Or put another way, what would we say is the richest animal?

Corgis?

I don’t know what goes on inside your head but animals do not use money.

This is a very odd question. But I like it.

I nominate the Lyrebird. A lazy, vain creature, obsessed with building second homes and conspicuous displays of affluence. Although many species of birds of paradise are almost as bad.

Otters and dolphins. IIRC the only animals who “play”

Most animals spend most of their lives in the hunt for food and mates so have little time left for fun. Otters and dolphins find time to play.

Second dolphins. They have prostitutes:

Humans, dolphins and bonobo chimps are the only creatures known to have sex for pleasure,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5176

I don’t know about richest, but Sloths must rank as one of the tightest.

It’s an odd question I know, but I couldn’t shake it.
The Lyrebird is very interesting! What a talent.
You could say that otters & dolphins have time to play, but often poor humans have plenty of time to play. Also I think you could easily be ‘poor’ but have plenty of time for sexy fun time.

Corgis aren’t wild of course. I thought about including domestic but then Bubbles the chimp would probably win.
My initial answer was: a pig in shit

But maybe the richest animal would be one of those predators that turned up on an island with loads of dumb, friendly, juicy native animals that haven’t evolved to run away. Abundant food, very little effort needed = happy days

what would we say is the richest animal?

duck, maybe venison from my experience, depends on cooking method and sauce too

Seeing as rich/poor is a distribution across the human species how can one species be richer than another ?

I would define rich as some one who has a large amount of labour available to them selves.

Ie their labour and others labour though there money and maybe their ancestors labour though inheritance and access to modern technology.

Therefore I would also define the richest animal as the one who has the most labour available to them.

So something like the head of a lion pride or the alpha male in a wolf pack.
So much the same as with humans.

Rabbits do for sure, I’ve seen loads of skint ones.

Rabbits are never skint, they always carry a shilling each in their back pockets: They’ve got bob tails.

badumtish

Of course, many oysters could make a killing if they were bright enough to exploit their talents for financial advantage.

And this leopard is made entirely from platinum. 🙂

The white nest swiftlet manages to make a bundle of money out of just its spit!

Male honey bee.

Does bugger all. Flies about pumping the queen bees. Then the 10’s of thousands female bees do all the work of looking after the eggs, collecting honey and raising the colony.

Seagulls – always plenty to eat for them and they get to sh1t on anyone.

No such thing as ‘seagulls’, they’re just ‘gulls’.

Some excellent candidates there.
Surely the Queen Bee trumps the males though?
Bez – 1893 just telegrammed, they want their jokes back 🙂

No such thing as ‘seagulls’, they’re just ‘gulls’.

Isn’t that a bit like saying “there’s no such thing as ‘bikes’, they’re ‘bicycles'”? Everyone knows them as seagulls regardless of the precise scientific term, therefore they’re seagulls.

a pigeon can put a deposit down on any car it likes

Isn’t that a bit like saying “there’s no such thing as ‘bikes’, they’re ‘bicycles’

No not really, bikes is short for bicycle, seagull is obvioulsy not short for gulls. Stick to telly rubbish jokes 😉

So laymen can legitimately rename things only if doing so constitutes a contraction of the original term? Bolks.

Koala’s are mashed up constantly, and they live in the wild, and i’d bet they’d knick your ‘ute’ if you left it in the ‘bush’ i guess they are natures pikeys in a way. Thank goodness we don’t have any of them in the woods round our way!

Calm down dear. Calling a gull a seagull is not the same as calling a bicycle a bike.

Why not?

Missus suggested Peacocks. They live in stately homes or castles and spend their time strutting around gardens in overly conspicuous finery and squaking away.

Calling a gull a seagull is not the same as calling a bicycle a bike

This is a great piece of pedantry even by STW standards.

Of course, the french (quite rightly in my view) discriminate between the big gulls(herring, black-backed etc) (goelands) and the little gulls (black headed, common etc) (mouettes). I don’t know if they have a catch-all term for those white squawky sea-side and elsewhere birds known to the non-ornithologically minded English as “seagulls”. 😀

Missus suggested Peacocks.

Did you correct her calling them Peacocks?

Did you correct her calling them Peacocks?

I should hope so – we can’t have people inventing words like “peacock” when any fule kno they’re pavo crisatus 🙂

Whatever those cross-dressing birds are called, they’re not as rich as the goose that layed the golden egg.

What about the cuckoo. Never has to pay rent or childminding fes ?

golden marmoset

would have to be dolphins and monkeys as ‘i think’ they are the only animals that masturbate

Im assuming dolphins cant hand shandy so its frotting only?

They could wet hump a bit of coral or something?

The people that insist that there’s no such thing as seagulls, when anyone in the street understands exactly what you’re referring to, are the same people who insist that those huge American buffaloes, are in fact Bison…

When I’m King (and it’s only a matter of time) they’ll be rounded up to be assigned their own seagull to shit constantly on them…

Anyway Koalas. Everyone thinks you’re cute, no real predators, your source of food lives in the same tree, and it makes you stoned…Perfect life I’d say

I don’t know if they have a catch-all term

oiseau de mer seems to be the concensus.