Southward Ho!

NDM has accepted a new job at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando starting at the end of August. Finally, some blessed relief from our hot and humid Chicago summers :-) We'll be moving down sometime about the third week of August. If anybody wants to buy our house in Westmont, don't be shy!

The Hammock's Last Hurrah

NDM managed to get a lot of good studying done in the hammock this year. A huge amount of studying if she was dreaming about zoo boards. But the hammock isn't just about work; it is also Líle's rocking magical licking cradle and puppy gas emporium.
Until next year, hammock!

My Wife, The Diplomat

Congratulations to NDM, DVM, MS, Dipl ACZM!

My Rhino Smells Like Roses

This may be my last post. Because the wife may very well kill me when she sees this. But, as she says herself, this is what she does for a living.

You ready?

It's coming.

Here it is.
Where is my wife's right arm, I hear you ask? Don't ask. The rhino probably shouldn't ask either.

I'd like to be cremated and have my ashes mailed in envelopes with no return address to various Republican congressmen.

My Wife The Pioneer

There's been some press coverage of NDM's uterine fibroid embolization of the gorilla Beta this past Tuesday at Brookfield. The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Suburban News, and CBS 2 Chicago have online stories. NDM is in some of the CBS video; she avoided her traditional funny quotes (à la some of the Bubba coverage at Shedd), but wasn't very well lit. She was also interviewed by WBBM-AM.

Take Me To Your Horse Meat

There could be two new tiger cubs at some zoological institution, somewhere. An exotics veterinarian who may or may not be my wife might have been photographed with one. I assert nothing. This is a Photoshopped picture.

Octosquid (Reblog)

A cephalopodophile's wet dream, the octosquid, was just pulled up off the coast of Hawaii.

No More Endangered Species (Reblog)

These days our Supreme Court is supremely uninterested in precedent -- so much for stare decisis et non quieta movere. One among many recent 5-4 decisions (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy vs. the interests of the people of the United States of America), the Court has ruled in favor of the National Association of Home Builders (PDF) to permit the federal government to ignore the Endangered Species Act. Why, you might ask? Why, when such a decision overrules all established case precedent and past judgments?

The time to ask why was, of course, before we were left with just four unbought justices -- ages 67, 68, 74, and 87. That means that the right-wing Court is on average more than 12 years younger than the ethical Court.

Potamochoerus Porcus

NDM holds here a brand-new red river hog. Or maybe it isn't brand new, and certainly I wouldn't know what zoo this was at, or if it is even at a zoo. The animal could very well be animatronic and does not imply that a birth recently took place. Don't be surprised if I'm forced to take this image down later due to overzealous wifely copyright enforcement or something.

Oh, and both of the subjects in this photograph have rosy cheeks from too much on-the-job drinking.

Encyclopedia of Life (Reblog)

I'm excited about the Encyclopedia of Life project, although it is going to take a long time... Look at their yeti crab sample. Particularly cool:

• The scaling of content by level of expertise.
• The presentation of taxonomic and evolutionary information, with nary a mention of what second of his six days God intelligently designed the organism. The horrible, horrible bias! Thank God!
• The availability of RSS feeds to track updates to the aggregated data.

My DVM

My live-in exotics veterinarian hates when I photograph her, but that's what she gets for constantly harassing me about how I won't take pictures.

Batfetishes

To help Myra figure out what her favorite fish is, here are some batfish.
The above batfish I was talking about (which I saw, unusually, swimming on the surface from a boat's deck in the Galapagos) is a member of the anglerfish family, Dibranchus atlanticus. It is normally a deep water bottom-dwelling fish, and nobody I was with had an explanation for what the thing was doing flopping around that night in the boat's running lights. They are so distinctive, however, that our identification was pretty certain.
The Flying Gurnard is another very distinctive batfish. It does, in fact, fly -- as much as any fish.

There is also a common aquarium fish called a batfish (a type of spadefish), as well as a Pacific stingray. Which is cheating, since stingrays are elasmobranchs like sharks, and we all know people really mean teleosts when they say fish. And probably other fish as well that I've never heard of.
This is the 1992 outfit Batman might wear to go collect some Dibranchus atlanticus -- Deep Dive Batman! Hand me down the shark repellent bat spray...

Whale Of A Site (Reblog)

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society is allowing us to experience a life-size whale on our computer monitors. Maybe I'm a sucker for whales, but I think this is totally keen. I think this might go over well in the classroom of one of the many J. Schoolteachers I know.

Frogwatch (Recommendation)

For those of you who don't already know, I was raised by frogs. I used to drive around the country in a panel van with Hyla painted on the side. When I visit my parents' home, the only way to avoid looking at a frog is to keep your eyes closed. And I mean anywhere in their home.

All that said, I still kinda like frogs.

Do you like frogs? The National Wildlife Federation (one of my favorite charities) has a Frogwatch program that you -- yes, you -- can participate in. Some of you I know have children that are almost of an age to participate in this with the help of a parental unit. In Champaign-Urbana there are plenty of nearby wetland habitats. It pays to build on a swamp! Or you can always take a few excursions east to Kickapoo.

Frilled Shark (Reblog)

The Awashima Marine Park in Japan caught a female frilled shark today, filming it before its death a few hours later. The video is available from the preceding Reuters article link.

Awashima Marine Park is pretty nifty; it is actually its own artifical island in Uchiura Bay, 静岡県. It is a part of the well-known Numazu tourist hub.