h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This animal is really beautiful Willem. I gather they have been pretty well studied, by naturalist who are nightowls. These and hydrax are two of my favourite animals.Thanks for sharing them with us.

Hi and thanks Elektra! I hope to be having many mure cute and weird beasties for you and everyone else! I wonder how many active field naturalists still exist in this country these days? However much we know about any living thing, there are probably many things we still need to figure out about it. I would like to know more about the evolutionary history of the Springhare ... and its closest relatives. I often wish I had a time machine specifically for investigating animal and plant lives of ages past *in the field*. That's why I invented (just in my imagination) the Time Zep.

Odd beastie from Europe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19260705

I thought you'd find it interesting evolutionariy.

Hi Elektra, thanks for that link! Desmans are really cool, I do hope they manage to conserve them properly. There's a kind in Russia as well. Over here in Africa we also have a similar thing ... though it is more closely related to elephants than to desmans! It's called an otter shrew, here's a picture:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/6924672517_6783b02b20_z.jpg

There are only three species, two of them quite endangered. They too must have a very interesting evolutionary history, because they are found on the continent of Africa but their closest relatives are the tenrecs which are only found on the island of Madagascar.

Those are cool too. Thanks for sharing them. They are a sight. lets hear is for animals!