Human Speech Traced to Talking Fish
During midsipman mating season, houseboat owners in San Francisco Bay have complained that their homes vibrate from the humming, which sound like a high-speed motor running underwater.
Hear all about it here. Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that fish fucking and human speech have a common origin. “I couldn’t see in that cave so who needs eyes? I’m over here, baby.” Sounds like a damn Italo Calvino story.
Dear Clusterflock
What’s keeping you going today? For me, it’s this delicious photo.
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
(From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Grasa de Pantera Classics Illustrated edition.)
Dear Clusterflock
What do you grow that you eat? (Besides fingernails)
Photos of Migrating Sting Rays
Proving once again that nature designs the most beautiful patterns.
(via Kirtsy)
Beautiful Skink Cages
“Beautiful skink cages,” read the ad.
But I don’t want to cage a skink!
Anole in Sunflower Shade
By the way,
the red-winged blackbirds are fierce this nesting season. Saw one drive off a red-tailed hawk by harrying and dive-bombing it.
Jesus Appears on Granite Slab in Dallas
Texas has had its share of Jesus sightings on tortillas, and occasionally he and/or his mom turn up on panes of glass, but now he’s shown up on a slab of granite. Cool.
By the way, be sure to read the comments. Unfair Park is a great Dallas blog, and yours truly often leaves comments there. Smart, funny people.
Cow in Mergers and Acquisitions
The cow who leads a lot of the company’s buyouts and takeover bids is an expert negotiator. No one who looks into her profound, liquid eyes is unmoved.
A Visiting Insect
Anyone recognize this creature?
The Unforeseen — Recommended
Cindy and I saw this documentary at the Angelica in Dallas yesterday. It’s great for those who have an Austin connection–and great for those who don’t. If it’s not showing in your area you might want to add it to your Netflix list.
One of the things I like best about this documentary is the inspiration it offers for those who want to confront the economically powerful. It very clearly makes the point that everything that stimulates the economy is not therefore positive in nature: a train wreck generates the need for clean-up hires and for orders for new train cars to be built. Here you will see the problems that result when short term ambitions collide with trans-generational values. And the film is very well edited: it shows a vast range of desires and the human weaknesses–and courage– that attend the fight to realize them.
Iguana Two Cubicles Over
There’s a marine iguana a couple of cubicles over. He thinks it’s funny to blow salt over the partition when Linda’s on the phone. Mostly, he’s a pretty cool guy.
Amazing tornado photo
link (via Daring Fireball)
Twice Dead
There’s comic taxidermy and then there’s moldy taxidermy. (No, this is not in our house.)
Rosa rugosa
Cut from the front yard. Fierce spiny branches, but worth the tussle to bring the scent of early summer into the house.
Lena: Gazing. Grooming. Hunting.
Alligator Snapping Turtle
This is my favorite creature at the old aquarium at Fair Park in Dallas. I saw him first when I was a child, and he looks much the same now–maybe a little more moss. And he weighs about 300 pounds. When I was a kid I would wade in muddy creeks, catching minnows with a net made from an old mesh bag oranges came in and looking for turtles. I’m very glad I didn’t step on this one! I once saw one about one quarter this size snap a broomstick like a twig. Took a section out of it.
Clip from an Imaginary Vampire Possum Film
Warning: This clip may be too intense for Deron Bauman.
it’s only — a year — a-way!
Y’all. We’re a year away from clusterflockstock.
bird
Liberty Avenue, in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
The Driftless Region (Where I Live)
Camera-phone snap. Galena Territory. Jo Daviess County (Illinois). Driftless region.
Did Toads Predict the China Quake?
For years the Chinese have used animal behavior as indicators of future earthquakes. Just before the most recent devastation in China toads swarmed across one of the bridges in the affected area. Two days before the quake thousands of toads suddenly decided to move across a bridge in Taizhou, a town in the Jiangsu province. Could the catastrophe that left tens of thousands of people dead in the earthquake in China have been avoided? Some Chinese are wondering why the local authorities didn’t relate the event to the imminence of an earthquake, and why scientists didn’t take notice of the bizarre disappearance of a lake in Enshi, in the Hubei province, on April 26.
Giant Leopard Moth
Here’s the moth Mia and I took from caterpillar to flight (and no, a bird didn’t get this one as soon as we let it go, as happened with a Luna moth at her school). It was lovely as a caterpillar, too–covered with black bristly hairs and showing vivid red bands between its body segments. Here’s how the Peterson First Guides book on Caterpillars describes the moth:
“The adult moth is very striking, with its 3-inch wingspan, white and black spotted forewings, and metalic blue abdomen with orange markings. It is eastern but more common in south Texas.”
The Neptune Memorial Reef
An underwater cemetery off the coast of Key Biscayne allows for the remains of 850 in its first phase.
In March, the remains of 93-year-old diver Bert Kilbride — who called himself “The Last Pirate of the Caribbean” — were placed atop a column of the reef’s main gate, because of his contributions to the sea. Kilbride was named the oldest living scuba diver in this year’s Guinness Book of World Records. “I think he would feel very honored,” his son Gary Kilbride said. “This is somebody who has been connected to the sea his whole life.”
