Google me: Go really odd with an adorable cockroach

By JULIET ROWAN


It started with Dolly the sheep. Now the latest thing in biotech is the hypoallergenic cat.

A Los Angeles company is promising to produce the non-sneeze-inducing feline by 2007.

Genetic modification will rid it of an allergy-causing protein usually in cats' skin and saliva.

The company, Allerca, says the clone kitty is "the first of a planned series of lifestyle pets".

What's next? Bark-free dogs and handbag-sized horses?

But until Allerca swings into full production, the world has plenty of other strange pets.

And a Google search shows that many of them have their own web pages.

In Australia, rat ownership is on the rise. They are, says ABC, "clean, affectionate and loving pets".

And Britons no longer keep just cats and dogs.

"Behind the lounge curtains of a semi in Birmingham lumbers a 14-stone [90kg] pot-bellied pig called Twinki," reveals the BBC documentary Strange Pets (Land Mark Films).

"In Northamptonshire, a couple of Goths have their lives ruled by a meerkat called Merlin, and a civil servant in Rochester has turned his entire bungalow into a reptile playground."

But strange pets have been a fixture of British life for some time.

In 1905, Scottish farmer and naturalist Richard Bell wrote My Strange Pets and Other Memories of Country Life.

A collector of exotic animals, he had a menagerie that included armadillos, emus, mongooses and marmosets.

"I have all my life been a lover of pets, and during my younger years these consisted of specimens most easily obtained, and most conveniently and surreptitiously kept in a bedroom or outhouse," Bell wrote.

"In the same ratio as my years increased, so increased my ambition and the size of my pets."

In 1874, he became the first person to breed emus in Scotland.

His book can be found online at Forgotten Futures.

One website touts cockroaches, as "the perfect pet".

"Cockroaches get a very bad press and yet they are quite adorable little creatures ... " says Weird Websites.

It lists "endearing" facts, although what is endearing about a creepy crawly that bleeds white blood and can live for a week without its head requires some imagination.

The site tells which of the 5000 species are best as pets and gives instructions on how to take care of your cockroach, including feeding:

"All known species of cockroach are omnivorous and will eat almost everything. In captivity most species do well on a mixture of dried grains and fresh vegetables or fruit. They will also thrive on dog food.

"If you don't give them enough food they will eat each other."