Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen. I address you this week with a little bit of tut-tutting in my voice. So a man got loopy on some chemicals and ate another man’s face. Big deal! I feel for the faceless gent, I really do – but at least he’s still alive. Do you know what kind of biting is more terrifying? Spider bites. Thousands of spider bites! Of the poisonous and deadly kind. If you think one bath-salty homeless man with a case of the munchies is any more terrifying than a new species of killer octopods, then you are living in a sheltered world, sirs. But I digress: there are other sinister new pets to be on the watch for. This week, we present:

Cat-Copter

We’ve long since prepped you for the menace of the quadcopter invasion. But few of us could have predicted that swift and agile death from above might also sport the face of our beloved feline companion. Bert Jansen might think the Orvillecopter is a fun or touching tribute to his deceased kitty-cat, but mark our words – that cyborg cat will be the first of many to rain hairbally death upon our land. And it’ll be even slightly WORSE for the people with allergies.

Even cows fear quadcat!

Nano Bugs

Amidst a bevy of other cool future concept, Margaret Atwood slips in some armchair quarterback scientific speculation. When not coming up with tales of blind assassins, she apparently thinks up tales of love and betrayal in the insect world. We’ve only got two problems – one, her name seems to be that of a commercially produced law-enforcement drone (which should probably make you prone to tugging your collar uneasily it of itself), and two, we already know that slug-powered animal spying is the best way to go.

Nothing to fear from an electrified virus, nope, nuh-uh, no sir.

Electricity Virus

The supervillain trope of owning an “animal that could also act as a bodyguard that I probably bought from Mike Tyson during hard times” is a classic. But white tigers are so 80′s – why not upgrade to a new viral friend? Of course, it’s hard to pet a virus menacingly, but this particular little fellow at least can cause quite the shock. From the article: “The viruses replicate themselves, providing a steady supply of material, and they naturally organize into well-ordered films…” Might be a little hard to breathe when your face is covered in a PERFECT SHEET OF ELECTRIC VIRUSES.

Science assures us the virus is completely incapable of affecting humans, but if it’s so safe, why did they name it “The M13 Virus”? Let it never be said MCD shied away from unfounded paranoia–because when talking about the apocalypse, we only have to be right once.

Psychic Animals

Way back in the day when the U.S. Soccer team had a halfway decent chance to almost not be terrible, there was an octopus that seemed to know all. Well technically, it did know it all, as far as bookies were concerned, and poor Paul got a lot of scrutiny (and offers from shady casinos) before his eventual death in 2010. Now as soccer fever looms yet again, a horde of replacement ani-psychics have appeared, including a suspicious “Paulo the Octopus”. Paolo, like Paul before him, picked his host country to lose -each taking opposite sides of treason against their homes of Germany and Spain. Friendly entertainment? Or evil animals sowing the seeds of chaos in our hearts? You decide.

Surprisingly, not all small dogs are creeps

Could Dogs Be Corrupted Too?

Answer: OF COURSE NOT. Dogs are the most loyal creatures in the universe. If a mad scientist tried to turn them into a dog-copter they’d come back to life just to pee on the scientist, and then laugh a little snickering laugh.

One last pleasant note: we’ve been measuring our technologies, and it looks like we’re preparing to whoop some alien ass. If we don’t make sure that the killer cat-copters get us first, we can at least take solace in the fact that we’re ready to shoot down pesky space invaders.

Hugbot loves your girlfriend maybe a little too much

Dan Morgridge’s slow loris might not be as trustworthy as a dog, but it’s definitely too slow to pull a knife on him.

Dan also found the bro-bots who will replace us as boyfriends, bartenders, and bottle openers. –>