If we ever get tired of the eagle as a national symbol, I'd like to propose replacing it with the vervet monkey. Whether counting bananas or flinging feces, who doesn't like monkeys?
Why the vervet in particular? The PossumBlogger (him again!) recently linked to the South African monkeyland site, which mentions that vervets eat almost anything, can control their fertility, are immune to the monkey version of AIDS, and happily occupy even harsh habitats.
Best of all,
male Vervets cooperate to defend the group from predators and do their red-white-and-blue genital display towards rival males.
A Google image came up with dozens of cute pictures, but I haven't been able to find one that depicts their peculiarly patriotic display.
Posted by Dr. Weevil at February 02, 2003 10:29 PMVervet? Oh, VeR-vet, with a R. First time I read it, I saw Velvet. Velvet monkeys? Has Dr. Weevil taken leave of his sense? Nevermind.
Posted by: rlbtzero on February 3, 2003 03:32 PMAnd to think, the only thing that made me think of vervet monkeys was their use of that cheap, trailer-trashy white eyeshadow.
(I need to more fully explore the stuff I link to!)
Posted by: Terry Oglesby on February 4, 2003 10:24 AMYou do realize that because of you two, Bigwig found pictures of those monkeys, and because he did, I now have the image of (sigh) patriotic-themed monkey genitals branded in my brain, probably for the rest of my life.
I vow revenge.
Posted by: Meryl Yourish on February 8, 2003 02:28 PMActually, his had either black or lime-green genitals. I didn't see any red, white, or blue, much less a combination of the three.
Posted by: Dr. Weevil on February 8, 2003 04:58 PMI don't care what you say, you're not going to make me look at those pictures again.
But I know I saw red and blue. I think he may have added pictures after you commented there.
Posted by: Meryl Yourish on February 9, 2003 12:45 AMwhere can i find a picture of the genitals of a male vervet monkey?
Posted by: gisela on February 15, 2003 12:31 AM'Bigwig' (in the third comment) is on Silflay Hraka. He links to a couple of pictures in this post.
Posted by: Dr. Weevil on February 16, 2003 10:52 PM