Yago Partal, a graphic artist based in Barcelona, has created an awesome photo series entitled Zoo Portraits, depicting a wide variety of animals who all share two things in common: they like dressing up in stylish clothing and posing for fashion portraits.

There are lots of different animals in the series and you can purchase prints of the photos via Yago’s online shop. We love each and every one of them.

[via HiConsumption]

These mustachioed animals are the work of Dutch creative agency 180 Amsterdam. “Tame The Beast” is an ad campaign for Barber, a shaving salon located in Amsterdam. These delightful images demonstrate yet again that, no matter how awesome someone already is, they look even better with a great mustache.

[via Design Taxi]

Redditor Gyyp created an awesome gallery of hybrid creatures that all have one very important thing in common: they’re all part guinea pig. 

[via Reddit]

The incredibly awesome American Museum of Natural History in New York City has undertaken an awesome restoration project that, after a year of painstaking work, is finally nearing its conclusion:

The AMNH’s Hall of North American Mammals first opened in 1942, is in the final stages of a year-long restoration. Artists, taxidermists, conservators and designers have been working on everything from re-coloring faded fur and restoring paintings to dusting leaves and installing new energy-efficient and less-damaging lighting. The display text for each diorama will be updated with the latest scientific information about each species.

The Hall will reopen on Oct. 27, on the 154th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, along with the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, which was dedicated in 1936.

So, while we’re still waiting on the invention of time travel (which would enable us to go back and see the AMNH’s amazing dioramas in person when they were brand new), it will soon be a better time than ever to finally take a trip to New York that includes a long, leisurely visit to the American Museum of Natural History. Maybe we’ll see you there.

[via Wired Science]

Joshua Allen Harris is a New York-based street artist who uses tape and plastic shopping and garbage bags, carefully positioned atop subway grates, to create awesome works of inflatable ephemeral art. Each piece appears to be little more than litter until wind rushes up out of the grate, inflating the bags and thus giving momentary life to Joshua’s plastic creatures. He began with a white bear, and then graduated to gorillas, giraffes, and even centaurs, minotaurs and a sea serpent. 

We strongly recommend spending some time at Joshua Allen Harris’ Youtube channel where you’ll find numerous videos of his inflatable art coming to life on the streets of New York. Still photos of these pieces are all well and good, but watching them rise up and take shape and then seeing passersby react to them is really something special. 

[via Trendland and Wooster Collective]

Behold the ghostly Kermode bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), also known as the “Spirit Bear”, a subspecies of the American Black Bear living in the central and north coast of British Columbia, Canada. Approximately 1/10 of their population are born with white or cream-coloured coats of fur like you see in these beautiful photos. They are not albinos or related to the Polar bear. This colour morph is due to a recessive allele common in the population. 

National Geographic estimates the spirit bear population at 400-1000 individuals, saying that “the spirit bear may owe its survival to the protective traditions of the First Nations, who never hunted the animals or spoke of them to fur trappers”

In addition to their awesome appearance, the Kermode bears are also particularly successful fishermenbears:

Scientists have found that black bears are not as effective at catching fish as white bears, as the white bears are less visible from the perspective of the fish. While at night the two colors of bears have similar success rates at catching fish, such as salmon, during the day the white bears are 30% more effective.

Photos by Paul Nicklen via National Geographic

“Toast isn’t just something you eat at breakfast. Oh no. It’s also a canvas for cute character art. Why just spread jam on your bread, when you can cover it in Pikachu?

The trend first started to pick up steam in 2008, but existed before that. New Zealand artist Maurice Bennet was exhibiting toast art a decade ago. Several Japanese food blogs continue to post toasted character bread called “Toast Art” or even “Picture Drawn Toast”. Recently, Japanese sites have been linking to toast artists Apple Cheek 88 and Kummy.

But it’s also easy to see toast art’s appeal. For those who want to make their own toast art, here’s how: Cut out shapes in aluminum foil and place them on bread. Put said bread in a toaster. That’s it! I’ve included photos in the above gallery to hopefully make these easy directions easier. Note that you might have a trickier time making toast art if you have a pop-up toaster. If you are interested, there is more toast art right here for you to eat up.”

Visit Kotaku to view more awesomly cute pieces of scrummy toast!