9/24/2003: Ugly-ass Cuban mammal not extinct

Happy Wednesday! No, this isn't an animal shot, because this is not the real animal. This is a stuffed model of it. And I wouldn't dare bring this out on a Friday. Come on.

This is an "almiqui". It was thought to be extinct, but then a Cuban farmer found one. They brought it out to study it for two days (and I guess to help build this model) and returned it to its habitat in the eastern mountains of Cuba.

During the daytime, they say, it burrows underground. It only comes out at night when it can forage for insects.

And because it's so nocturnal, people never see it, and so they thought there were no more.

Or so the schoolchildren had hoped. Now they have to live with the idea that this thing might, just might, be coming out of its hidey-hole, late at night after they've gone to bed, poking through the darkness for some flesh it can rip open with its snarling gnashy teeth. Did you feel its little snout poke you? Boo!

Only one Cuban vermin uglier than that one:

Scale this up 10x and you've got the next really nasty Star Wars beastie.

Kudo's UT. That's a winner in the fugly catagory, for sure.

Looks a little bit like the West Australian Quokka (found only on Rottnest Island), except not as fierce looking as the one pictured. This little critter would send shivers up a little kids spine.

I think at some point in time - I dated this........

sure that isn't a genetically altered neutria?

ELSPODE- "Internet Mental Health".....hmmmm. I'm calling 'oxymoron'

You may say it's ugly, but somewhere this creature has a mother.

The practical thing about this guy, if you have one as a pet, you'll always have a bottle opener handy.

I know a lively fellow
Who is really quite unique
He's small and smart and yellow
With a rodentlike physique

He doesn't play the cello
And he never deigns to speak
He's the Strong Man's Leporello
And they just call him <A HREF="http://www.homestarrunner.com/sneakvideo.html">The Sneak</A>...

Damn, Mrputter. It IS the sneak.

aside- Enjoyed the pictures on your websight of UAE.

The Sneak..... how strange, but fully anyway.