BurningbirdThe critters we love and the critters that deserve our love.
I knew the weblogging place to be on the squid story would be over at PZ Myers pad, and he points to TONMO of course.
The feelings are mixed: on the one hand, the number of deep sea creatures killed by fishermen lately has become rather disturbing. On the other hand, where will we get a better view of such a magnificent creature?
As much as I appreciate seeing video of rare and unusual creatures, the films coming from the Japanese marine biologists come with a high price tag.
Earlier, they captured a giant squid on a hook and we got to see a giant squid in action just before it died.
In the last few weeks, scientists have moved a frilled shark and a goblin shark to aquarium tanks, where they subsequently died. Quite quickly, too.
In both cases we do get to see video of creatures that live in a world alien to ours, true; and the videos are wonderful to see. At the same time, though, I find this particular study methodology to be a bit hard on the studied.
Zoë had to go in for a rather intensive physical today. She’s always been somewhat of a gorger, chomping down her dry food too fast and than…well..you know. Lately it seems to happen more frequently and we thought it was time to check her out, make sure she’s OK.
Zoë’s also moving with more difficulty. When she walks down the stairs in the morning, she hops down, keeping her back legs together.
The vet tried to listen to her heart and thought she heard a murmur. To check for sure, she got an EKG, which is kind of cute (if not inexpensive). The worst of it, though, was getting a blood sample.
Zoë is the sweetest cat in the world, but she hates vets. One we had would examine her without assistance until the day when Zoë actually scratched the stainless steel of the examining table. The doctor jumped back, held his arms up, exclaiming, “Whoa!”
Now she gets a vet, two assistants, and being wrapped in The Blanket. Well, and today she got a muzzle for the first time, too. It’s good to know Zoë still has her teeth.
I’m not happy with the vet right now, and it wasn’t necessarily because of the muzzle. They shaved Zoë’s neck to get a blood sample, but she fought so much they decided to get the sample from her leg. A shaved neck and three shaved legs, they got their sample. Since the legs were still bleeding what did they do? They put gauze over the puncture wounds, and wrapped each leg with adhesive medical tape.
Do you know how hard it is to get tape out of a cat’s fur? Especially when it hurts the cat? My roommate and I finally succeeded, but not before our little girl was further traumatized. I think it’s time to find another vet.
Zoë is now on arthritis medication; one of the first real signs of her advancing age. According to the charts, she’s equal to a 75 year old human but she still plays On the Back of the Chair monster, chases the bird toy around the top of the bed, plays keep-away.
While most of us were agog about the recent filming of the giant squid, in Australia on Monday comes announcements of many marine discoveries in the last year. Among them are shrimp similar to ones extinct 50 million years ago, a new beaked squid, and giant lobsters.
I already mentioned my favorite, the Yeti crab.
It’s unfortunate that through habitat destruction and global warming, we’re killing off as many species, as we’re discovering.