It's not quite bogus. The recordings are indeed real. However, the composer does seem to have arranged them to achieve the harmony. The post has been updated with the correct information (see above). Thanks for your diligence in researching this and for pointing out the error.

That, at least, you might be right about. Based on the drawing it's clearly identical to a blue jay except for the coloring. I think it's more likely due to what you describe (inability to see the reflected blue light due to the angle) than a mutation or hybrid. We'll probably never know for sure.

@Manticore Pinion -- Uuuuuhhhm, no. All artists use references, and it's quite possible that Ryan Browne did look at a photo reference of a blue jay in profile when creating his sighting sketch. Nothing odd about that. That doesn't mean he traced it. If you clicked on the links to Mr. Browne's work that I put into the post (3 times), you'd see that he is quite capable of sketching a bird without needing to trace. Here it is again, since you seemed to have missed it. http://ryanedwardbrowne.tumblr.com/

Well, that was quick! rc6750, send me your mailing address at mizejewski@nwf.org and I'll get your book in the mail next week after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Nicole is the winner!! Congrats. Send me your mailing address to mizejewski@nwf.org and I'll send your book out next week. Here's more info on the northern short-tailed shrew: http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050012

We have a winner! Dave Busby was the first one to correctly guess that is an Eastern Hercules Beetle. Even better, he got the scientific name AND the gender correct too. Dave, send your mailing address to mizejewski@nwf.org and I'll send you a copy of my book. Here's more info on these cool beetles: http://bugguide.net/node/view/2877 http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/eastern_hercules_beetle.htm

Thanks for your comment Lee. This is a fun, light-hearted blog focusing on odd animal stories, not a hard news site. As I mentioned in the post, I did see the story on several other sites, and while I cannot verify 100% that is true, the possibility of it being so was worthy of sharing it here. As I also mentioned in the post, the behavior the zookeeper was mimicking is certainly a biologically accurate way of dealing with a constipated baby mammal. If it ends up being a joke, that's fair game for this blog too. Should I find out that's the case, I will definitely update the post to make the correction. In the meantime, I hope you can appreciate (the admittedly juvenile) humor in the story.

Thanks everyone for pointing out that Guy Combes is primarily a painter. I've updated the post to reflect that.

Thanks for your comment, Guy, and for going through the effort to document this amazing and rare creature. I think some of the hunting comments are just people being snarky and they're probably unaware of the protections that Kenya provides to wildlife and the punishments doled out for poaching.

Oops - that should be 100,000 acre wilderness! I just corrected it.

Sorry folks if it seemed I was talking down by sharing info about sea stars and gulls. As a Naturalist, I'm an educator first and foremost and part of my job is to dispel myths and misconceptions about wildlife, and I recognized my own "nature-nerdiness." But this is a fun, light-hearted blog that focuses on odd things in the animal world, so I try not to take it too seriously. You shouldn't either.

Coyotes are native to North America, so unless someone released one in Belgium, it's unlikely. If they did, it would be just as much of an "animals in odd places" kind of story. To my eye, this is not a coyote. It's also possible that this is a feral dog. That's harder to know without actually capturing it and really looking at its DNA. Since dogs and wolves are the exact same species, they can look very similar. That said, this animal looks very wolfish in my opinion.

Thanks for pointing this out @Bill Burns. While it does seem that the behavior in this film clip was staged animals do indeed get drunk on fermenting fruit. I'll update the post though to make this point.

@Sonnie: I'm so glad you found my post! Sounds like you've got a lot of fans out there based on all the comments here verifying that you're the real deal. I think that's AWESOME! @Tonya: I wasn't talking mean at all, just curious if Sonnie could truly produce those amazing animal sounds of if it was some kind of special effect.

Sue - Thanks for pointing this out. The accepted common name for this breed is "fainting goats" but you are of course correct that they are not truly fainting. Maybe you could start a movement to change what people call these goats. What would you suggest as an alternative name?

LOL, busted. I just corrected the typo. Sometimes my fingers get ahead of me when I type and I miss it in my proofread. Thanks for catching it.

Hmmmm, there seems to be something wrong with the pink dolphin video. I just checked and the html code is there but for some reason it's not showing in the published post. Stay tuned and we'll get it fixed.

@ignatz - Good questions. There was indeed photography 113 years ago but these apparently the first photos ever taken of this species. That said, people were identifying and classifying species before photography and DNA testing. This is a documented species that is pretty distinctive in appearance, so identification based on just these photos is probably a safe bet. But to be sure a specimen would have to be tested.

Hi Roger - I've updated the post to credit you and included links to your site. Thanks for sharing your great footage!

@Robin, I think you're last sentence sums what's "off" about this nicely. A lot of people have freaked out over the child's behavior, the parents' reactions and the fact that the little girl is shirtless. I actually have no issue with any of these things. If you watch the video closely, the child is simply curious. While she understands that the squirrel is dead and not alive like, say, her dog, she clearly doesn't have any of the negative associations that we are taught to have regarding death. I don't think that's a bad thing. If the squirrel were 5 days dead and the parents let the girl carry it around, that would be sick. But it was fresh killed minutes before, and if it were me I wouldn't worry too much about diseases either. I think it was totally healthy way for the parents to react to the incident so as to not freak out the girl or teach her to overreact to death. As for the girl's lack of clothing, I was surprised that people are so offended over it. Don't all toddlers run around like this in their own homes? Suddenly parents that don't have their small children completely wrapped in clothing all the time have nefarious sexual intentions? That attitude seems crazy to me. That said, going back to @Robin's comments above, I think it's a little weird that they decided to post this video on Youtube for the world to see, judge, and possibly sexually exploit the now public image of their near-naked toddler. The combo of these things was probably not the best judgment, but I can't imagine any of that was going through the dad's head when he recorded and posted the video.

@dogdoc and @KylieAnne - I'm a naturalist, not a vet, so I wasn't aware of the condition of hyperesthesia. While I think it would be difficult to make a diagnosis simply from this short video, everyone reading these comments is better off for being aware that it could be due to a not-so-funny condition. Thanks for sharing. Here is some more information on the condition: http://www.cathealth.com/hyperesthesia.htm http://www.purelypets.com/articles/felinehyperesthesia.htm

@Jenn is correct that one of the big differences between storks and ostriches or emus is that storks are predatory and carnivorous. Ostriches and emus are omnivores and do eat some animal matter, but it's mostly insects and tiny vertebrates. Humans, even with our technology, weapons and large brains, don't ALWAYS have the advantage. Beyond our brains and technology, we're pretty ill-equipped to fight or flee other living things or survive in the wilderness for any length of time (at least those of us living in modern urban environments). Other animals clearly have the advantage over humans in those scenarios. The size of a young H. floresiensis would be well within the size of the normal prey items of this giant stork, and if caught alone, without the protection of adults, it's possible that a juvenile could be killed and eaten by this bird. Of course this is just a theory that, however plausible, needs a lot more evidence to prove it. @Julian, you might be interested to read another blog post I've written about other bird species that fed on people: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-mizejewski/animal-oddities-birds-tha_b_797815.html