A Wasteful Death is a cross between a murder mystery and a love story set in a city populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals. While the main characters are two Registered Investigators, sort of like police, this story is nothing like Zootopia. Instincts remain, and everyone in this world is acutely aware of the distinction between predator and prey.

The main characters are Marlot Blackclaw, a wolf, and Trembor Goldenmane, a lion. Both are Registered Investigators who, unusually for their territorial profession, work together. What exactly is a Registered Investigator? Their job is to investigate unclaimed kills and track down the person responsible. Unclaimed being the key word here.

In the world of A Wasteful Death, predation is legal and, with a few exceptions such as students or anyone in a hospital, everyone is a potential target. Once someone is killed, there is a tax that the hunter must pay which is scaled according the value the kill had to society. The tax on a homeless drunk would be low but the tax on a wealthy CEO like Aiden Spottedfur is massive, and it falls on Marlot and Trembor to find out who killed her.

Oh, look, another Zootopia review!

It's been six years since Zootopia was released to theaters. In that time, a lot has happened. America has managed the change to two different presidents. Across the pond in the UK, where the movie was known as Zootropolis, they've managed to beat that turnover rate for heads of state with four new prime ministers, plus a new monarch. That's kind of prescient for a movie where the titular city burns through two mayors over the course of its plot.

In all that time, Zootopia has managed to remain popular with furries. It also, perhaps a bit surprisingly, has managed to remain popular with non-furries. It is one of only three Disney Animated Studio movies to break into the billion dollar club (the other two are both Frozen). It also managed critical and industry awards accolades to go along with the commercial success, giving it the hat trick of movie success criteria. So, a lot of people would probably not be averse to a sequel, right?

Well, how about a series of animated shorts released over half a decade later with little fanfare to a streaming service, instead?

The front cover blurb reads: An Erotic Historical Tale. It is rated NC-17. Isaac Ellison, a part-albino cheetah (with unusually pale fur and a beefy physique like a Marine), and his inventor buddy, Raziel, a humanoid reptile (“He looked quite draconic, but slender as opposed to the more bulky builds of lore. Small spines dotted his scalp where eyebrows would be, and two long, black horns swept back almost uniformly with his fire colored mane that consisted of fur and light feathering, before the mane started springing out wildly in any direction it damn well pleased.” –p. 7), go back in time to an anthropomorphic Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians mistake them for warrior and fertility gods, and a tremendous amount of enthusiastic sex is had by all. In fact, until the ending, The Jackal Queen hardly offers anything but. Isaac and Raziel worry about changing history, but not much.

This is a mature content book. Please ensure that you are of legal age to purchase this material in your state or region. (publisher's rating)

FurPlanet Productions, July 2013, trade paperback $9.95 (138 pages). Illustrated by Kadath.

Creating a feline character? You might want to decide on their habitat before picking a coat.

Research by the University of Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology has found correlations between the complexity or irregularity of a cat's pattern and its habitat:

[...] cats living in dense habitats, in the trees, and active at low light levels, are the most likely to be patterned.

The researchers admitted that this rule did not explain the coat of cheetahs, who have evolved spots despite a preference for open plains.

The team discounted suggestions that coat patterns in big cats were linked to social hierarchy or gender, as they did not differ significantly between such individuals. Their paper, Why the leopard got its spots, was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A recent Reuters story reports that biologists in Guatemala rely on Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men to attract jaguars for tracking and research purposes.

Use of the cologne stems from research done by The Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo, where researchers tested the effect of numerous scents on cheetahs. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, it was discovered that out of 24 scents tested, Obsession for Men was the favorite, with Nina Ricci's L'Air du Temps coming in second. Others fared much worse, such as Estée Lauder's Beautiful and Revlon's Charlie.

Christa Heidenreich and her veterinary surgeon husband Manfred have achieved with Bagheera and Bunjee something thought almost impossible -- breeding cheetahs in captivity at their first attempt.

Given two South African cubs seven years ago, the German couple retired to Spain with the hope of breeding them, despite being told they were likely to fail.

They chose Spain because it offered a climate where the cheetahs would feel at home and a place with enough land for them to enjoy hunting.

[Read Article]

According to this article, cheetahs just go wild for the scent of Calvin Klein's perfume, Obsession.

Makes scents to me...

A military airbase near Kruger National Park in South Africa was plagued by local wildlife crossing their runways. Their inventive solution was, instead of building huge fences or deploying poisons, to hire two Cheetahs to patrol the base and scare off the larger animals. They've also got some Caracals to help drive off birds and smaller critters.

Read the whole story here.