Watch these potoroos in a double-decker strawberry snacking session

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Originally published at: Watch these potoroos in a double-decker strawberry snacking session | Boing Boing

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If you were to pick up one that weighs four pounds, you would be holding an animal that is four-fifths the total weight of a chihuahua.

Whaa??!?

...by my calculations, you'd also be holding an animal that weighs roughly FOUR POUNDS

In what world do most people have an accurate sense of “four fifths” of much of anything, let alone a chihuahua?!?

Is there nothing common that weighs 80% of a chihuahua?!?

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How about:

…you’d be holding an animal that weighs roughly the same as four svelte-but-healthy chinchillas

Or maybe:

…you’d be holding an animal that weighs roughly the same as a sack of four-and-a-half dozen parakeets

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These comparisons reminded me of a book I saw once at least a half-century ago and have never been able to identify. As I recall it was published by Scientific American in the 1910s, when that magazine was more of a patent news aggregator. The book illustrated “scientific” factoids with strange illustrations/charts using scale to represent number. An example might be “a transatlantic steamship carries 5000 pounds of chicken for passenger meals” accompanied by a drawing of a steamship next to a giant five thousand pound chicken. I don’t recall any chihuahuas, though.

(BTW if anyone knows what that book was, I’d love to find it again.)

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Thread:

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Ah, 'Stralia. Where the animals that don’t try to kill you with poison and/or teeth and/or claws try to kill you wif da kyoot!!!

Her complete name was Piccalilli Porkchop Twinkletoes.

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