New baby

Our gorilla mom Kiki had her 4th baby this week. Here she is with her second child Kimani and the infant in her arms, looking out for a zookeeper to begin the forage.

280 days of Urbpandemonium #43

I was leaning my bike up against a cement wall when I detected the tiniest movement. This male zebra jumper (Salticus scenicus*), all of 4mm long, took my presence as a threat and was dancing to and fro and waving his folding pedipalps at me.
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3:00 snapshot #1989: Friday

Zookeeper Rachel (we have 3 zookeeper Rachels) displays the painting she got the male ocelot to produce.

280 days of Urbpandemonium #44

It's been too dry in Massachusetts to see any fungi or slime molds--except in our compost container! This is Fuligo septica*, the "scrambled egg" or "dog vomit" slime mold. It's a weird organism, composed of millions of individual crawling cells acting together as a collective creature, eating bacteria and other organic matter as it travels. Eventually it finishes its journey and the mass changes from a foamy blob into a mass of spores that can continue the trip elsewhere. Fuligo septica has been a favorite on this blog for many years.


The black thing at the leading edge of the slime mold is a piece of plastic broken off the compost container.

* literally "Rotten soot"