October 26, 2011

• After some Googling, Pandas!
• Davie Bowie in "The man who fell to Earth" ;-)
• Yes, Vertical Pupils would be an excellent band name. One of my cats has very yellow eyes. It is somewhat unnerving. I am teaching a class at the community college this semester. I suppose when I ask them to stand I have a number of human vertical pupils.
• Technically as I understand it a pupil is someone who is not in school by choice, whereas a student is someone who has chosen to study. So a pupil would be primary/elementary and high school, while a your college kids are students. I often have several vertical pupils running around when they are supposed to be sitting. Not that I am helping to answer poor Curious George's question, because I have no idea and was going to say "snake".
• (continuing to be "helpful"...) How about a goat that has fallen over?
• Googleing vertical pupils brings up various reptiles, as well as snakes.
• Yes, but the question was mammals - hence my lack of helpfulness.
• Foxes!
• Not to go all grammar police on you, but the plural of fox is "foxen."
• The Rock-haunting Ringtail Possum is a mammal with vertical pupils.
• Megan Fox has vertical pupils??? Now that explains... well, lack of acting ability, if we need any explanation.
• This link to Q&A from San Diego Zoo implies that vertically slitted pupils would be found in nocturnal animals because they would more easily expand to let in more light. Also that animals that share a common ancestry to cats might have vertical slits. And I found this cute fennec fox.
• Coloboma gives some people cat eyes.
• bernokle: Not to go all "shut the fuck the up"; but the group noun for "rounding error of care" is ...? There are far worse insults to understanding and clarity for you to be dealing with. If you stop clutching your testicles for a moment you'll find your self able to breath. Peerless 'n' tearless and able to see. tracicle: If the the q and a from the zoo implies that vertically slitted pupils would be found in nocturnal animals because they would more easily expand to let in more light I'd be pretty surprised. It seems like balls; why would vertically slitted pupils have an advantage over horizontally slitted eyes. I only ask 'cause the word would is weird.
• More light in, not so, random! Insights into the adaptive significance of vertical pupil shape in snakes appears to agree with the Straight Dope and Moment of Science in their explanation that vertical pupils in all diurnal and nocturnal critters are to keep light out.
• So... If cats see better horizontal detail (according to some of the Straight Dope ref), does that mean a blow with a rolled up newspaper from overhead would be a blur, while a horizontal strike would bring out the claws well in advance of a bop on the head? Not that I would ever do such a thing outside of a benign thought experiment (like the physicist one with Shroedinger's cat).

• Not to go all grammar police on you, but the plural of fox is "foxen."

  I'm not sure if you're kidding or what, but every dictionary I've checked says "foxes". http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fox http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fox http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fox http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fox
• Ox --> Oxen Fox --> Foxen Mouse --> Mice Moose --> Meese I --> We Eye -> Wheeee! Woman --> Women Wombat --> Wombet (pronounced "Whim-but")
• Would a swollen fox count as more than one? (with slit eyes upright?)
• Only because she (my cat) is utterly polite and only when she really sleepy she can be inverted. So, in answer to your question, yes. Also getting prosimian with it is not "dancing". I know this because I hate dancing but I would love to hop around with those guys. Also does Natasha Kinski count as a mammal? Yeah, I should have quit hours ago.