So sorry about your father, Elliott. Must have been one of those serial-killer zoologist gone wrong types. The fact that you had to restrain yourself from poo-flinging kind of proves my point about evolution, though. There’s a vestigial poo-flinging gene in you somewhere that’s just waiting to get switched on by your epigenome.

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Evolution? Oh, so we’re all descended from these civet-monkeys, are we? Well, I for one am a man, not a monkey – as evidenced in my restraint from poo-flinging.

Whoa, Elliott, why such hostility directed at zoologists? If by history you mean the evolutionary record, the train left the station on this over 30 million years ago. Even the most addle-brained taxonomist would tell you that you are, “Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

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Well, I have news for you, you book-burning Nazi: I am never wrong. History will prove this.

Right you are, So OFFENDED. They are in the Order Carnivora and the family Viverridae which also includes genets and mongooses. Viverrids are usually small, fairly short-legged carnivores and like members of the Mustelidae family they have well-developed scent glands (think musk).

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Civets are not monkeys, nor do they remotely resemble monkeys. They’re more like cats, and in fact are sometimes called “civet cats,” but are not technically cats either.

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OMG!

I already know what I’m going to get you. It’s a framed photo of a much blogged-about raccoon.

http://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/windowsxp/images/expertzone/columns/northrup/add-blog-entry.jpg

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you may also want to ask for shoes for your guide pony:

http://www.guidehorse.org/horse_sneakers.htm

or maybe that is on their list…

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