African Pygmy Mouse; Mongolian Pygmy Hamsters...

JUST NOW I have cleared out my robotrotters' tiny toilet, the Italian Grated Hard Cheese (ie own brand Parmesan) tube latrine with washing-up liquid and lots and lots of water.

This I rinsed out into my own toilet's cistern until that was brimful with bubbles and yet the fresh water running out was foam-free and clear. It took a lot of rinsing...

Now the Trotters are glaring at me suspiciously and rambling 21 to the dozen on their wheel. Not even Baby Itchy will go into the latrine tonight (where she has been known to sleep on occasion ~ tawdry little swine that she is!) ~ it is too clean for them all and they do love scent-marking. My squealy observations, "you smell like a wee-wee!" are taken as compliments, pink ears and pink little noses all a-twitching...

Gazing at these ovel furries from on high, I see they are hammy equivalents of hatchback cars. A stubby of build and a little too short-looking for their own good. Makes me wonder how they ever balance, though they do. And their rotundness of body never stops them pinging about like crazy...

It is, after all, the Chinese year of the Tubby Hamster. In Vietnam they've gone so very crazy with the new trend of pet hammykeeping that the Communistic national government has actually banned these pets, saying such verminous face-pouched mini-rats do nothing for the good of society (what about shining the sunlight of joy with their nocturnal entertainment escapades~??) and harbour only diseases and fleas...

(These are the 2/3-of-a-rat-sized Syrian maxi-hamster, the traditional tubby so many of us kept in schooldays.)

I saw Woody, my personal wild Woodmouse again this evening. Pinging along the pavement and scurrying into a bush.. The European woodmouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, has bigger, poppier eyes than the common housemouse (mus musculus, the common housemouse, also the common white labmouse beloved of testers-on-animals worldwide and the same species as the "fancy mouse" of varied coats and colours so popular as a pet in times not too long past...) Woody Woodmouse has perkier ears and a droplet, rather than a bullet-shaped little body; and his natural coat is a chestnut mouse rather than the duller, more greyish mouse of the house mouse. To my eyes Woody appeared enormous ~ almost the size of a rat. But then again everything of the rodent persuasion appears enormous now I'm so fully roborovski-ized. Roborovskis are the smallest of all pet rodents, the tiniest (not to mention quickest and most highly-strung) of all hamsters. The African Pygmy Mouse is one of very few rodents who is actually smaller than the roborovski. In fact African pygmy mice are the tiniest rodents in the world... yet even these are no shorter in body length than a fullgrown robbie. They are only smaller because they're far, far slighter of build than the oval-tubby robo. You can watch one timidly testing a tidbit of cheese below...

VIDEO:
African Pygmy Mouse ~ the world's tiniest rodent ~ Nibbling Cheese. 4 or 5cm in length, these are just a little shorter than the 5cm/2in-long roborovski hamster. Being far thinner, however, they're far lighter and slighter than the tubby roborovskis.



Another mouse-like critter has hit the headlines of late thanks to a scientific study on its drinking habits. The Pen-Tailed Tree Shrew. This is a tropical tree shrew, who seeks out alcoholic beverages in the form of fermentingly ripe berries by sniffing out their yeasty aromas, scuttling up to the groaningly over-ripe bush-bar and squatting on it's branches where he laps up the goodness with his tiny tongue until he has imbibed the equivalent of nine glasses of wine in human terms... Scientists are intrigued: how on earth does such a tiny furry hold his drink so well..?!?

VIDEO 2:
Sinead O'Connor: This is a Rebel Song (live)
This is one of my favourite Sinead vids.
(Ignore the title, btw, if you don't know it: this is NOT commie protest music, it's a song about being in love yet unable to share feelings... both nationally and personally...)



Food blog of the day: Debrueil Family Cookbook debreuilcookbook.blogspot.com