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Critters

Thank goodness for giant squid

Because otherwise, I would go mad.

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Insects Photography

At the Gardens

I have not been a frequent visitor to the Missouri Botanical Gardens this summer. I don’t care for the crowds the Gardens attracts during the “tourist season”. Though the number of people was still a healthy size yesterday, they also reflect the more easy going nature of the “off-season regulars”.

The Gardens seem especially nice this year. Everything was healthy, lush, and the proper color, most likely due to this being the wettest year on record (to date) for St. Louis.

Mum

bee on mum

It’s too early for the Monarchs; we should be seeing them in the next couple of weeks. However, there were plenty of Cabbage Whites and Painted Ladies.

Painted Lady

The only reason I knew the name of the small, white (and very hard to photograph) Cabbage White is because of an excellent resource for butterfly identification: Butterflies and Moths of North America. You can look up your state, see what butterflies have been spotted in what county and then click through for pictures and more detailed identification information.

Returning to the Garden, the water lilies are in full bloom, which means, of course, dragonflies.

Dragonfly on water lily

dragonfly on lily

Categories
Critters

Squid Friday

Lots out of Australia about squid this week:

From ABC:

New Zealand’s mysterious colossal squid, the largest of the feared and legendary species ever caught, was not the T-Rex of the oceans but a lethargic blob, new research suggests.

At least it’s not a costume filled with possum road kill.

To answer last week’s question, as to why the giant squid is a reasonable proof there is no bigfoot:

The giant squid exists in a world alien from ours, 3000 feet below the surface of the water, with ammonia rather than blood running through its veins. Our world is as deadly to it, as its world is deadly to us. Yet we have several specimens to study, and have for over a hundred years.

Bigfoot, on the other hand, is supposed to live in communal groups, stand 7 or 8 feet tall, is practically our next door neighbor…and we have no actual physical proof of their existence.

Uh huh. Right.

Categories
Critters

No squid, Bigfoot!

No Squid Friday this week, as I’m bringing you all the latest on Bigfoot. Or I should say, the press conference held by the slickest Georgians to ever hit California.

I wasn’t going to point you to one of the *techs covering the story for more detail, as they are little more than cryptozoologists-come-lately. I’ll point you, instead, to coverage by Loren Coleman, probably one of the most well known cryptozoologists. Of this find, he writes:

Others would have you call this thing by a name that is tied to the egos of the alleged discoverers’ names. Perhaps it should be called Biscardi’s Folly now, but I wanted a sillier name for this. Why? Because this body has little to do with Bigfoot and everything to do with a Sasquatch costume that someone developed after watching too many gorilla movies. The nares/nostrils are modeled on a gorilla and the mouth on the mask looks more human-like, while the teeth that seem to have been placed in the mouth could be my late mother’s false teeth.

This about sums up most people’s reactions on seeing the “body”. To me, the real mystery is how CNN could actually allow itself to be so taken in that it televised the Bigfoot press conference.

This Georgia peach of a hairy story is not the only Bigfoot tale on the loose today: Pink Tentacle reports that a group of Japanese explorers is on a two month quest to Nepal searching for the ever elusive Yeti.

With all due respect to the Japanese researchers and Mr. Coleman—who I’ve chatted with in the past and is both interesting and genuinely skeptical of claims like those of our Georgia boys—there is no Bigfoot, and I doubt there is a Yeti, as we would think of Yeti. My reasons for my disbelief are related to the giant squid, so I guess this story is apropos for Squid Friday, after all. However, since it’s late and I’m tired, I’ll leave you to figure out why the proof of existence of the giant squid would also make a reasonable proof that there is no Bigfoot.

*However, the comments at Techcrunch are rather entertaining.

Categories
Critters

Tiger cubs

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Earlier this week I made a mid-day visit to the zoo to see our five newest St. Louis citizens: the five new Amur (Siberian) tiger cubs. They’re only allowed out a couple of hours a day, but in that time they manage to cover ever inch of their not small habitat at least a dozen times.

The habitat is viewed from above, as the side view is blocked by the zoo train. Needless to say, the numbers of people were many and access to get a clear photo, limited. However, you don’t have to have a good photo when you’re taking pictures of tiger cubs.

tiger cubs

tiger cubs

tiger cubs

tiger cubs