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Animated humor with a river cat, fish and frog! Thanks for viewing.

Chemical allegedly found in FBI-led search can cause muscle paralysis in humans ~~~~~ A Lake in the Hills man was charged Monday with possession of a powerful neurotoxin found in species of puffer fish and octopus after agents with the FBI-led counter-terrorism task force raided his home. Edward Bachner, 35, was charged in a criminal complaint with one count of illegal possession of tetrodotoxin. He was arrested Monday and appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney in Rockford and was being held pending a detention hearing Wednesday morning, authorities said. Tetrodotoxin is an extremely powerful neurotoxin that in...

With Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings set for Joe Louis Arena on Saturday night, angst over one of the postseason's biggest controversies continues to linger in the Motor City: The NHL's decision to ban octopus twirling on the ice. Tossing octopi on the ice has been a Detroit hockey tradition dating back to 1952, and longtime arena operations manager Al Sobotka has been whipping around cephalopods to whip Wings fans into a frenzy since 1991. But back in the first round of the playoffs, the NHL vowed to hit...

Posted by George James Malik April 19, 2008 08:29AM According to the Free Press's Helene St. James, the NHL has banned Al Sobotka's classic twirling of octopi at Joe Louis Arena: April 18, Detroit Free Press: Just a little tidbit from Joe Louis Arena: The NHL has decided octopus twirling doesn't fit in with league image, or something to that effect. The Wings have been told by the league that if Al Sobotka (or anyone else) twirls the octopus that's thrown onto the ice before playoff games, it'll cost the team $10,000. I know opposing general managers have complained of...

Octopus sex is simple, dull and quick - at least that's what scientists used to think. Instead, it turns out to be complex, sophisticated and rife with petty rivalries.In the most detailed research ever conducted on this topic in the wild, UC Berkeley biologists focused on the mating behavior of the Abdopus aculeatus, one of more than 300 species of octopus. They were stunned at what they learned."The main surprise was the fact we had this idea that they were completely solitary, with interactions few and far between," said Christine Huffard, lead author on a study recently published in Marine...

SAN FRANCISCO - Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex. The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be. The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology. They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs...

A squid-like creature, rescued from a Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority deep water pipe filter, swims in a fish tank Wednesday at the facility As denizens of the deep go, it isn't very intimidating. But local scientists are nevertheless fascinated with the tentacled creature that was sucked up to the surface Tuesday by the 55-inch deep sea pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority. "It's kind of an 'octosquid,'" said Jan War, operations manager at NELHA at Keahole Point. "It's got the body of a squid but the eight tentacles of an octopus." The foot-long "octosquid" was...

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. (AP) — Questions have multiplied since police began their investigation into the weekend shooting of a disbarred lawyer and his wife, who lived on the same cul-de-sac as former President Clinton. Police said Tuesday that 58-year-old Carlos Perez-Olivo's story of a mysterious roadside ambush that killed his wife and left him wounded is "unusual-sounding," and have not ruled out the possibility he had something to do with the shootings. No arrests have been made and police said the lawyer was permitted to leave Northern Westchester Hospital late Monday. He apparently returned to his home on a Chappaqua cul-de-sac....

This video is absolutely AMAZING. See if you can see the camoflaged octopus. His disguise is PERFECT! Click HERE to watch the video.

A giant Pacific octopus that attacked a remotely operated submarine off north Vancouver Island could have been senile or maybe just peckish, a marine biologist said Wednesday. "Large male octopuses in the last part of their lives become senescent, or senile," said Jim Cosgrove of the Royal B.C. Museum. "They get to be like humans, doddering old fools that have inappropriate behaviours such as being out in the daytime," said Cosgrove, an expert in octopus behaviour. The attack occurred Nov. 18, 2005, off Brooks Peninsula, on the northwest coast of the Island. The submarine was 55 metres deep and Mike...

Octopus seen walking on two legs like a human   VIDEO   By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Octopuses, known for using camouflage to avoid predators, have been observed apparently trying to sneak away by walking on two arms while pretending to be a bunch of algae. Two kinds of octopus were seen to use different ways of walking along the sea floor, researchers were reporting in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The movements were discovered by Christine L. Huffard of the University of California, Berkeley, who was studying underwater video camera tapes of the...

SETE, France (AFP) - Armed with a high-pressure hose and a bucket of octopi, hundreds of protestors in this Mediterranean town pelted a McDonalds restaurant due to open this week with the slimy seafood. Between 300 and 500 people gathered on the banks of the Sete canal, across from the fast-food outlet, playing music and yelling anti-junk-food slogans across the water, as police barred them from reaching the restaurant itself. Aiming the hose across the water, they catapulted fresh octopi -- a local delicacy, known here as the "pouffre" -- towards the town's first McDonalds, which had been set to...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- It was a May-December romance that really had legs: Young Aurora, a female giant octopus and her aging cephalopod suitor J-1 were thrown together for a blind date seven months ago by aquarists who hoped the two would mate. By all appearances, their fling was a success, and Aurora began dribbling long strings of eggs down the sides of her tank the following month. Though her sweetheart died of old age in September, the pitter-patter of tiny tentacles seemed close at hand. But those tens of thousands of eggs remained pearly white with no signs of...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- During the latest season of excavations of the northern gate of Takht-e Suleiman, an ancient Zoroastrian fire temple located in northwestern Iran, the stamps of two seals were discovered which indicate that objects entered Takht-e Suleiman from other regions with special tags attached to them which seem to be advertisements. They signify that an early form of advertising was being practiced during the Sassanid era (224-642 C.E.), Yusef Moradi, the head of the excavation team, said on Friday. “The team began its excavations in early August and found the stamps of two seals at the upper levels...

Secrets of an ancient Persian armada sunk off the coast of Greece 2500 years ago are being dredged up by modern archaeologists. A team from Greece, Canada and the United States has just completed a second expedition to retrieve artefacts from 300 ships of the Persian King Darius that were wrecked in a storm off the Mt Athos Peninsula, northern Greece, in 492BC or 493BC. Aucklanders will be among the first to hear the results today when three of the expedition leaders present their findings in a free public lecture at Auckland University. In two trips so far, last October...

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Scientists said on Wednesday a huge mass of slimy flesh that washed up on a Chilean beach last week may be a rare type of giant octopus or just discarded whale blubber. European zoologists contacted by the Chileans to help identify the 40-foot-long (12-meter) piece of gelatinous tissue said it closely resembled descriptions of a bizarre specimen found in Florida in 1896 that was named "octopus giganteus" and has confounded experts ever since. Other informal sightings of similar deep-sea creatures by fishermen and divers from the Bahamas to Tasmania are the stuff of folklore on the...

Always check it's dead. Like these are Always check your food is dead before you tuck in. A man from South Korea probably wished he hadn't eaten a live octopus that ended up killing him.The 62-year-old Seoul resident liked eating live octopi for some strange reason - perhaps he had a death wish.The diner covered the squirming dish in vinegar and red pepper paste, but it still continued to struggle. Thinking it was on his last few legs, he stuffed the octopus into his mouth.But this little blighter was a fighter who decided to use its tentacles to push...

Giant Octopus Dredged Up Off New ZealandMarch 27— WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have identified what they believe is the largest octopus ever seen, a 13 foot long giant hauled from the depths near New Zealand's remote Chatham Islands. The dead specimen, caught in a trawler's net, was badly damaged but it was clearly a massive animal, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)marine biologist Steve O'Shea."It would easily have been four-plus meters in total length and a weight of 70-75 kg (154-165 pounds), if not more -- it's a very big octopus, the size of a fully mature male...