# Fav animal? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 27, 2005, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904 "2005-01-27T13:02:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/41 "2005-01-28T17:30:00Z")
Foxes and wolves. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mint\_Julep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc79bd/32.png) [@Mint\_Julep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mint_Julep)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/42 "2005-01-28T18:36:41Z")
Kitty Cats! ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/43 "2005-01-28T19:22:50Z")
> [@Mint Julep](#): > > Kitty Cats! Giant Anteaters When I was a girl, there as a giant anteater at the Philadelphia Zoo that was kept in an enclosure that was a fence about three feet high. I reach over to pet it, and it put it’s head up and put its nose near my coat sleeve. It ran it’s tongue all the way up my arm till it tickles my armpit. I’ve been a fan ever since. Plus they’re really cute. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/44 "2005-01-28T19:26:27Z")
> [@Kat](#): > > Cats (up to and including tigers, even). Wolves. And Dragons. Oh, I thought we were talking real animals. Well, dragons, too. For D&D people: Faerie dragons, psuedodragons, bronze dragons, and silver dragons. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/45 "2005-01-28T19:57:13Z")
Real animals: Cats. Especially ocelots and snow leopards. Mythical animals: Western dragons. ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/46 "2005-01-28T20:28:29Z")
Horses. The Wonder Pony spent his 20th birfday (Monday) trying to buck me off. Dogs, all dogs, especially the OES. Monkeys, especially chimps. And elephants. But the bestest are horses. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/47 "2005-01-28T21:25:43Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > So, I chose a hippo. I now own tons and tons of hippo stuff (including some really cute ones). > > Zev Steinhardt Hippos are awesome animals, but “cute” is not one of their noticeable traits. They are responsible for more human deaths a year then any other mamal, are very territorial, have a foul(down right vogon like) temper and enjoy using their head as a battering ram against small boats. So if you want a 1.5 ton guard dog on steroids - hippos are the way to go; for cuteness consider a panda or a dolphin. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/48 "2005-01-28T21:51:03Z")
> [@Jinx](#): > > It’s a little known fact… > At the National Zoo, it was explained that panda bears have a sixth digit which is similar to our posable thumb! This alows them to plop themselves down and munch on bamboo in an almost human-like manner. That’s why they seem so cuddly, too…as they sit upright like a teddy bear! - Jinx 🆒 My posable thumb is a _poseur_: right now it’s sitting in a cafe on the Left Bank in Paris, wearing a beret and black turtleneck, sipping Pernod and chain-smoking Gitanes, and gesticulating wildly while talking loudly about Sartre and Camus. Sorry. Actually, it’s “opposable” thumb - because you can oppose it to the rest of your digits. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/49 "2005-01-29T03:18:18Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Oh, I thought we were talking real animals. Well, dragons, too. > > For D&D people: Faerie dragons, psuedodragons, bronze dragons, and silver dragons. Hey, no one limited it to real animals! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/50 "2005-01-29T03:34:07Z")
Cows! Especially ones with big horns. And the shaggy ones from Scotland. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/51 "2005-01-29T03:40:00Z")
[Miniature donkeys](http://www.littlefriendsranch.com/Danilo2.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/52 "2005-01-29T04:07:41Z")
[Tardigrades!](http://www.museums.org.za/bio/tardigrades/) They’re just so utterly cool. Tardigrades have a neat trick of going into stasis when times get tough. When the environment dries up, they go into “tun” (like, wine cask) form. They stay that way until they come into contact with water again. They can stay in their protected static state for _over a hundred years_ and _go right back to normal_ with no trouble afterwards. (They can last a lot longer than 100 years in tun form, according to one guy I know. He claims to have seen 250- or 300 year-old tardigrades in tun form go back to merrily swimming around after hitting a droplet of water. He was helping to curate a bunch of Jamaican fern specimens collected during Jamaica’s early colonization, when some tiny white dot things fell off the leaves and landed on a droplet of water sitting on the lab bench. Upon examination with a microscope, the tiny white dot things turned out to be tardigrades in tun form, and they did indeed revive when dropped into water. Amazing.) They can also withstand really low temperatures (up to 0.05K–no, I’m not making that up), some pretty high tempertures (150 C, IIRC), immense pressures(something like 1000 atm–I’m not making that up, either) and absurdly high doses of X-ray radiation when in tun form. They’re really kind of cute when seen under a scope, besides. And they have these outlandish, science-fiction-ey claws on each of their eight tiny feet. And they’re all around us! Got an old fencepost outside? Well, unless you live in a bone-dry desert, you’ve got tardigrades. What’s not to love? ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904/53 "2005-01-29T18:55:49Z")
Oh yeah, [Mini Herefords](http://www.falsterfarm.com/sale_barn/images/nan_mo_back_rub.jpg) are a cool kind of cow too. And that mini donkey was so cute! I love farm animals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fav-animal/286904.md?page=2)