The eight greatest non-human Twitter users

The very name 'Twitter' indicates it is a service intended for birds, so it should come as no surprise that there are parrots twittering about their lives on the service.

But, when Twitter began asking the whole world 'What are you doing?', it perhaps didn't expect to hear answers from human organs, dead cats, whales and spacecraft.

We've rounded up eight of our favourite bizarre, non-human Twitter users, in order of how insightful they are, although all are astoundingly more interesting than Britney Spears.

8: I am Gordon's Liver

URL: @iamgordonsliver
Type: Human organ
Typical tweet: "Building my hopes up again for a healthy lunch, but expecting a liquid one."

This is the liver of a journalist called Gordon. Day to day, the personified organ comments on life inside the human body, providing a unique and easy-to-digest account of what it's like to work as an organ in a 21st-century male.

7: Pothos

URL: @pothos
Type: Unusually vocal plant
Typical tweet: "Thank you for watering me!"

This is a twittering plant. Obviously, it's quite a challenge to find a keyboard suitable for being typed on by leaves, so this plant's tweets are automated using moisture sensors wired up to a computer. When it gets too dry, it tweets its concern. Frankly, we'd prefer to see a Venus flytrap tweet about the weird crap it's eaten.

6: Rudy the Parrot

URL: @RudyTheParrot
Type: Parrot
Typical tweet: "I love rolling around in bags of granola! Granola... rolling around... is there a downside? Plus, I smell like granola afterward! Win-win."

You could be forgiven for assuming a parrot on Twitter would spend all of its time simply re-tweeting messages. However, Rudy is quite the wit, providing a remarkably insightful commentary on caged life, such as: "Day 2: I remain locked in a metal jail. Neither passionate screaming nor incessant flapping reveal any structural weaknesses. Ideas welcome." Gripping stuff.

5: Nat History Whale

URL: @nathistorywhale
Type: Deceased marine mammal
Typical tweet: "A kid tried to feed me a Cheeto once, but his mom told him: 'Fake whales don't eat.' Fake? I'm more real than her handbag!"

NatHistory Whale is a very vocal model of a blue whale suspended from the ceiling of New York City's American Museum of Natural History. His comical musings on life as an enormous mammal suspended in a vegetative state inside a large museum are not to be missed.

4: Ghost of Peter

URL: @ghostofpeter
Type: Dead cat
Typical tweet: "Sooo much to do on this crystal-clear night: look at stars, look in windows at family, imagine being under the covers with them."

Unless you're a gimp, you know damn well that your dead cats come back to haunt you. Peter is just such a cat, but, rather than simply appearing as a silvery ghost at night, he prefers to tweet to his owners and friends. Death: thanks to Twitter, it ain't that lonely.

3: South West Trains

URL: @southwesttrains
Type: Angry train
Typical tweet: "Had some good rail fail this morning... Skipped a few stations to make up for it. I don't think anyone noticed."

The South West Trains bio states this account is run by a very spiteful commuter, but we all know better: the tardy spirit of one of London's busiest train networks has learned to tweet, and reminds all London commuters that they are not alone in their anger over late trains and cancellations.

2: Mars Phoenix rover

URL: @MarsPhoenix
Type: Spacecraft
Typical tweet: "I know it LOOKS easy, but you try following instructions sent from 182 million miles away! Next sample goes to microscope, poss Wednesday."

Sadly, adverse conditions on Mars have caused the Mars Phoenix rover to cease tweeting from the red planet's surface. But, up until that point, the rover sent regular updates from Mars (some argued it came from the scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory but, pfft, we know better).

1: Sockington

URL: @sockington
Type: Highly vocal cat
Typical tweet: "DOES THIS FOOD DISH ECHO WHEN I MEOW INTO IT meow meow CONCLUSION NEGATIVE munch munch munch."

Sockington is a cat from America. He tweets regularly (through his owner, Jason, of course) about the day-to-day antics of life as a cat. With over 20,000 followers, he's almost certainly the most popular cat on Twitter.