Liz Langley

Still trying to catch up with blogging! But I'm so glad I get to look at  Animal Valentines: 5 of Nature’s Best Flirters  at the moment. I need a cheer-up and nothing cheers me up like Pedrita. At least I'm pretty sure this is Pedrita. Pedrita is the poster girl for a new behavior in a group of bearded capuchin monkeys who has decided that throwing rocks at boys you're interested in is a good way to get their attention. You can read more about them in the story - Pedrita is responsible for the bulk of the rock throwing and the very sight of her cheers me up. I shared the capuchin story with a girlfriend who said "Why do they do it? Do they hit them with rocks and then use that as a reason to comfort them?" I love how different her take was than mine, which was "Oh really? I don't have you're attention yet? WHAM!  HOW SEXY AM I NOW?" Check her out: the windup before the pitch.....atta girl....

Now that I'm pushing 50, my friends who had kids are watching them leave the nest. But far from making me feel weird about not having a kid of my own to unleash on the world, it made me realize  I'm 100% sure I made the right decision in not Xeroxing myself. My Alternet story 9 Reasons Not Having Kids is the Best Decision I Ever Made tells at least a little bit of why. This is the first time I've returned to my columnist/commentator roots and done a non-science/weird animal story in awhile and it was really fun. Hope you enjoy it! PS: I know it's a terrible recording but the only kid I could ever imagine having was Azrael Abyss (Chris Kattan's character on SNL's Goth Talk . Remember Goth Talk? Tampa Bay Public Access presentes...) :)

LOTS of comments on and interest in my NatGeo story  Strange “Fairy Rings” in Seafloor Explained  about rings on the sea floor of the Baltic Ocean - click the story to see how they got there!

Yes, Chinese New Year was about six weeks ago! But I'm playing blogger catch-up and besides, even though the holiday has passed if you were born in the year of the horse you're still a horse, of course, of course! So what do you have in common with real horses? Check out my post on NatGeo:  Chinese New Year 2014: What Do You and Horses Have in Common?

How did they miss an elephant? How did I  miss this  elephant? Due to moving and a few other circumstances I'm waaaaaaaaaay behind in my blogging and am trying to catch up starting with my post  Elephant Photobombs Tourists: How’d It Happen?  on NatGeo. It's a fantastic picture and a nice story (and one of the ladies in the photo, Deb Sulzberger, even left a comment and emailed for a subsequent Weird Animal Questions post ). It's one of my favorites and yet I neglected to post it, which just goes to show you that anyone can miss almost anything.