Woodpeckers stash 700 lbs of acorns in wall

A pest control technician investigating an insect problem at a California home made a startling discovery: about 700 pounds of acorns stashed inside the wall by woodpeckers.

Nick Castro, of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, said he expected to find a dead animal inside the wall of a home where residents reported seeing maggots and mealworms emerging from a wall.

Castro cut a small hole in the wall of the second-floor bedroom and acorns started pouring from the opening, piled about 20 feet high inside the wall. He estimated about 700 pounds of acorns were removed.

The woodpeckers had been poking holes in the chimney stack and stashing acorns in the openings for the past two to five years. The acorns eventually fell through into the wall cavity.

It took about eight hours to remove the acorns. The damage to the home’s exterior was repaired and screens added to protect the wood from the birds.

Unusual fish with leucism reeled in

The chain pickerel reeled in by Caden Hurley, at Sabin Pond in Vermont, had an unusual coloration that made the live fish look like it had been kept in a cooler in direct contact with ice for several hours.

Vermont Fish and Wildlife said the fish is actually perfectly healthy, but has leucism, a pigment condition that affects some of an animal’s cells, resulting in pale colour that may be patchy or nearly complete across the body.

The fish had normal-coloured eyes for its species, indicating it has leucism and not “true albinism,” which would mean a complete lack of pigment in the fish’s entire body.

World’s oldest mouse

A Pacific pocket mouse at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park is the world’s oldest living mouse in human care and the oldest mouse ever, at the age of nine years and 209 days.

Pat, named for actor Patrick Stewart, was born at the zoo on July 14, 2013, and Guinness World Records announced it to be officially the holder of two world records for his longevity. The previous oldest mouse ever, Fitzy, died at the age of seven years and 225 days at his owner’s home in Britain in 1985.

Pacific pocket mice, the smallest mouse species in North America, had been thought extinct until a small population was discovered in 1994. Pat was born during the first year of the San Diego Zoo’s Pacific pocket mouse conservation breeding and reintroduction programme.

Dog with world’ longest eyelash

A California couple’s dog is now a Guinness World Record holder after her longest eyelash was measured at seven inches long.

Coco, owned by Rachelle Parks and Michael Babich, had her eyelash measured three times by a veterinarian, who confirmed the lash was grown naturally.

The newfypoo, a mix of a Newfoundland and a poodle, was awarded the record after her seven-inch lash was confirmed by GWR to be longer than the 6.69-inch eyelash grown by an Australian labradoodle named Ranmura, who was awarded the record in 2014.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 18th, 2023