Do you read German? I don’t.

I have been occasionally checking to see whether any more of the German murder mysteries featuring animal private detectives have been translated into English. Sadly, all we’ve gotten is three of Akif Pirinçci’s eight hard-boiled cat murder mysteries (Felidae and two of its sequels featuring Francis – you’ve probably seen the German “Felidae” animated feature), and the first of Leonie Swann’s Agatha Christie-like sheep murder mysteries (“Three Bags Full” featuring Miss Maple, the cleverest sheep in Glenkill, maybe in all Ireland, maybe in the world). There have not been any translations of the murder mysteries investigated by dog detectives, pig detectives, goose detectives, parrot detectives, and more. Now it looks like the series by Moritz Matthies starring Ray and Rufus, the meerkat detectives from the Berlin Zoo, has reached its final volume with “Letzte Runde” (“Last Round”) from Fischer Verlag (March 2017, 304 pages).

John Will Balsley is a cartoon artist with a distinctly “loose” style of design.  He shows off his drawing talents on his web site, where he’s created several rather-adult-leaning graphic stories with titles like The Devil’s Henchmen and Taboose the Meerka.  Many of these feature various critters who are collectively referred to as The Roofles.  Makes more sense if you look at it… or, maybe not.

image c. 2015 by JW Balsley

The 12th Meerkat Manor dance and Disneyland Paris Halloween 2011 trip, organized by Timduru, took place last weekend. The latter had 60 planned attendees from nine countries.

The fursuiters were reportedly asked to leave the park for 30 minutes after stealing the show from the Disney character performers. [video: Djem; tip: Pegla]

See more: Video and photos and reports from prior Halloween trips.

Long story short – Animals United (trailer) is a crappily-written CGI movie. Avoid it.

Researchers studying meerkats have found different groups follow different traditions that are passed on non-genetically. They noticed that different meerkat groups wake up at different times, and that immigrants adjust to the group's traditional waking hour.

Read more: Multi-generational persistence of traditions in neighbouring meerkat groups