![]() |
Stand with the Mongeese! |
All posts by Egonzo
The Thing about Bats
![]() |
Batty Koda from Ferngully. |
I suppose if I hurry this weekend with a short entry I can get a one in for July. This will at least mean I have done one post a month in the last two months. We have finished moving and finally settled in enough to have the internet and a path to the computer. This is one topic that deserves way more time and intellect than I have for it, but hopefully you will come away with a better understanding of bats and the peril they face in the US today.
Bats today play a much more important role than just helping with the open scenes of Scooby Doo. Though greatly misunderstood and demonized they actually work hard as pollinators for a great many number of plants. Some species are only pollinated by bats, I do not recall which ones but I remember hearing it from Sir David Attenborough, so I stake it a reliable source.
There are over 1200 species in the order Chiroptera (“hand wing”-luckily these things sound better in Greek). As a matter of mathematics that represents about 1/5th of the world’s classified mammals. They range in size from the one inch (2.5 cm) Kitti’s Hog-nosed bat to the 13 inch (32.5 cm) or so Giant Golden-crowned Flying fox. Their wingspans range from nearly 6 inches (15 cm) to almost 5 feet. (1.5 meters). All the other fellows fall into line somewhere in between.
![]() |
Kitti’s hog-nosed bat. Couresy of Arkive.org great site or wildlife images |
![]() |
Giant Golden-crowned Flying-fox. Luckily he is only a frugivore. |
![]() |
Bit o’ scale for the flying fox. |
Nearly 70% of bats are insectivores. Zipping along erratically using their echolocation to follow some bug or another. Most of the remaining 30% are frugivores, dining on fruits which very seldom have erratic flight-paths. Still the remaining like the fish eating bat, eat, well, fish. Again, the people in charge of bat naming are a creative lot. These bats also eat crustaceans such as the “squat lobster” (not making that up), so let us be glad that they are not called the fish and crustacean eating bat. The remaining bat is classified as the only mammalian parasite.-the Vampire bat.
Vilified by Bram Stroker, this small bad makes its living feeding on the blood of larger animals, usually cows and other livestock. The bat will slice a small slit in the animals skin and lick the trickling blood. The whole process is aided by a type of coagulant that is part of the the chemical composition of the vampire bat’s saliva. Luckily however with this new version of sparkling vampires, maybe the small vampire bat can go back to its life of obscurity.
The most important thing that bats are facing these days are a lot more serious than bad literature. In America there has been a recent outbreak of a fungus. “White-nose syndrome” as it is known, gets its name from the white fungus growing around the nose and ears of infected bats. The mortality rate has hit 90-100% in certain caves in the American Northeast. The disease is troubling the endangered Indiana bat but studies and preliminary accounts believe that it might even drive some of the most numerous bat species in America to extinction.
![]() |
Small bats infected with White-nose syndrome. Source cavingnovascotia.org |
To save time and space, as I am told repeatedly that aides the popularity of a blog I will include the link to a Smithsonian magazine article on the disease. What’s killing the bats? is out in the August 2011 issue of the magazine and follows the work of scientist trying to outpace, outwit, and overtake the fungus. The interesting thing that you should get from the article if you don’t read it or the link dies in the future is that according to genetic studies, something similar happened in Europe many, many years before. Think of it as a Black Death of bats. Thousands perished but the ones that survived have an immunity to the new fungus.
January 14, 2011 at 5:11 am“Researchers increasingly suspect the fungus is not the primary cause of the die-offs, but a symptom of a larger, unidentified problem.”
Upon what do you base this statement? As someone involved since the beginning in this investigation, exactly the opposite is true: that despite Koch’s Postulates not being proven yet, the fungus is clearly believed to be the cause. The most recently published research documents the wing damage to bats by the tissue-eating fungus, which the scientists believe affects the bats’ ability to fly, forage, nurse, and cool their bodies; the latter temperature regulation being a key to fending off the fungus.
The fungus still exists in Europe but the extant bats are not as bothered as the ones in the States. So maybe some future cross Atlantic breeding will help the immune systems of an iconic flying mammal. Another interesting theory is that the fungus was brought stateside by spelunking tourists. Cavers who explored American caves with tainted european equipment. I am sure it was not done on purpose but the bats are dead just the same. The bats are seen flying out in full daylight, and during winter when they should be hibernating. This is a full blown outbreak, but luckily very well trained scientist have been battling it from its onset. To paraphrase the researcher in the Smithsonian interview: hopefully they will be able to actively fight off the disease and not just be documenting an extinction. Good luck to all those involved, and good luck to the bats.
![]() |
’09 Map of confirmed and likely breakouts of the fungus. Source: Northernwoodlands.org |
In conclusion, ladies and jellyspoons, the bat may be going extinct under our very eyes. Many don’t know, and I am sure many more do not care. The few that are fighting the whole outbreak are repeatedly coming up against brick walls. But, think for a moment, whether you like bats or hate them, what the world would be like if there were none, or even decidedly fewer. Ecosystems depend on them, they are a keystone species in some areas, and important culturally around the world.
We should at least care. If you cannot find any other reason than to feel compassion for these creatures, I can only offer you two things. They were the inspiration for one of the most popular crime fighters in all of comicdom, and they give us the perfect way to explain how someone has lost all their faculties and might possibly be on the verge of some kind of mental, critical and existential breakdown. I mean imagine a world without Batman. Also imagine what you could call someone besides “batshit crazy” in order to get your point across immediately.
![]() |
Bartok the Magnificent from Anastasia |
The Ant and the Aardvark, er, um Anteater
My apologies to my reader(s) about the long drought of blog material. Many people I know would say this was just a time to gather information with which to wow my readers with; this however, is not the case. Moving, class, and money have all gotten in the way of actually sharing points to ponder with the world at large. Hopefully, when I get my laptops repaired, or my desktop close enough to a wifi station to access the internet, the posts will take on some sort of rhythm and actually combine to make some kind of tangible, coherent thought phase. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I have taken some constructive criticism from one semi-loyal reader who possesses the attention span of a gerbil. With that in mind, I will try and make these nature musings more curt and to the point with brevity. Again, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Edentates have always fascinated me, and anyone interested in life should look into their habits and lifestyles. They are one of the larger enigmas in the fossil record due to their lack of teeth. The great thing about studying mammalian fossils is that the teeth are the hardest part of the organism, and therefore more likely to become fossilized. The beauty of that luck is that mammalian teeth are extremely diagnostic. Whole species and some genera have been classed based on teeth alone. Anteaters have no teeth. Their skull ends with a long bony tube that holds their tongue. So the anteater fossil record is pretty sparse. That is not what I want to tell you today. I want to clear up a little misunderstanding that toy companies, among many others have about anteaters and aardvarks.
I like odd things, and this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. So I went looking for a plush anteater. I found two, one is huge, for stuffed animal proportions. He is about two feet long, grey with the signature black stripe across his side. The tag in his ear is filled with information regarding “The Anteater.” This information includes habitat, diet, etc. This larger anteater follows the normal studies of the Anteater: South and Central America, ants, grubs, etc., one pup that rides on its mothers back for nearly a year, and all that other cute cuddly information that one needs to know when purchasing a plus 22″ anteater.
![]() |
Large anteater Plush Toy |
I bought a smaller one as well, to put on my desk at work. Same body style, about half the size, this one is brown instead of grey. The tag conveniently contains information on “The Aardvark.” African savanna habitat, nearly the same diet though, young, etc. So now everyone that buys this particular plush toy will receive the wrong idea of the Anteater, or Aardvark.
![]() |
small “aardvark” plush toy |
This confusion stems back to the 60s when the DePatie-Freleng team added The Ant and the Aardvark to their Pink Panther lineup.
![]() |
Screen Capture from the DVD |
![]() |
Giant Anteater |
![]() |
The Aardvark |
Which of these guys does Aardvark most resemble? Exactly. Arguments may be made that he is an amalgam of both species. He has the anteater’s long snout, but is not as furry, perhaps he is covered in (blue?) coarse fur. Most of the cartoons take place in Africa, or a savannah like setting. He is drawn with teeth, but he can also talk so that might be irrelevant. The list goes on and on of differences between the two, aardvarks are nocturnal, anteaters are not. Aardvarks have teeth, anteaters do not. Except that one from Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital.
![]() |
Screenshot from Kingdom Hospital |
The toothed God-like anteater of Stephen King’s psyche is not that made up. Horror film enthusiast will remember the human form of this anteater was a pale individual with an Ankh necklace. This is pretty interesting because there is a group of individuals who propose that the Egyptian God Set was depicted as, at least, part aardvark.
There are so many other things to consider when studying both species here, but I hope this short primer will reveal that the confusion over anteaters and aardvarks goes way back and is prominent in even successful ventures. The confusion expounds exponentially when arboreal anteaters are introduced to the discussion as well as “common” names given to species around the world, “antbear” is one that falls on the aardvark as well as the anteater. Even the binomial nomenclature can sometimes be a misnomer. The giant anteater is known as the Myrmecophaga tridactyla, Greek for “three-fingered ant-eater” drawing on its prominent “three toes.” The anteaters have five digits on each foot.
All this being said, I hope that it does not take the magic out of cartoons, or a movie, or anything else. What I hope it does is that it might draw your attention to things as they are not really being what they are, and that if something seems strange to look into it farther. I have found that most times, the truth that I find is many times more fascinating than any of the mistakes that are represented.
I would like to leave you with what started me on this strange, pointless quest: here is the pilot episode of The Ant and the Aardvark: (The Ant and the Anteater, just doesn’t roll off the tongue with the same ring, so kudos to Depatie and Freleng.)
The Great Northern Penguin and other bird brains
There are no penguins in the arctic, at least not anymore. In the 1960s Robert Silverberg wrote a hat trick of books about natural history and science. Funny thing, when I ordered them from Amazon they came discarded from Jr. High libraries. After reading two of them I realized that Jr. High students must have been capable of much higher degrees of thinking than the standard secondary children are forced to endure today. They are written in a plain spoken and easy to understand manner, that in no way detracts from their scholarly contribution to knowledge. But enough about the state of education in the 21st century, back to the northern penguins.
The penguins of the north are more commonly known as the Great Auk. This flightless bird was nearly 3 feet tall and weighted in a bit over ten pounds. Early European explorers found them a very convenient food source. See where this is going?
Nomenclature has always been terribly interesting to me, and these are no exceptions. According to one story recounted by Silverberg says the fishermen of Brittany gave the bird a Celtic name, pen-gwyn, which translates to “white-head.” Others argue that it comes from the Latin pinguis which means fat. A third school of thought has something to do with pinioning which basically means making a bird unable to fly. Either way they name took hold and was reason enough, according to Silverberg, for Sir Frances Drake and other voyagers in the late sixteenth century, to call the different black and white flightless seabirds “southern penguins”
They eventually became rare on the rocky Islands of the Northern Atlantic where they would breed. Silverberg says that between 1833 and 1844 they were systematically removed from the Island of Eldey off Iceland. One by one brought back and sold to some eager Museum representative.
One paragraph from the book I will repeat here in full. (I take some interest in whether this is the first time Silverberg’s work has been uploaded in a blog but that is neither here nor there:
And now a word from our sponsor.
I do not like football. That is no secret among those that know me. So whenever the most important game comes around, I usually sit it out quietly with a good book. Before the days of instant knowledge and the internet I would occasionally sit through part of a game just to see how well the beer commercials were getting along. Now, thanks to youtube and other related internet phenomena, I no longer have to do that.
Stripes aren’t all bad or all stripes aren’t bad
Last post we looked into two prominent species that have went extinct after the introduction of Europeans to their habitat. Both animals displayed a striped pattern on one end of their body or the other. If that was a singular example, one wonders why stripes do not indicate points on the dart board. However, there is one animal that is not totally striped (as for now the zebra seems safe, although Tigers are having a rough go) that seems to be rather stable. In fact, it is not as rare as you may think: The Okapi.
The IUCN Red book lists these guys are “near threatened.” Last account I heard on a nature show indicated that there are estimated around 10,000 to 20,000 in the wild. Zoo Basel (zoobasel.ch) shows about 160 in captivity, making them “reasonably common” in zoos.
The discovery of this animal by Europeans is somewhat of an adventure story. The entire write up in the American review of reviews can be read here, but I will give a brief high point synopsis.
The animal was rumored to exist in popular press accounts of Stanley’s adventures in Africa in 1887. Okapi remains found their way to london in 1901 creating a sensation. The remains were sent by the British Governor of Uganda Sir Henry Johnston. Johnston’s connection to the Okapi is even more strange. Apparently the Governor was alerted, or in some other manner made known, of a pygmy smuggling operation within his jurisdiction.
Apparently a German showman was in the Congo capturing pygmies for exhibition in a traveling show. (circus, perhaps?) I have done quite a bit of research on zoos and specimen collecting, the most prominent German showman was Carl Hagenbeck, but I have not seen any references that it was eitehr he or his associates that were doing the “collecting.” That is not to say they did not, but Hagenbeck is a topic for another post.
Sir Henry daringly rescued the captive pygmies. (I have no idea whether he daringly or bravely did anything, for all I know it was a Scooby-Doo trap that went awry and somehow managed to work out in the end.) Anyway the grateful, now rescued, pygmies told Johnston more about this mythical creature mentioned in Stanley’s accounts. I am unsure whether it is pygmy custom to tell stories when you have been rescued or if the Okapi just came up in polite conversation.
The name Okapi comes from two words in the Lese language. These are the pygmy people that we have become so familiar with. first oka which means “to cut” and kpi which is the name of a design. When an arrow is wrapped in bark and scorched with fire it leaves a striped patter on the arrow, this is called kpi. Lese legend says that the Okapi decorate their legs with this pattern adding to their great camouflage. I hope that either a Lese, or a Lese historian/ethnographer wrote that in the article I read, otherwise this whole last paragraph is complete bunk. I cannot substantiate it as I know no Leses (Lesi), or any pygmies, grateful, rescued or otherwise. But, it is a nice story.
I will say this, the okapi is mention in a book. In fact the first time I had ever heard of this thing was in Douglas Adams’ Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Apparently Arthur Dent’s brother was “nibbled to death by an Okapi.”
The Tiger’s Pouch and Equid DNA: the Danger of Wearing Stripes.
The largest part of being a graduate student is writing. Many times you take the same class as 15 undergraduates. What sets you apart from them is usually an extra paper. If you are lucky you get to do a research paper. If you are me you get to write a historiography. I will go on a tangent here briefly about why I hate these things and find them a complete waste of time. As a finished product, historiographies are hyped up literature reviews. They are a collection of summaries of works done on a topic. You (or me in this case) have to try and go beyond the original authors interpretations, and form your own.
Maybe it is because I have really only written historiographies on topics that I know relatively little about that I cannot seem to make that leap into forming my own. I could have formed many more interpretations had I been given clearance to research a topic thoroughly and not just look at how other people looked at it before. I think they are bunk, and unless I have to write one I will not. But, I have to.
The trick to graduate school is to use all these extra papers to build towards your thesis. I am working on wild animal collecting for the Nation Zoo in D.C. in the early 20th century, so I theoretically, I would try and pick topics that would allow me to run towards that. I sort of have one for the circus paper, but I will talk about that one later.
The reality is most of the time you cannot. I took a seminar course over the holocaust course last semester and wrote (a lot) over something that has nothing to do with animals, zoos, museums, or any of the other scores of interests that I have. I learned about source material and memoirs versus history approaches to things, so I do not chalk it a total loss.
So getting to take a course over the British Empire should offer loads of things to study. Oh, how it would if I did not have to write another stupid historiography. Sources, and hopefully contradicting or argumentative sources are the key. So trudging through the library that I live in I came up with things that happened during the reign of the Crown.
I could write on the Piltdown Man, the Cardiff Giant hoax, Alfred Wallace and Darwin’s co-discovery, or any other number of things. Great topics for research seldom make great topics of historiography. So I chose something sort of related to animals, and now I have to, in some form or fashion, collect it into a coherent work in a manner that I disdain.
Enough whining about that though, the thing that has piqued my interest is extinction. For the purposes of this paper I will look at extinctions within the empire. Specifically I will look at two. One from South Africa, another from Australia. The passenger pigeon does not count for this. I will also add one that was ‘discovered’ relatively recently for a large mammal.
First, the Quagga, this is the sand colored horse with the zebra striped head. The last one died in an Amsterdam zoo in 1883.
![]() |
![]() |
All accounts I can find say her name was Jane. |
The short story for the Quagga is that there was always a contention among scientist as to whether or not they were a distinct species of zebra or a subspecies. Most likely the last wild Quagga was killed in the 1870s. The creature had disappeared before they could determine if it was a separate species or not. However, the Quagga was the first extinct organism to have its DNA studied and researchers at the Smithsonian Institution discovered that it was not a new species but simple a special variant of the regular plains zebra.
The Quagga Project began selectively breeding plains zebra in 1987. As of 2004, through fits, starts, and relocation there are over 80 zebra in nearly a dozen localities around Cape Town. This whole study brings up another argument over the difference in subspecies and what we would call “breeds”. Below is a VofA news report of the Quagga Project.
Pigeons and Goldfish or Taxonomic Rebate
Last Thursday BBC news, and other sources I am sure, reported on a scientific finding about pigeons and their sense of smell. Pigeons sniff their way home reveals a study on how pigeons use scent to navigate. The study also involved stopping up one pigeon nostril. Sources do not reveal if this was done with small corks or if some graduate assistant had the arduous task of rolling up toilet paper to stick in the bird’s nose.
![]() |
Study photo from the BBC, note the GPS pack, or is that the sardine can the Bernand and Bianca flew in in The Rescuers? |
What they discovered was birds that could not breath through their right nostril took a “more tortuous route” home and stopped more frequently than the other tested birds. They at least made the 40km trek and none were severely injured or killed due to their non working nasal passage. None, at least, were reported, and in today’s psyche well, that is just as good.
I have always had a fascination with pigeons. Most people I know call them rats with wings. Having wings, and more importantly not having a long then hairless tail, makes these creature a bit more endearing to the public as a whole. I did a paper on pigeons in the third grade. Here is where english is important, I did the report when I was in the third grade, not the pigeons.
What I found out was that they were all descended from the common rock dove. Scientific discoveries of this magnitude must be shared, sometimes forcefully, with relatives that raise doves. So, for some time I was embattled with my aunt referring to all her doves as pigeons and giving the common street pigeons a nicer moniker of dove.
We, and by we I mean my family while I was growing up, had all manner of feathered beings about our place. We raised chickens, guineas, quail, turkeys, peacocks, chukar partridges, emus, and a cockatiel. One of our suppliers had fan-tail pigeons. I was enamored with them. To this day I am not sure if my dad got them because I was interested in them, or if because he wanted them. Either way we came home with ten pair.
20 strutting, cooing, displaying fan tail pigeons are quite a site. The variety of color and markings was amazing. As they reared young, something interesting began to happen. Each successive generation feathered out with less color and more white. Phenotypic results for genetics. A lesser controlled study than Mendel’s peas, but more fun to watch.
Years later I discovered that Charles Darwin was a pigeon fancier himself. His interest in the specific breeding techniques that lead from the rock dove to the elegant and sometimes gaudy displays of modern pigeons led him in part to think about things differently. In fact, animal husbandry of all types, full well known by Darwin, in no small part contributed to his theory.
Now how fun it is for me to know that by my dad getting pigeons for me, at least that is how I think of it, and that is what counts, I got to see the same generational changes that Charles Darwin did. But, you say, those are fancy pigeons, with their fan tail and not-pigeon-colored plumage. What about the common street pigeon?
My dad worked at a refinery, the same one my grandfather worked in the lab for, and the same one that he was determined that I would not work in. They have reboilers, towers, and units all around that are conducive to street pigeon fare. On two separate occasion they found a young bird who had fallen, or was pushed, out of his nest. We never ascertained which happened, either they were klutzes and semi ashamed or their siblings were of the worst sort. In either case their mothers had not hatched any stool-pigeons.
They were fed a modest diet of slightly whisked eggs and smashed grapes, (the pigeons not the refinery workers) until they were old and strong enough to make the trip to our house. They rode in the car, with neither nostril plugged. They both took up residence within the realm of the fan-tails. They made the same noises, their strut was a bit the same, but they lacked the Carnivale plumage and over developed sense of self that came with their over-developed-absolutely-horrible-for-flying fan-tails of their companions.
Taxonomically they are the same species, but are different breeds. Similar to how all modern dogs are Canus domesticus whether they are a Graat Dane or a chihuahua. The dodo is taxonomically related to modern pigeons, although farther back than the Genus, I believe. A large flightless pigeon growing some three feet tall, that is essentially the dodo. Where it fits into my life and way of thinking comes later.
We also had horses, registered American Quarterhorse horses, papered, documented, bloodlined horses. Basically same as the pigeons just controlled breeding for regisration sake. Much less cooing and slightly less strutting involved as well. I am not here to talk about the horses. The horses had to drink, and being of an industrious people we had a huge vat to water them from.
In life, this vat was used for creosoting telephone polls, or at least that is was I remember being told. Large enough to hold enough water for the horses in the pasture, and large enough that we routed a water spicket out to it rather than move it again. You would think that registered pure-bred horses would have bettter manners, but they do not, they still drink with their mouths full. A horse trough equivalent of bread crumbs in the water pitcher presents its own challenges.
Enter the small beings that could eat some of the deposited horse food that was deposited at the trough.
I said the small beings. Ours never got that big, although some did get nearly 10 inches long, none weighed 30 lbs, as this one supposedly did. If you want to read more about this monster from a lake in southern France, and all the argumentative comments on its authenticity and photoshop one link is here.
Interestingly enough, and how they fit into this stream of consciousness, the koi started showing the same phenotypic changes as the pigeons: more of the new generation’s feathers were white than the previous. All were well on their way to plain vanilla koi. The interim generations were marked with a gold and white holstein cow or paint horse pattern.
![]() |
This is not our horse trough the water was never that clear Just an example of the interim patterning I was talking about |
My point is, if there is even a point, that all the evidence is there, one just has to look at it and put the pieces together. One first glance what do fan-tail pigeons have to do with goldfish that live in a horse trough? The answer is apparently more than you think. I was lucky enough to see things like that and become part of that natural changing world. The most profound answers can be found in the most humble of places. I miss being a part of that.
What I do not miss is having to feed that menagerie between getting home from school and doing my homework. Actually, that is probably not as true as I would like it to be. Animals to be are the most wondrous of things to watch. I mean animals besides ball fetching pooches and @&#^ eating kitties. Animals that interact without you. You feed them and they are happy with that and go about their required animal tasks dutifully.
The only place that can come close to that experience in the human realm is International airports. Thousands of people buzzing around, all you have to do is feed them and they go about their tasks as if you are unimportant or do not exist. Interesting, yes, but not the same almost “divine” experience you get from living among troops, flocks, crashes, and pods of animals. The International airports smell worse than farms too.
Now that you have waded, trudged, and sloshed through that muck I will explain my title choice of this blog. In fact, this is something I have had in the planning stages of artwork for awhile now. A large family coat of arms featuring prominately the platypus and the dodo. The shield would contain images of exploration and education, maps, compass roses, books, and quill pins. While the shield itself is made of fossil bones and tusks.
What makes these two animals perfect for my way of thinking and looking at nature is that on the one hand, here is an animal that, at the very least taxonomically should not exist, and does. On the other is an animal that should exist and does not.
One is the marvel that is great change, a venomous mammal that lays eggs. Once those eggs hatch the young nurse on milk from a mother with no nipples. The milk, like yours is produced in specialized sweat glands and secreted just like sweat. The platypus just has not given itself a nipple yet. So the next time you see someone eating cereal of having a great big glass of cold milk, or you see those ads in magazines, thing to yourself, nay, offer up your hopes to the drinker that they enjoy that refreshing glass of cow sweat.
![]() |
From a NSF press release about the decoded genome of the Platypus. Read it here |
The other, the portly feathered inhabitant of Mauritius who sings about a Jolly caucus race to Alice, the world symbol of extinction. Why is that, do you think? Dinosaurs should certainly be that poster child, after all they have been extinct for much much longer. No, it is the fact that humans, learned, traveling, reading, civilized(?), non-pooh-slinging (again?) humans, new of this animal, saw it, captured it (it was held, alive for a time, in King Rudolf II’s great sceintarium in Prague.) introduced it to rats, dogs, and weasels, and for the first time we watched a species disappear form the planet. We also knew irrevocably that it was our fault.
For me, life is this dichotomy of what nature is capable of producing, and what mankind are capable of destroying. We are completely out of harmony with our world. I am not advocating paleo-diets or a return to hunting and gathering. We did after all slaughter our own swine, and beef on the same farm.
We are outcompeting nature to the detriment of our future. Yes the world did not cease to spin when the last dodo died, nor did the sky blacken and fall with the demise of the carolina parakeet, the passenger pigeon, or the tasmanian lion. But we did lose something, a bit of wonder, we are becoming a world that is replacing natural magic with cgi. While cgi is great for reconstructions, they are not alive, they will always be a far second best.
Standard More about Me or And now here’s your Host
![]() |
Sir David Attenborough recording a chorus of frogs in 1954. Photo courtesy of wildfilmhistory.org, a fantastic site |
Given that we are all living in the 21st century together and through the good advice of trusted associates of mine I have started a blog. I shall retro-act a New Year’s resolution of creating one and then cross it from my list. I am not at all entirely sure what this will always consist of or where it will go in the future. My guess is that it will just provide more filler for me to work on instead of actually doing work for my classes.
I am working towards a Master’s degree in history. My main research focuses on live animal collecting for zoos. There is also some tangential work being done on specimen collecting for museums. I have three minor’s in Anthropology, Geology, and Earth Sciences. I am a Natural Historian of the 19th Century vein. Not unlike Porthos who claimed a beheading axe a gift from the Tsarina of America, I self proclaim my college hours and experience to be a Bachelor of Science in History. I can do that, its my blog.
What I hope my followers (all both of you) will get out of this is a concise inclusion of things that are going on in the science world presently. I confess many issues will include links to BBC news. I also hope to enlighten some about what went on in the world of science in the past. We all grow up with iconic images of famous people, I shall use Darwin as an example. In our mind’s eye we see him old and white-bearded, about 23.
However this is not the Darwin that sailed on the Beagle. It was a younger man (Darwin really wasn’t 23 with the white beard) that lost his cookies over the Beagle’s railing explored Argentina, and ate large flightless bird over a campfire. A specimen which turned out to be a new species, upon that realization Charles went around gathering up everyone’s table scraps to make another scientific contribution via Richard Owen’s descriptions.
Those are the stories I want to share. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I, but if you do not I will also fill updates with reviews of books I have had to read for class and the ones I have chosen to read for pleasure, they are seldom the same. Some movies we go to, but that is infrequent, as well as reviews for a few theatre performances, and local symphony happenings.
I will also try and highlight anything I do along the way to a PhD somewhere over time’s horizon. I am notorious for visiting a city and really only going to two places: the zoo and their Natural History Museum. I will try and keep these things brief enough to read between laps your boss makes in your office, but some will require a bit more page time.
Updates will be infrequent, and sometimes more than once a day. I look forward to constructive comments from my captivated and attentive audiences as well as any questions that you guys have. I will try to cite sources that I use, even though the one for the above Darwin anecdote escapes me at the moment.
So, for a brief semi introduction, this will have to suffice. Once I get my blogging sea legs under me, I will go into more detail about why I call this blog The Platypus and the Dodo and maybe some back history on me that could be found in the about me section, if you are inclined to give a fig about who I am. Most of you do, and the only reason you will check the “About Me” section is to see if I have lied.