Happy Colobus Day everyone.
It’s worth celebrating the colobus because, at no point in their history did they subjugate, murder, maim, and torture others of their species, just to get more a shiny metal that they didn’t even make things out of.
The bushbabies are members of the strepsirrhines, which is a suborder of the primates known to have wet noses (and other things). Strepsirrhines apparently split off from the haplorhine primates between 55 and 90 million years ago, at a time that was called “the primate radiation”.
Interestingly, the primate radiation is the only known form of radiation to have given special powers to real life humans but not comic book characters.
It cost me a $90 trip charge, but the plumber eventually found the blockage.
Sand cats don’t follow politics.
Despite their name, you should not attempt to ride on these storks.
The articles I’ve read are unclear as to whether this beetle prefers only magnificent flowers or if the beetle itself is well above average.
In the hot desert sun, vultures look for shade wherever they can get it.
In reading about these guys I found them described as both grasshoppers and locusts – so I went a researching.
It turns out that all locusts are grasshoppers, but not all grasshoppers are locusts. Certain grasshoppers, when conditions are right, will go into a swarming mode. This is often triggered by over-crowding. Interestingly, the over-crowding response is triggered by their hind legs being stimulated, which causes a release of serotonin (I believe in the brain, but the articles aren’t clear). This release causes the grasshoppers to change form, eat more, breed more quickly, and start to congregate into groups. Then they all fly away to devastate the land all around them.
That’s right, the grasshoppers’ genetic response to overcrowding is to eat all their food and make more grasshoppers.
I guess it works.
When it gets too warm outside, vultures can melt.
Once the meerkat cannon has been loaded, you’ll be wanting to get yourself elsewhere.
Gorilla pondering the death of Vladislav II of Wallachia, 561 years ago today, and wondering how the world might have been different had he lived.
Perhaps we’d have more movies about Saint Patrick battling snakes.
The Fossá is the highest waterfall in the Faroe Islands and one of the biggest attractions in Northern Streymoy.
And this is why diacritics matter.
Hipster colobus does not believe this is really organic.
That moment when you expect your feather to taste like lemon and you get banana.
Did you know that you can replace any Ziggy comic with a photo of a bactrian* camel and the caption still works?
* This may work for dromedaries as well, but I have not tested it.
According to the Internet, the best way to tell if an antelope is ripe is to locate a small depression at the bottom that yields somewhat when pressed. Sniff there to see if it smells sweet.
In unrelated news, I am not certain the voice search on my phone is working properly.
Katajjaq, iirngaaq, piqqusiraarniq, qiarvaaqtuq, and nipaquhiit are different names for a form of rhythmic throat singing practiced in the far northern reaches of North America, in which the two singers face each other, using each other’s mouths as resonators.
This is Harapan. He is a Sumatran rhino and, as of this morning, no longer lives in the Cincinnati Zoo.
The zoo’s 30 year old Sumatran rhino breeding program has ended and Harapan has been sent home to be with the others of his species. All one hundred of them. Let’s ponder that for a minute.
The fact is, it’s hard to breed rare species. We’ve made tremendous progress, considering how short of a time humans have been trying, but the fact is that the captive breeding project for Sumatran rhinos hasn’t gone nearly as well as those for other species of rhinoceroses.
Sadly, neither has wild conservation. Originally living in throughout South East Asia, as of today, they can now be found only in:
(Source: Save The Rhino)
So let’s look at that again:
That’s still a lot of rhinos. I mean, the Southern White Rhino went from 20 individuals to 20,000 in a hundred years. So there’s reason to hope.
However, Indonesia is on fire.
No, really:
(Source: Global Forest Watch , October 30th, 2015)
So this means that our happy little rhino square could soon look like this:
And then:
Which means that, because people today like Starbucks, Pepsi, and Kraft, their children might never see . . .
A little furry rhinoceros playing hide and seek.
A tiny forest rhinoceros wearing a leaf as a hat.
Or a soft, buoyant rhinoceros pretending to be a submarine.
I’m glad I got the chance before they were gone.
For more information on the palm oil issue, see the latest scorecard.
Halfway up, he pauses, questioning.
His instructions were as specific as they were simple. Climb to the top. Do not speak. Do not look back.
Violating any rule would bring ruination. It would be the end of all he had worked for. Stealing the map from the mammoths of Lyrcea. Choosing a reed from the Minnorie, making from it the flute, and charming the guardian of the gates. The eons of walking across the shards littering the floors of the caves of death. Arrival. The endless days of debate and negotiation. All for the goal he finally achieved, that he knows is almost his. Behind him, unseeable, unhearable, unsmellable, trailing.
At least, he thinks. He hopes. But he how can he know?
Can he really trust the lords of the dead? Stories abound, of tricks and lies, of slippery words and slithering tongues. True, he’d done his best. He’d driven a hard bargain, given up less than he had feared. Yet, was it too little? Should it have hurt more, cost more?
He re-runs the talks in his head. Did he err? He had traded years of his life and half of his soul. Was that enough? What was the value of a year, to those that lived forever? What was the value of a soul, to those that had a multitude? He had wagered his skill against their champion, and won. But had he? For a champion, she had seemed flawed. Surely she could have sustained higher trills and more mournful lows. Why did she give it less than her all? Was he truly more motivated, as he had thought? Had she felt some measure of pity?
Or was it a trick?
It may have been. Perhaps in a century, stories would be told of his folly in the underworld. How he had hazarded it all and been played a fool. He wants to look back, to calm his fear and assuage what remains of his soul. A slight turn of the head, a shift of the eyes, and he can know.
But no. He will climb to the end. Or until, unable to continue, he will fall, damning himself and his love forever to death. No. If he is to fail, it will not be from weakness.
He pauses, tensing his muscles, resting a mere moment, then continues his climb.
A year wasn’t enough.
She remembered them, small and mewling. She remembered their loud purrs, echoing in their cave throughout the night as they suckled and slept. Later, she’d bring them meals, carefully parceled out for their tiny teeth. A gerbil a day, perhaps a hare. They grew so quickly. Soon they were hunting on their own.
The grasshoppers were amusing. It took them a while to master the technique, but until they did, their hops, alerting the grasshoppers … a passel of bouncing across the desert.
As they grew, they pursued greater prey. Jerobas, larks, geckos, all eventually fell to their tiny claws.
She’d lost one to a viper. That had hurt, but the others had helped. Her family reduced by one, she became more careful, collecting the threats, one by one. She showed them all the tricks, ensuring they knew how to attack. Snakes, from behind. One massive strike to the head preventing another. Scorpions, flipped, removing the sting with the sand. She’d tried to teach them of drought, but that is a lesson they would need to learn on their own.
She knew it was time when their play took them further afield. Some nights, one wouldn’t return, and her heart would race a bit faster. They’d be there come morning though. All but the one she’d lost — the brave one. She hoped the others would be brave, but not too brave. They gradually moved further, coming home less and less often. Until now, when none returned. Three nights she’d watched, hoping, waiting.
Tonight, she just listened.
She thought she heard one, off in the distance, the soft slide of sand cascading down a dune. She imagined another, far in the East, lazing after a kill, first to see the sunrise. She hoped for the best for them, but knew her time with them was done. She’d done her best. Made them as strong, as quick, as smart as she could. Their lives were their own now. She knew it was right. She knew it was proper.
Still, a year wasn’t enough.
