Watch out for the elbow

Now that editing is done I can return to the myriad open browser tabs I’ve been saving for future reading for months. Most recently, an article on the world’s only poisonous primate: the slow loris. (Who names these things?!)

Sez the Herald, Its venom is stored in an elbow patch. When it is feeling threatened, the slow loris will raise its arms above its head in a diamond shape, suck in the poison from its elbow patch, then mix it around in its mouth before delivering a toxic bite.

Sure is a cute little fella, though.

The slow loris also makes it onto James Gunn’s ‘Evolution Fucked Your Shit Up‘ list of the world’s most hideous or plain confusing animals (sourced via Twitter — jamesgunn, from memory). In Gunn’s list the slow loris is, in fact, confused for a tarsier (a slightly less cute and much less lethal animal — with much less ordinary elbows.

Which means the list actually has 51 weird creatures on it.

Why spend your time writing fiction when the world has it all over us for weirdness, eh?