Rebecca Rundell was a grad student at the University of Chicago (I believe she took my Speciation course) and is now a postdoc at the University of British Columbia studying marine invertebrates. She submitted her feline, Kermit, to our kitteh contest:
Kermit has the easygoing worldview, attitude and intelligence of Jim Henson, coupled with the wit and jumping ability of his namesake frog. Adopted from the Chicago Anti-Cruelty Society, the tiniest in a cage of kittens mostly more white than he, Kermit possesses a belt that doesn’t quite stretch around his fuzzy middle. His giant collar from the shelter weighed down his head, which barely made it over the lip of his food dish. Superior eating skills surfaced later. Kermit’s internal poultry detector is unrivaled in the animal world. His domestic habits belie a fierce mousing ability, which was widely lauded among Hyde Park apartment residents. Occasionally found napping, dislodging keys from my laptop with his stiletto paws, getting into precarious shelf positions, flipping a half-dead mouse in the air like a tennis racket, wedging into a crevice to hide from the landlord, or simply dragging an entire turkey carcass onto the floor. Kermit knows how to live. And he keeps you on board with the program, while still keeping cool about it.
He wants a copy of this book. And when he gets it, he will sit on it.
When Rebecca entered last November, she submitted this picture:
I asked her for an updated photo, and she sent the following. The little dude has grown!
That is one seriously cute kitten snapshot!
Congrats!
b&
Agreed–the slightly cross-eyed look is adorable. He’s a very handsome boy, but I’m a bit biased–he bears a striking resemblance to my Calvin.
How quickly they grow up. He was an adorable kitten, and now he’s an adorable cat.
Kermit looks like a lovely cat.
Incidentally, Darwin mentions in OtOoS that cats’ ratting and mousing abilities are inherited, some lines being better ratters, others better mousers. And, I suppose, some bad at both but good at scarfing down cat chow or conning their owners into handing out treatz.
[My Cuddles is a treatz addict and in an excess of enthusiasm for her next fix will nip your fingers if you aren’t careful while handing out treatz.]
This makes me hungry.
Kermit, I’m so proud of you! I always believed that you would grow up to win a book. Either that, or eat one. I guess there’s still time.
Quimby: Wow, thanks! Yes, to think I was plucked from obscurity like this to enter the world stage… I always thought you’d be the first, perhaps as a Science Diet model. I’m so pleased you are still taking time out of your busy grooming and purring schedule to keep up on the latest evolution news. Beneath that orange fur lies a true scholar. I’ve always known it.
So sad how fast the children grow up. Did Kermie ever get a chance to feel the power of WEIT beneath him?
Lovely kitteh. A champion book-sitter I’m sure.