Firstdogonthemoon presents the Animal of the Day

Monthly Archives: October 2008

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

October 30, 2008 – 2:57 pm

  I am supposed to be making a video for Crikey today as it is two Thursdays since the last one (David Speers being mean to a toilet roll – Classic! 3192 views thankyou very much). I have many subjects I could deal with and many ways to deal with them and nothing is coming [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Feral thingies, Foxes | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (5)

Potato Cod (Epinephelus tukula)

October 26, 2008 – 9:20 pm

So what is it like to be on the telly? Weird. My recent appearance on Talking Pictures (ABC1) with the erudite and devil-may-care Mike Bowers was fun but decidedly odd. And annoying since they cut out all my good lines! Like the one about Julie Bishop either being a bunny rabbit or a Zombie Queen, [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Fish, Potato Cod | Tagged , , , | Comments (6)

Burrowing Bettong (Bettongia lesueur)

October 22, 2008 – 5:02 pm

I have been sent a lovely photo by a Russian woman who wants to marry me. It is of a Burrowing Bettong (also known as a Boodie – but if you get one, don’t shake it! LOL Boodie joke!!).    That first bit is not entirely true. This photo was sent to me in an [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Bettongs, Marsupials | Comments (3)

Gilbert’s Potoroo (Potorous gilbertii)

October 19, 2008 – 10:14 pm

This wee beastie is really really endangered. There is a bunch of marupials that are in serious trouble. I get quite depressed about anything becoming extinct, but marsupials especially. There was a time when I was concerned that we might have been losing something important to humans every time we allowed a species to drift [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Marsupials, Potoroos | Comments (4)

Gigantic Long Beaked Echidna (Zaglossus hacketti)

October 13, 2008 – 10:21 pm

This particular Echidna lived during the Upper Pleistocene era which was millions of years long and ended just over twenty thousand years ago. It was about a metre long, apparently the size of a sheep. How marvellous! A giant echidna! What were they thinking? The Upper Pleistocene era in Australia is characterised by a cornucopia [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Monotremes, Prehistoric thingies | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

The Spotted-Tailed Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus maculatus)

October 9, 2008 – 7:30 pm

Also known as the Tiger Quoll, this particular Quoll resides in bush and dense coastal heathland from Queensland to Tasmania. Or at least it did. It is the largest native carnivore left on mainland Australia not including Julie Bishop, Zombie Queen (whose diet is mainly limited to scavenging human brains from the corpses of those [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Marsupials, Quolls | Tagged , , , | Comments (7)

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)

October 5, 2008 – 8:00 pm

  The greatest bird of all time. I’m serious. If you think you can come up with a better bird than the Sulphur Crested well then good luck, you will need it… but you can’t can you! No!   Best. Bird. Ever. Destructive, charming, opinionated, bitey, long lived, cranky, ridiculous, screechy bird. Hooray! They make [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in Cockatoos | Tagged , , | Comments (7)

Green Tree Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina)

October 1, 2008 – 10:35 am

I have the flu.  I got it from my friend who came on holiday with us. She is very nice but she gave me the flu. There are these excellent ants on the tree outside dad’s front door. And they build this amazing nest, and they use their larvae like tubes of glue! No, really! [...]

By Firstdog | Posted in ants | Tagged , | Comments (8)