Reptiles

You'd think that whenever Teddy Bear shows up, it would sate our obsession with animal noms. But the truth is that the opposite occurs. We want to see more noms.

With that in mind, here's a super dramatic time-lapse video of a tortoise eating a pile of salad. Why time-lapse? Because tortoises are slow, dummy! You don't have all day to watch this and neither do we. Also, because time-lapse is just cooler than regular-lapse. That's a science fact.

Kix: Iquana-Tested, Mother-Approved

Which species was Baby New Year this year? Oh what, you thought BNY could only be human? Please! The title is up for grabs, and whichever species births its offspring first when the clock strikes 12:00 is the winner.

So who took it in 2012? Leopard tortoises!

Zooborns reports that the Prague Zoo in Czech Republic welcomed a hatching of six baby leopard tortoises right at the balldrop this year. Technically, three of the tortoises were born before the stroke of midnight and three after, but it doesn't seem fair not to count them all, and besides, we can't tell them apart anyway.

These fellas may be teeny tiny as newborns, but that won't last. Leopard tortoises are the fourth-largest tortoises in the world. These little guys will grow to be over two feet long and about 120 pounds. And this is only the first of many New Year's celebrations for these soon-to-be behemoths, because leopard tortoises have a typical lifespan of 80 to 100 years! So we wish them (and you) a happy new year and many more to come.

Meet Kevin. Kevin is a baby sulcata tortoise, and he just loves tomatoes. Unfortunately, Kevin also seems to have very poor depth perception, so it makes eating his favorite snack something of a project. He's having a real hard time getting a mouthful of that food, but he's not about to quit anytime soon. He's a tortoise, after all. He has all the time in the world, and knows the old proverb, "Slow and steady wins the tomato."

We have to say, this parakeet seems a lot more stressed out about its turtle taxi ride than previous animals have been when riding on turtles. Perhaps it didn't realize it was resting on a living creature in the first place. As still as that turtle is for the first chunk of this video, it's not unreasonable to imagine the bird thought it had found a comfortable rock to sit on before it suddenly took off at a speed we can only describe as impressive for what's supposed to be a slow-moving creature.