My thanks need to go to Mark from Australian Migration – This was his contribution to one of the possible reasons for the ultimate demise of those cute, green dinosaurs. If you have a theory, why not submit a joke on the Submit a joke page and I’ll have a crack at drawing it. I’m targeting 50:0!
You might recall an earlier Doug Dung Beetle post which explained that there are 3 types of dungs beetles – roller (Doug), tunneller and dweller (Doug’s cousin). Well for a bit of Friday fun, I thought it was time to have another poll. Tell us what you think – just click your choice, then hit the vote button – easy!
[polldaddy poll=6214557]
Yes, this might look familiar to some. It made its debut appearance in the March Freebie.
What? You missed the March Friday Freebie – well don’t worry, here’s the link again. And while you’re at it, how about giving the Freebie page a rating? Feel free to give it a 5 star stellar rating!
While drawing this cartoon I was reminded of my favourite cartoonist as a child – Jeff Hook. His cartoons appeared daily in the local newspaper and were topical and political – not that I was interested in that part. It was having to find that teeny-weeny little hook he always hid in his cartoons. Our school teacher used to cut it out from the paper and stick it in a scrap-book for us all to look at daily. He still works too (born 1928), but officially retired. You can see his old and new cartoons by checking out his website
What – you haven’t heard of the latest competition?
Well, if you’re feeling funny (funny as in ha, ha, not strange), have a go at the May cartoon caption competition
It was time for some new aliens – evil ones – dressed is hot pink with bright purple feathers and a cigarette hanging half out their mouth.
And did you know Jupiter is a giant gas planet? I used to think all planets were just giant rocks, some with water if you were lucky like earth. Jupiter is made up predominantly of hydrogen (about 90%) and helium (9%) with a few sprinklings of some other elements.
And for those scientifically minded people out there, I know there are some errors in science within the making of this cartoon, but hey, that’s what’s great cartooning is all about – bending of the truth!
So, here’s the puzzle for the day. I can think of 2 obvious scientific errors – can you guess what they are? (I’ll post the answer, next time I post the adventures of these two new characters)
During adverse conditions, such as drought, snails have the ability to sleep for long periods of time. Perhaps the better description is that they estivate (the summer equivalent to winter hibernation).
The Cambridge Natural History 1895Â compendium cites an incident involving the ‘sleeping’ of snails. Whilst travelling in Egypt a Mr. Vernedi discovered a bush covered with snails. He plucked a few and decided to keep them in his desk drawer. Â Somehow, four years later, two of them ended up in the British museum, alive and kicking (or should I say ‘alive’ and ‘slipping’).
Although I have used the poor lemming in a few cartoons now, it would be remiss of me not to do my bit for this adorable little rodent and put an end to the myth that lemmings have a predisposition to jumping off cliffs. Well, it’s just not true.
The origin of this misunderstanding is believed to have come from the Walt Disney 1958 animal documentary White Wilderness. Filmed in remote Canada, where lemmings are nowhere to be found, producers decided to bring in some imports for filming purposes. To illustrate the cliff plunge scene, a group of lemmings were pushed via a rotating platform, forcing them to run off a small cliff into a river, and so the myth began. Apparently the movie didn’t suggest it was a mass suicide attempt, but rather a migration undertaking, but the myth still remains today.
And now for 3 things you mightn’t know about Chuck:
- On his 25th birthday, Captain FitzRoy named a mountain in honour of Charles. Mt Darwin is the tallest mountain in Tierra del Fuego (in the Andes). And if that wasn’t enough, a year earlier FitzRoy had named an expanse of water next to the then unnamed Mt Darwin, the Darwin Sound, to commemorate Darwin’s quick wit and courage. He saved them all from being marooned when giant waves created from a mass of ice split from a glacier and loomed towards their boat.
- Darwin created a pros and cons list to help him determine if marriage was the right thing for him to pursue. Apparently it was, with one of the ‘pros’ for marriage ‘Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow’
- Taking the latter point into account, this may be why he decided to keep marriage within the family. He wedded his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood (as in the fine china manufacturer).