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New spider species discovered in Vietnam. Vietnam is like the new species discovery capitol of the world these days. Now, a new spider's nothing too exciting, they probably find new little ones all the time. But this one's REALLY BIG.
I've seen this picture before:
But Cracked.com finally gave me context: a Chinese circus. What do you suppose are the intermediate steps to training that little trick?
The same Cracked article posted the famous photos of the lightning storm caused by volcanic ash. If you haven't seen it, you should go look at it, because as their writer puts it, "It’s like every single AC/DC album cover came to life and punched your eyeballs right in the dick."
Throw Shoes at Bush!
I got the annual newsletter from The Antigua and Barbuda Humane society, which I put in one slim day of volunteering at, back in January. One of the more interesting animals there was a sheep that was missing most of one front leg. He hobbled around awkwardly, getting around better than you might expect, but still kind of painful to watch. The staff there told me they were waiting on a prosthesis. He got it!
(Donated by Or-Pro Medical, of San Juan Puerto Rico!)
My happy thing from yesterday was when I went to the Tropical Forest exhibit at the end of the day, to bring them back their frog. That's nice in itself (recovered patient) but the cool thing was being in that building at dusk. It's basically a dome with a translucent cover, so natural light can filter into it. There are a number of individual exhibits throughout the building, cleverly arranged so that incompatible animals are separated (the ocelots can't eat the tamarins etc) but most of them share an open top. The upper area of the building is a free-flight zone, and tropical birds are free to fly from planting to planting. If you look up from the monkeys and snakes and stuff you see tropical trees and vines with birds moving around in them. BUT ALSO there are fruit bats, which are usually pretty difficult to see. Yesterday in the waning gray light of dusk coming through the roof, straw-colored bats flew overhead; I could see the webbing of their wings lit through as they flapped and soared with more room than I've ever seen in a bat exhibit. I stared in wonder with a dumb grin on my face. Not many people come to the zoo in winter, but this is a clear advantage of the early sunset hours--big beautiful bats. (Note to AmyZoo: we have straw-colored bats Eidolon helvum and Ruwenzori bats Rhinolophus ruwenzorii)
Edited to add: I thought I posted this this morning, but it's been sitting here unposted all day.
I've seen this picture before:
But Cracked.com finally gave me context: a Chinese circus. What do you suppose are the intermediate steps to training that little trick?
The same Cracked article posted the famous photos of the lightning storm caused by volcanic ash. If you haven't seen it, you should go look at it, because as their writer puts it, "It’s like every single AC/DC album cover came to life and punched your eyeballs right in the dick."
Throw Shoes at Bush!
I got the annual newsletter from The Antigua and Barbuda Humane society, which I put in one slim day of volunteering at, back in January. One of the more interesting animals there was a sheep that was missing most of one front leg. He hobbled around awkwardly, getting around better than you might expect, but still kind of painful to watch. The staff there told me they were waiting on a prosthesis. He got it!
(Donated by Or-Pro Medical, of San Juan Puerto Rico!)
My happy thing from yesterday was when I went to the Tropical Forest exhibit at the end of the day, to bring them back their frog. That's nice in itself (recovered patient) but the cool thing was being in that building at dusk. It's basically a dome with a translucent cover, so natural light can filter into it. There are a number of individual exhibits throughout the building, cleverly arranged so that incompatible animals are separated (the ocelots can't eat the tamarins etc) but most of them share an open top. The upper area of the building is a free-flight zone, and tropical birds are free to fly from planting to planting. If you look up from the monkeys and snakes and stuff you see tropical trees and vines with birds moving around in them. BUT ALSO there are fruit bats, which are usually pretty difficult to see. Yesterday in the waning gray light of dusk coming through the roof, straw-colored bats flew overhead; I could see the webbing of their wings lit through as they flapped and soared with more room than I've ever seen in a bat exhibit. I stared in wonder with a dumb grin on my face. Not many people come to the zoo in winter, but this is a clear advantage of the early sunset hours--big beautiful bats. (Note to AmyZoo: we have straw-colored bats Eidolon helvum and Ruwenzori bats Rhinolophus ruwenzorii)
Edited to add: I thought I posted this this morning, but it's been sitting here unposted all day.
