The 10 Most Interesting Things We Learned About Animals in 2023

Here’s what we’re talking about this week:

We’re gonna keep this short because it’s Christmas which means more couch-time to cozy up to a pet and force them to watch Harry Potter for the millionth time. Our go-to is the 4th one.

• 🤗 Say hello to Georgetown’s adorable new mascot omgwhatagoodboyyyy!

• 📷 We found the OG dog dad…

• 🚗 Toyota just released a Tacoma dog toy. Giddy-up.

• ⚾ The most expensive man in sports history finally revealed his dog’s name…

• 🎄 Pets are remembered with a secret Christmas tree in Central Park.

• 🏆 AKC just named this dog America’s Best Working Dog.

• 🏀 One of our 80 lb. friends stole the show at the Lakers game this week. Hey Brodie.

• 🐻 HuffPo posted a roundup of the 10 Most Interesting Things We Learned About Animals This Year. We’ll save you the pain of reading an entire article with the summary below:

The 10 Most Interesting Things We Learned About Animals in 2023

I think 2023 was the year of almost every animal-related piece of news starting with “Study confirms…”. This means we’re FINALLY spending the time to understand our earthly neighbors.

1. Cats have 276 distinct facial expressions aka 276 different ways to show they hate you.

2. Rats might have an imagination. Which we already knew because we’ve seen Ratatouille.

3. A new drug might be able to extend your dog’s life. Don’t get your hopes up because we found out there’s little evidence to support large-scale efficacy, it only works for big dog breeds, and the best-case scenario is it only extends their life by a year.

4. Female frogs avoid death to avoid unwanted advances.

5. Chinstrap penguins take over 10,000 naps a day. That’s 10,000× 4-second power naps.

6. Kids that live with dogs and/or cats have fewer food allergies.

7. Seagulls decided what to eat by watching people.

8. Humans understand Chimp and Bonobo gestures.

9. Your adorable and gentle pet cat would eat 2,084 species in the wild…if you let it.

10. Roosters recognize their own reflection.

So what does this mean? We’re all more alike than we thought. Rats are creative. Seagulls are discerning foodies. Roosters are narcissistic. And humans are finally catching on to what the apes are saying behind our backs.

Today’s Last Laugh:

I’m pretty sure this dog is actually lip-syncing to the audio…

@thessshow

You ever had a #redbull #blacklab #dogsoftiktok #fyp #foryou #chomp #cutedog