Tag: Animals

Sick as a Dog

Have you ever wondered where the expression “sick as a dog” comes from? I mean do dogs just get sick more often then people? I don’t think this is the case because every time I see a dog it looks fairly healthy… you know for a dog. Or do dogs just get extra sick when they do get sick? Having never owned a dog I may never know.

Bare Feet no More!

So as I was walking out to bring in groceries today, and what should I run into, but a dog. Yep, a big brown dog just staring at me. So I started to go back inside but the dog was following me. Now here I got in a bit of a pickle. Because I didn’t want to try to go inside, and have it follow me, and I didn’t want to stay outside with what might be a stray dog (there are a couple in our neighborhood). To make matters worse I had no shoes on, so even though it looked friendly, if it attacked me I couldn’t kick it, and have it bite my foot. Luckily, Nicholas came out and told it to shoo, and it was friendly so it left. Still, I have resolved to wear shoes from now on.

Toads in Florida

So a couple days ago Nicholas was taking out the trash and he called us out to show us something. As it turns out it was this very large toad.kimg0603

We all watched it for a while, and were really quite impressed with this small rotund creature. The funny thing is, though this toad was fairly large, it was just an ordinary toad. We had frogs in Ohio by the dozens every year, and took little notice of them. Then when we moved to Florida we thought the lizards were quite the novelty. I had never seen a lizards in person before we moved to Florida, because they could not survive the winter in Ohio. Now we think nothing of the lizards and think frogs are a novelty! However, lizards do still freak out Mom  if they get in the living room.

Opossum VS. Possum

The answer to the question I never knew existed.

 

Have you ever seen a small rodent like animal playing dead and wondered “is that a possum or an opossum?” Neither have I, quite frankly I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as an opossum until we made our fourth comic book. Turns out those funny rodents that play dead are  opossums and the differences don’t end there.

 

Opossums Possums
Habitat in colder climates like North America Habitat in subtropics primarily Australia
Omnivorous Mostly herbivorous, rarely omnivorous
Hairless tail functions as a

fifth hand

 Bushy tail helps to balance

possum
Thumb-like toes on all feet Thumb-like toes on back

feet only
Play dead Don’t play dead
Long faces with elongated snout Flat, round faces
Lifespan of 2 to 4 years Lifespan of 6 years
Gray or white fur Tan to brown fur

 

 

This whole confusing situation started when a gentleman named Sir Joseph Banks saw the possum in Australia and assumed it was in the same immediate family as the opossum. Little did he know that the two species’ only similarity is that they’re both small rodent like marsupials.