Beautiful Animals

boa:





Slow loris:

Neopolitan Mastiff

Like the ice cream.

And of course, my favorite animal....



I love this picture. She was so pissed at me.

actually she looks resigned to it...

cj, Thanks for the gorgeous Belgian shepherd. Drooling over that one.

bella, She doesn't look so much pissed as kinda sad and resigned. Humans. Feh.


Artic hare:





Goanna:





I made this pairing for the express purpose of being able to say, "Hare today, goanna tomorrow." I'm ashamed of myself and will withdraw quietly.

We had three of them over the years, the two males looked similar to that, at least for 10 seconds after we brushed them and before they rolled in rabbit poop.

Roberta, if you can't be silly on your own thread, where can ya be silly??



these guys look other-wordly...



praying mantis

wilma the bulldog

cj, You were a lucky guy to have three such wonderful dogs. Shepherds are truly magnicifent representatives of the species. I especially like the black. Didn't know they were rabbit poop roller-around-inners though. Nobody's poifect. But dogs come mighty close.

Speaking of which, hey region, there's a wonderful and very serious face for you. My cousin had a dog that looked a lot like that. Thought of himself as a lapdog; the other canines in the family were much bigger. Everything is relative.

I agree that mantises look other-worldly. I think I said earlier on this thread that they look like what I think aliens would look like. And the unhappy lot of the Mr. of the species. Life's a bitch sometimes.

I think artic hares are neat..

And this is a cool video of seahorses...
seahorse

Seahorse and sea dragons are wonderful and amazing creatures. I mentioned earlier in this thread that it's the male who is pregnant and has the babies. What a guy!

Can you find the seahorse (sea dragon) in the photo below?





Here's one more isolated:

Caribou's are exquisite; the one's in Roberta's photo are ethereal..

Wow! Pretty.
Did you watch the seahorse video? You can see a male giving birth and all the little tiny seahorse babies.

OK, I just watched it and it went quickly to my favorites...

wonderful.

Osso, I think arctic hares are neat too.

I tried watching the video, Caribou. My video thingie doesn't work too well. I've seen films of the male seahorse giving birth. Contraction. 100 babies. Contraction 100 more babies. Amazing stuff.

There used to be a program on the animal planet (can't remember the name of the show) in which baby animals were shown being born on every episode. Awesome and occasionally nerve-wracking. Moving and occasionally heart-breaking. Never thought about it until I saw the show, but baby giraffes have a long way down and out. Their mother's give birth standing up. The baby falls from the mother to the ground. Maybe six feet or more. What a way to start life.


I did a double-take when I saw this photo. An orange-wattled honeyeater of New Guinea:





Also from New Guinea, a carpet python:

The very name, orange wattled honey eater, may take over in my brain the cellular position of yellow bellied sapsucker...

osso, Nothing can replace the yellow-bellied sapsucker. BTW, I tried to find a photo showing the yellow belly. Easier said than done.

We've had other leopards, but not the elusive snow leopard:





I believe that this is North America's only marsupial--the opossum (and family)