After the last post LabRat linked in Comments to a pic of the delightful little Crotalus lepidus, the neurotoxic but sweet- natured banded rock rattler. Around here they live at elevations from about 7500 feet and up, in talus slopes, and have a very short “growing season”. Because of this they may be less picky …
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Crotalia
Earlier I sent around this pic of a fat rattler encountered by one of my field survey crews near Rawlins, Wyoming last week. It came just at the time that Chas was reviewing a book written by a rattlesnake bite survivor and reflecting on his own close encounter with one a couple of years ago. …
“Zoos and Flies”
Dr. Hypercube has an essay up linking zoo architecture, raising poison dart frogs, and how to design an effective (fishing) fly. (The last references my late friend Datus Proper, who died with his waders on while fishing Hyalite Creek). What these pursuits have in common is they all make an effort to communicate something intelligible …
A Little Garden Blogging
High summer, decent rains, garden roaring. Libby points at the Dahlias springing up from Patrick Porter’s generous gift. This is the first year we have grown Chinese long beans. Insects are everywhere. We keep our cardoon as an ornamental. This year we noticed that it is COVERED with insects, on virtually every leaf– not ones …
U and Non- U American Accents
Megan McArdle at the Atlantic has a post up on the all- but- vanished “Mid- Atlantic accent” of the old Eastern WASP upper class. This interests me because I remember it well, but I have the sense that it is virtually extinct. (Think George Plympton; William Buckley’s was a variant but very idiosyncratic.) Betsy Huntington …
Food and AR News
In Oakland you can have an actual farm, pigs and all. But in Chicago, the banningest city in the US (pigeons, foie gras, handguns), HSUS wants to compel you to cut off your dogs’ gonads. Of course they say it is a good thing. The Sportsman’s and Animal Owners Voting Alliance thinks differently: “The distorted …
Science Links
Darren has been posting a series of utterly weird and alien cetacean skulls. Try here and here and especially here for my favorites, but they are all wonderful. He also weighs in on the “Montauk Monster”. Despite the hysteria I though it was a canid; he convinces me that it is likely another small carnivore. …
NIMBY (except it isn’t your back yard!)
You’ve probably see this one: Man plants cars to stake claim on farm property. It’s funny, and it’s meant to be. But the larger issue surrounding it is not so funny. New suburban residential developments continue to invade rural areas, despite the higher costs of commuting that may ultimately make the McMansion an untenable concept. …
Another Antikythera Mechanism Study
Not quite two years ago, I posted on the Antikythera Mechanism, a Hellenistic Greek “celestial computer” dating to 100 BC, recovered from a Mediterranean shipwreck. It appears to be a metal gear-driven device that allowed the ancient people to track and predict astronomical phenomena. It was recovered from the wreck almost 100 years ago, but …
Friday Feeder Friend
Scrub jay.