• Question: What is your favourite animal? (Be imaginative)

    Asked by buzzers to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Buzzers, It would have to be the haggis. The haggis is a three-legged beast that can only survive on the hills of Scotland and is celebrated in this famous hunting song.

      The haggis season has begun
      All over Scotland every gun
      Is taken down with loving care
      Though some prefer the haggis snare
      For haggis are a wily lot
      That’s why they are so seldom shot
      “We’re the haggis, aye, hooray;
      We’ll live until next Hogmanay”

      Its flying upside down and low
      The guns all fire, but they’re too slow
      And though it’s rather old and fat
      It’s awfully hard to hit like that
      And as it flies off in the mist
      Great hairy clansmen shake their fists
      And scream their curses to the crags
      And stamp on empty haggis bags
      And so the haggis gets away
      To live until next Hogmanay

      “We’re the haggis, aye, hooray;
      We’ll live until next Hogmanay”

      The only ‘real’ preserved specimen of a haggis is in the kelvingrove gallery in Glasgow:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Haggis

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Here are the most imaginative animals I’ve ever seen. This is fantastic.

      I think it’s gotta be the duck-billed platypus.

      Ever since I was little I’ve thought they were brilliant.

      One of the funny things about them was when explorers brought a dead one back, I think to the UK, and no one believed them that it was real. People accused them of chopping up other animals and sticking them together!! I suppose it does look like that, but still.

      Then when I did evolutionary biology at university, I found another cool thing about them.
      They’re a kind of left-over from a whole big group of mammals that have mostly died out; called monotremes – mammals that lay eggs!

      The only other species of mammal that are still around are the echidnas. Also in that link there.

      They’re just amazing – so secretive, but I think one of Attenborough’s programmes (or another famous wildlife documentary series, I forget – if anyone knows, tell me!) recently managed to film them in their nesting burrow.

      Very cool, weird creatures.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi buzzers. Tigers are so beautiful and cleaver yet ruthless when needed and it is this contradictory character I find really interesting. I think if they were humans, I think they would Scientists!! (only joking!!):)

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Tough choice buzzers. It would have to be a toss-up between a cockroach, a three toed sloth and a tribble.

      I don’t think tribbles count as they are fictitious! (Mystified? Google “tribbles and star trek”).

      I threw in the sloth because it’s cute, and I rather like the idea of hanging around all day with nothing much to do but munch leaves and move around incredibly slowly! Plus they are also a rather unusual and unique animal.

      But my favourite at the end of the day has to be the cockroach – a masterpiece of evolutionary development, and an incredible survival “machine.” You know the saying “the meek shall inherit the earth”? Forget it – it’ll be the cockroaches 🙂

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