Saturday's Photo Hunting: fluffy tummies

Our friend Gattina in Belgium hosts Saturday's Photo Hunting, and this week the word is fluffy.
Here are a few photos I found of fluffy tummies, from our archives.

Dick's old cat, Igor, who lived to be 20 years old. He wasn't a fluffy cat, but he had a fluffy tummy.

Gao Gao, the daddy panda at the San Diego Zoo. We'll see him again at the end of this month.

Gao Gao's daughter, Su Lin, in 2006 at the age of 5 months, spent most of her time up in a tree, and we could see her tummy from below. Su Lin now lives in China.

Buttercup, the official resident sloth at the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica.

Close up of a Capuchin monkey in the rain in Costa Rica.

This fluffy-tummied youngster is a baby frigate bird in the Galapagos Islands.

I was very surprised when this fellow jumped onto my shoulder in Casablanca.

A baby puffin looks at photos of other puffins during my tour of Sea World in Florida.

My school friend Carola and her husband Ken have two Maine Coon cats named Dash and Lily.
This is Lily in the laundry basket.

These two doves in Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii, are all fluffed up because it was a tiny bit chilly one morning, although not by Canadian standards!

Our favorite fluffy tummy in all the world belongs, of course, to our dog Lindy!

© Photos by Kay Davies and Richard Schear

Look who jumped on my shoulder to have his picture taken

Photo by Richard Schear

See how shocked I look? Trained monkeys jump onto the shoulders of unsuspecting cruise ship passengers disembarking in Casablanca. Apparently their owners expect money for monkey rental, but I don't think Dick paid for the privilege of catching me with my mouth open. I had thought they were the same species as the "apes" found in Gibraltar, but our ship didn't stop there on our Canary Islands cruise out of Barcelona a few years ago, so I had to resort to Wikipedia to confirm my suspicion:

The Barbary Macaque population in Gibraltar is the only one in the whole of the European continent, and, unlike (the macaque population in) North Africa, it is thriving. At present there are some 230 animals in five troupes occupying the area of the Upper Rock, though occasional forays into the town may result in damages to personal property.^[1] As they are a tailless species, they are also known locally as Barbary Apes or Rock Apes, despite the fact that they are monkeys (Macaca sylvanus). The local people simply refer to them as monos (meaning monkeys) when conversing in Spanish or Llanito (the local vernacular).

The Gibraltar Barbary Macaque is considered Gibraltar's unofficial national animal.

All Gibraltar Barbary Macaques are descended from North African populations of Barbary Macaques. DNA evidence has established beyond doubt that the present population of Gibraltar macaques is of relatively recent Algerian and Moroccan origin. No traces were found of a third source for their DNA, namely of any ancient, no longer surviving Iberian population.^[2] An earlier theory, now dis-proven by the DNA evidence, was that the original Gibraltar macaques were a remnant of populations that had spread throughout Southern Europe^[3] during the Pliocene, up to 5.5 million years ago.^[4]

The original introduction of the macaques was probably by the Moors (who occupied southern Iberia, including Spain and Portugal, between 711 and 1492) for use as pets.^[5]

The macaque population (was) present on The Rock long before Gibraltar became English in the 18th century.