Cheering-up Quoll, Sea Kraits and the launch of ThePet Info Club

Hello. Good morning and Welcome (back) to Weirdbeautiful...
In place of a cheering-up bird today we have a "cheering up quoll".(Image by "Leonard G" -a public domain image).

I never know whether to be ashamed as a zoologist each time I discover the existence of an animal I had never previously heard of, or just impressed at evolution's creativity, or both... Anyway, the quoll is one such animal: having languished for 32 years in ignorance of its existence, I was recently enlightened, as a consequence of an interview I did with Prof Rick Shine of Sydney University. An Australian and Papua-New Guinean marsupial, it is a small carnivore, that sometimes lives on the ground and sometimes in trees and a relative of the much better known Tasmanian Devil. The reason why this animal was remotely relevant to the interview was that they are- apparently- unusually vulnerable to the poison of Australia's cane toads and, unfortuantely for all concerned, also inclined to eat the toads.

There's more information on this problem- and a Sydney University- run project to train quolls to avoid eating the poisonous cane toads in an article in Australian Geographic, here-
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/quolls-in-danger.htm

Actually, as the article explains, the work quoted is part of a project headed by Prof Rick Shine. My interview with him will be published in the September edition of Practical Reptile Keeping Magazine- for some reason, the magazine is always a month ahead of itself, so the "September" issue is actually on sale throughout August, rather than September. In the interview, Prof Shine talks about Cane Toads, his work conserving Australia's rare broad-headed snake and his work on Fijian sea kraits.

The other, related news is that the writer, editor and leading petcare expert David Alderton (editor of Practical Reptile Keeping magazine) has now launched an online forum, website and webstore call PetInfoClub dealing with all manner of pet-related things. You can find Pet Info Club [HERE]