1. Chicks

In China, a chihuahua named HuaHua has adopted a chick. For whatever reason, the dog began to take care of the bird almost immediately after it was brought home. When the chick strays too far from it’s cot, HuaHua scoops the bird up in her mouth and walks the chick back to safety. As you can see, the chick looks delighted with this arrangement.

2. Ducks

Dogs and birds are a pretty popular pairing. Young birds imprint on the first species they interact with after birth, so in many cases the birds begin to believe that the dog is their mother. Ben the Border Collie lets ducklings snuggle up next to him and herds them to safety.

3. Squirrels

In Seattle, Mademoiselle Giselle, a pregnant dog, adopted Finnegan, a baby squirrel. Owner Debby Cantlon rescued the injured squirrel and Giselle helped her nurse him back to health, making the squirrel part of the litter and even letting him nurse alongside his puppy siblings.

4. Pigs

A few months back the Daily Dachshund blog wrote about Tink the wiener dog, who has adopted Pink the piglet. Much brouhaha was had about the legitimacy of the photos, but much like Charlotte’s Wilbur, Pink was a preemie piglet and the story has indeed been verified. When Tink the dachshund had given birth a few days earlier, she had only one puppy. Since she was already fostering another dog’s puppies, Tink’s owner decided to try and see how well she would do with a piglet. A few weeks later, Pink was successfully weaned and put up for adoption.

5. Deer

At Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool, UK, a rare baby Pere David deer, Mi-Lu, was rejected by his mother since she did not want twins. Luckily, he was adopted by the park dogs, Geoffrey and Kipper. The three sleep and take daily walks together.

6. Tigers (?)

Not to be outdone, several zoos in China allow dogs to nurse baby tigers that have been rejected by their mothers. Dog urine is smeared on the baby tigers’ fur to trick the nursing dog. Not to worry—baby tigers are born toothless. This particular dog, Huani, doesn’t seem to mind nursing the tigers at all, according to her handlers at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong, China.

As for the famous tiger-nursing-piglets photos, they’re more staged publicity stunt than actual instinct. (Sorry.)

Miskatonic (Bradford)

The ghost hunters at HollowHill.com claim that the tunnels at Bradford College (now defunct) are not only haunted, but also have a famous connection with H.P. Lovecraft. According to legend, Lovecraft dated a girl at the college who helped him bury the real Necronomicon in an unused tunnel that ran under the pond. The tunnel was sealed off and the exact location of the evil book is unknown.

Hey, Free Uranium! (Columbia)

Columbia University continually vows to lock and guard their extensive underground tunnel system. Understandable, given that in 1987, freshman Ken Hechtman and his merry band of tunnel hackers (known as ADHOC: Allied Destructive Hackers of Columbia) used the tunnels to steal uranium-238 from Pupin Hall. Despite the tunnel lockdown, student spelunkers still manage to sneak into the labyrinth – which winds around the 19th century Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, abandoned bomb shelters, and Manhattan Project research facilities – to throw parties.

Exterior Decorating (MIT)

Freshmen at MIT can take an Orange Tour led by upperclassmen who know their way around the roofs and tunnels. It’s an important tour to take, because MIT students are infamous for the pranks they pull by hacking university buildings. The IHTFP Hack Gallery documents all types of structural hacking. The Great Dome on the McLaurin building, for instance, has been transformed into a giant R2D2, the one ring to rule them all (above), and most famously, a parking spot for a police cruiser.

Underground Creek (UCLA)

UCLA’s six mile network of tunnels is allegedly one of the cleanest, and connects to all major buildings on campus. The tunnels mask an underground room 100×200 feet wide with a thirty feet drop lined in brick, dubbed “The Bridge” because it once served as one. A creek used to run across campus, but was later dammed up and filled in for construction purposes. When it rains, the tunnels sometimes still flood with water. Rumor has it that the system was so extensive it even reached the residence halls, but that these tunnels were sealed up for security reasons when UCLA’s dorms served as the Olympic Village during the 1984 summer games.

Be the Ultimate Underground Dungeon Master

Due to sensationalist journalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s, skulking in steam tunnels is also associated with Dungeons & Dragons and Live Action Role Playing (LARP). These urban myths claim that hardcore role playing gamers traipse into the steam tunnels while prancing about hitting each other with sticks and pretending to be paladin elves and sorcerer dwarves. The disappearance of Michigan State student James Dallas Egbert is often used as an attack on RPGs. Many misconceptions about the dangers of roleplaying gaming and LARPing stem from stories of these steam tunnel incidents.

The alt.college.tunnels newsgroup and defunct sites Steam Tunnels and Infiltration all have information about college steam tunnels. Specific campuses have student-run sites as well, which can be located on Facebook and through Google searches.

Oh! The places you’ll go! (Or not. You’re not really supposed to.) Obviously, the areas hacked are restricted, so you’d be, er, trespassing and definitely violating university policy. That said, if you do ever venture down the campus hidey holes, be sure to wear long sleeves and the proper footwear, and take plenty of water and a flashlight. Do not go alone, do not go inebriated, and understand there are dangers like sudden drops, heatstroke, burns, electrocution, and asbestos, just to name a few.

These are just some of my favorite stories about little-known places and tunnels at universities – I know every college has its secrets. Does your school have any interesting tunnel lore?

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Mothers really don’t get more emotionally remote than inanimate objects. But for some orphaned animals, inanimate objects are better than human interaction alone. In these cases, they help socialize the baby animals so they will grow used to others of their kind.

At the Brookfield Zoo in Brookfield, Illinois, three Humbolt Penguins hatched, but were not receiving proper care from their parents. Keepers decided to hand-rear the babies, and placed two large stuffed penguins in their brooding room to play the role of parents. These plush toys helped reinforce the chicks’ identities as birds and not humans, and distracted them from the presence of human hands during feedings. Additionally, the large stuffed toys gave the penguins something warm to snuggle up with. At feeding time, the chicks instinctively learned to solicit food from their stuffed parents, pecking at them as they would in the wild. Eventually the birds were socialized and rejoined the zoo’s penguin colony.

The Brookfield Zoo has also rescued baby callimico monkeys. During their first few days of life, malnourished infant callimicos are placed inside incubators with stuffed toys. The toy becomes the baby monkey’s surrogate parent. The infant bonds with the toy and later other monkeys—but not the human caretakers.

At the New Forest Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park in Hampshire, England, a flock of orphaned baby tawny owls have also snuggled up with a stuffed owl. According to the Daily Mail, they burrow under the toy’s wings to stay warm. These birds probably wandered off from their mothers or were forced out of the nest.

Also at New Forest, four orphaned baby hedgehogs became attached to a bristly cleaning brush because they thought it was their mother. Since the brush was used to sweep a yard, it smelled like their natural habitat, and the texture of its bristles reminded them of a mother hedgehog.

This concludes our three-part series on interspecies mommying. Part I covered interspecies adoptions, and Part II focused on adoption-happy dogs.

Every year, the President of the United States officially grants a presidential pardon to the turkey fortunate enough to be selected as the National Thanksgiving Turkey. This tradition officially became an annual event during the Bush 41 administration. But its roots go all the way back to good ol’ Abraham Lincoln.

Allegedly, Lincoln’s favorite son Tad befriended the turkey fated to be Thanksgiving dinner and convinced Father Honest Abe to spare him. Lincoln, still guilt-tripping over a childhood incident where he shot a turkey, wrote the turkey an order of reprieve when Tad tearfully interrupted a cabinet meeting.

The first official National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented by members of the Poultry and Egg National Board to Harry Truman in 1947. According to some reports, they ate him. Nevertheless, this presentation became an annual event. Lots of yummy turkeys were devoured, except when President Kennedy spared the life of the turkey he was presented in 1961. The turkey was returned back to the farm from whence it came from.

In 1989, President George H.W. Bush announced, “This fine tom turkey has been granted a presidential pardon as of right now,” inadvertently kicking off the official pardoning tradition that continues to this day.

So yes, a turkey gets spared and gets sent to live out the rest of it’s days at Frying Pan Park in Virginia – or more recently, petting zoos at Disneyland and Disney World.

Of course, the President probably still eats turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. As Bill Clinton put it in 1999, “They bring me a big turkey and we let one go so we can eat all the others.”

Not that it necessarily matters, since the turkeys who get pardoned don’t live for very long anyway. According to The New York Times, “Whether the turkeys come from a shelter or the White House, they don’t live very long. Most adopted turkeys are commercially bred broad-breasted whites, genetically disposed to grow to a marketable size in about four months. Even on a diet of only a couple of cups of turkey feed a day, they become obese. They usually develop leg problems, congestive heart failure and arthritis.”

The presidentially pardoned turkeys are just too fat to live. They usually die within a year. In one case, a pardoned turkey died one day after it arrived at the farm. The only surviving turkey from past ceremonies is Biscuits (from 2004), and that turkey is too ill to be displayed to the public. Commercially bred turkeys are prone to getting heart attacks–some even keeled over when the Air Force was doing sound barrier testing. Most of the presidential turkeys can barely walk, so they keel over pretty quickly.

So, er, actually, it’s not much of a pardon. Gobble Gobble!

Marissa Minna Lee is an occasional contributor to mentalfloss.com. Her last story was about guinea pigs.

They Used to be HUMONGOUS

Eight million years ago, the ancestor of the guinea pig was the buffalo-sized 1,545-pound rodent Phoberomys pattersoni. It lived a semi-aquatic life in the ancient Orinoco delta in northern Venezuela, frolicking amongst lion-sized marsupial cats and three meter long crocodiles.

High-Profile Owners

Queen Elizabeth I is purported to have owned a guinea pig, starting the trend of keeping guinea pigs as a pet. Theodore Roosevelt’s family raised guinea pigs. In letters, he complained about being forced to babysit them.

Crepuscular!

Guinea pigs are crepuscular—mostly active during twilight hours. This is due to their domestication; subdued indoor lighting has led them to prefer neither direct sunlight nor total darkness.

Yum Yum Yum Guinea Pig in My Tum

Once only consumed by ancient royalty and elite or reserved for ceremonial meals, a dish of guinea pig, or Cuy, has gradually become common in Peruvian, Ecuadorian, and Bolivian diet. The guinea pig, native to South America, has meat that is high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol, similar to rabbit or the dark meat on chicken.

There isn’t much space to raise cattle in the mountains, so modern day Andean Indians and Peruvians often raise guinea pigs as a food or income source. They will keep eight to fifteen guinea pigs at a time for food, although some families may have as many as forty or fifty running amok in their home. With the exception of the occasional egg, guinea pig meat is often the only source of animal protein available to Andean Indians.

During World War II, the government encouraged Italian peasants to raise guinea pigs to supplement their meat rations, but this campaign did not go over very well.

A recipe for cooking guinea pig can be found here, but be warned that you may need to buy and cook three or four at a time in order to feel full. Also, be warned: guinea pig meat is illegal in several places, including California.

Avast, That Peeg Thar has Scurvy

Like humans, guinea pigs are one of the few mammals that cannot make or store their own Vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Because guinea pigs do not have L-gulonolactone oxidase (GULO), an enzyme that produces Vitamin C, guinea pigs have to get all of their vitamin C from food or – again,like humans – they will die from scurvy. The only other known animals that cannot synthesize their own Vitamin C are primates, fruit eating bats, and a specific species of bird and trout, respectively.

When scientists study the effect of Vitamin C on humans, they almost always use guinea pigs as the test animal. Vitamin C overdose has been correlated to osteoarthritis, and guinea pigs develop knee arthritis in a manner similar to humans.

Males Got Stamina

Male guinea pigs can mate with as many as forty guinea pigs, although the common ration is one male to seven females. In 2000, BBC reported on Sooty, a Welsh guinea pig who knocked up 24 females over the course of 2 days and fathered 42 babies. [Photo credit.]

Cavies as Ceremonial Mediums and X-ray Machines

The guinea pig was regarded as an important divination tool. Incan haruspices would open the animals with their fingernails and inspect the entrails to prognosticate. Even to this day, guinea pigs are sometimes used in rural areas as sacrificial offerings or for fortune telling.

In addition, curanderos, South American folk healers, use guinea pigs as a diagnostic and healing tool. A live guinea pig is rubbed over the body of the sick patient, and the pig’s reaction is used to gauge the illness. If the pig dies during this rubbing procedure, it is generally considered a bad sign. Afterwards, some curanderos will split open the guinea pig to examine its internal organs and arrive at a diagnosis, or kill the guinea pig in order to destroy the disease. Modern day takes on this practice include feeding the guinea pig beer (making the guinea pig’s healing powers more potent) and adorning it with ribbons before giving the patient a rub down. The guinea pig is then set free, taking the disease with it.

High Maintenance Nakedness

A new type of guinea pig, the Baldwin and Skinny Pig breeds, are almost or completely hairless. Originally bred for dermatological laboratory research and chemical testing, these hypoallergenic guinea pigs have a weaker immune system and resemble baby hippos. They are very easily sunburned, sensitive to the cold, and their delicate rumps require frequent moisturizing with lotion. [Photo credit.]

Marissa Minna Lee is an occasional contributor to mentalfloss.com. Her last story was about unexpected uses for animal dung.

1. Crocs and Birth Control

In 2000 BC, Egyptian physicians recommended using pessaries of crocodile dung as a spermicide. While this ancient birth control method is no doubt unavailable at your local pharmacy, you can probably ask your local crocodile to provide it under the table.

2. Elephants and Paper Products

Since elephants only digest 45% of their food, and the waste product is mostly fiber, the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang, Northern Thailand has developed a method for making elephant dung into paper. The paper is later cut and fashioned into handmade notebooks. Amazingly, an elephant can generate enough dung to make 115 pages of paper a day (or an 1/8th of a Stephen King novel).

As for the process, papermakers boil the fibers for sterilization before spinning and framing them into paper. Of course, elephants aren’t the only ones getting into the stationery business. In Thailand, Panda Poop Paper is also quite popular, and the Welsh company Sheep Poo Paper has also managed to make paper from, you guessed it, sheep dung.

Got stockpiles of llama, bat, moose or flying squirrel droppings? Read on…

3. Llamas to Fight Pollution

Oddly enough, in Bolivia, llama dung is being used to combat pollution in the water supply from abandoned mines. The microbes living in the dung neutralize the acidic water and remove dissolved metals like iron, neutralizing the pH of the water. This filtration method isn’t unique to Bolivia, though. The technique was originally developed in the United Kingdom through use of cattle and horse manure.

4. Bats to Fight Wars

Up until World War I, bat caves were essential resources, providing American soldiers with materials for gunpowder and explosives. That’s because dried bat guano consists largely of saltpeter (potassium nitrate). In fact, it’s been used by the United States as early as the War of 1812 for making gunpowder. Bat droppings also played a major role in prolonging the Civil War. During the conflict, nearly every substantial Gray Bat cave in the South was harvested for its guano, and the Confederacy relied on these caves as a source for saltpeter long after supply lines were cut off.

5. Moose Droppings for Tourists

Moose droppings are made into souvenirs in Alaska, Maine, Colorado and Canada. In fact, Talkeetna, Alaska has an annual Moose Dropping Festival every July. Highlights of the event include the Moose Dropping Drop Game, where numbered nuggets of moose dropping are tossed out of a helicopter and participants place bets on where they will land. There’s also a Moose Poop Toss Game. And bagpipers. Really! Typical moose poop souvenirs include Moose Poop earrings, Moose Nugget swizzle sticks, Moose Poop tie tacks, and Moose Poop mugs.

6. Flying Squirrel Cures

Wu Ling Zhi, or Feces Trogopterori Seu Pteromi, is flying squirrel dung used in Chinese medicine for abdominal pain, childhood nutritional deficiencies, and certain insect or snake bites. The primary use for flying squirrel crap, though, is alleviation of female reproductive system problems such as post-partum abdominal pain and menstrual cramps. Described as bitter, sweet, and warm, it’s served in a decoction (steeped, like tea). Interested in trying flying squirrel dung? Unfortunately, it’s banned in the United States. Stick to ibuprofen.

Previously on mental_floss:

• Quiz: Match The Drug To Its Creepy Side Effect
• Five Disorders That Make For Scary Slumbering
• Strange Gravestones
• Five Great Prison Escapes
• A Surprisingly Long List Of People Who’ve Attempted Suicide
• Five Ballpark Promotions That Went Wrong