If you visit the Edinburgh Zoo, be prepared to salute — in August a penguin named Nils Olav was promoted to colonel-in-chief of the Royal Norwegian Guard.

Apparently penguins are pretty active in the Guard — since 1982 they’ve held the ranks of lance corporal, sergeant, and regimental sergeant major. They’re certainly dressed for it.

08/23/2016 Now promoted to brigadier! (Thanks, Dan.)

From Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle, 1896:

The following case illustrative of the tenacity of virulence of snake-venom was reported by Mr. Temple, Chief Justice of Honduras, and quoted by a London authority.

While working at some wood-cutting a man was struck on a heavy boot by a snake, which he killed with an axe. He imagined that he had been efficiently protected by the boot, and he thought little of the incident. Shortly afterward he began to feel ill, sank into a stupor, and succumbed.

His boots were sold after his death, as they were quite well made and a luxury in that country. In a few hours the purchaser of the boots was a corpse, and every one attributed his death to apoplexy or some similar cause.

The boots were again sold, and the next unfortunate owner died in an equally short time.

It was then thought wise to examine the boots, and in one of them was found, firmly embedded, the fang of the serpent. It was supposed that in pulling on the boots each of the subsequent owners had scratched himself and became fatally inoculated with the venom, which was unsuspected and not combated.

“The case is so strange as to appear hypothetic, but the authority seems reliable.”