. As monstrous as this fish is, Hogan is convinced that there are fish at least ten times larger, having heard stories of “Cambodian fishermen catching rays that weighed over 1,100lb (500kg) with wingspans of 14ft (4.3m).” He admits, however, that in his five years of searching he has yet to find anything quite that large.

The current world record is held by the Mekong giant catfish and Mr Hogan aims to document and protect freshwater giants that weigh at least 200lb (91kg) or measure 6ft (1.83m) long.

[…]

“Of the two dozen or so species of giant fish, about 70 percent are threatened with extinction,” said Mr Hogan, an assistant research professor at the University of Nevada-Reno.

“We’re getting close to the record and I’m very confident that a fish of record size existed,” he said. “The question is whether it still exists.”

Giant freshwater stingray is just a tiddler [Telegraph]

“A pelagic, or open-ocean, octopus gives off a neon glow in Hawaii.”

Translucent Creatures [National Geographic] : Deep Sea News

Perhaps a realization of George Putnam’s apocryphal fear-mongering, Farm Sluts is a short film by director Collin Friesen and starring Cgris Parnell. Made for Fox Searchlight’s Searchlab project, it chronicles the meteoric downfall of a gentleman who unwisely opens some pornographic spam. One guess as to what’s inside.

NSFW: animal junk.

SEARCHLAB / shorts: Farm Sluts [Fox Searchlight] : Laughing Squid

Let’s face facts: the ability to camouflage one’s self by changing color is played out amongst cephalopods. In order to stand out, today’s hip, young head-feet have to look beyond hue and pattern. In this regard the Indonesian Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) — officially discovered in 1998 — is far ahead of the curve; for not only does it possess the ability to change its markings and colorings but it can also mimic the shape and behavior of up to 15 different species of animal, including sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish, brittle stars, giant crabs, stingrays, jellyfish, sea anemones, and mantis shrimp. It is an astounding creature and seeing it in action lets one see just how effective its mimicry is. We’ll see if that crab ever tries that shit again.

The Indonesian Mimic Octopus [YouTube] : poeTV

I think some credits are in order to James Turner, Creator of Beaver and Steve where that image is from.

Comment by Ben — June 24, 2008 @ 3:29 am

I had heard of Beaver and Steve but never read it, until clicking Ben’s link; and I’m glad I did as it is pure, insane brilliance. Make sure to click the image to see the full comic. Oh Weevil Kneevil, you are sorely missed.

The unfeasible adventures of Beaver and Steve [James Turner]

An army of stingrays bears down upon the Florida Keys during their annual migration.

“Sting Ray Migration -Key West Florida” [Pixdaus] : Deep Sea News

Upper Left: bound, Upper Right: melancholy, Bottom: Go forward and forward

Comprised of dark and beautiful portraits soaked in loneliness and scenes of visceral, kinetic violence; Ryohei Hase’s work is almost always stunning. Make sure to check out his deviantART page for high resolution images. His site is somewhat NSFW, mostly for — once again — the appearances of bare, female chest accoutrements.

Ryohei Hase [Artist Site] : deviantART : Design You Trust : ectochat

Heather Longton and Ellen Noble’s first prize winning photograph for a contest held by online shoe emporium, Irregular Choice. I imagine that, moments after this shot was taken, the porcine fellow looked up at the half-clothed nymphet, then promptly dropped his snout and began gnawing her foot off.

The IRREGULAR CHOICE Photography Competition [Irregular Choice] : Digital DJ