Shobster's blog attempt #3,281
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mantis shrimp
from wikipedia:
Called “sea locusts” by ancient Assyrians, “prawn killers” in Australia and now sometimes referred to as “thumb...
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Phyllium, or leaf insect
from wikipedia:
In some species the edge of the leaf insect’s body even has the appearance of bite marks. To further...
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Emo Pony
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Discovered in Oakland
via
Hey look at that. I’m alive. Survived the move. Found a job, although not in my field (more on that in later posts). Life is good. :)
Animal cannibalism used to be considered accidental or pathological, but scientists now realize that it can sometimes make good evolutionary sense.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Please tell me this is real. They need to come out with this movie already; Michael Cera is getting almost too old for the role…
Clearly Dope News: I think the world had forgotten what good news felt like. Thanks cast and crew of AD for making this happen.
Unfortunately this is true in my country, where women are often blamed for rape—at least by society if not by law—because they wear “too short a skirt”. :-(
(via nikimales)
Saw this guy in my parents’ front yard this morning.
I had never seen this species before, but that’s just because i’ve had virtually zero experience herping on Java. It’s kinda interesting how Ecology Asia website says that in Singapore they outcompeted the green crested lizards Bronchocela cristatella, but on Sumatra it’s the exact opposite: i never saw a single one of this species despite the hundreds of hours i spent herping on Sumatra, but the green crested lizards are very common. My dad says he’s seen the green crested lizards around the yard, so apparently on Java they coexist..
Never thought i’d live to see the day when Microsoft Word is beaten by my spelling. No guys, it’s not me; it’s all the latin names and frontoparietals and sublamellae and whatnot. I swear!!!!
It’s the Sambas Stream Toad, Ansonia latidisca, which had just been rediscovered after ~50 years of being “extinct”. It’s pretty amazing when nature decides to get a little creative with colors, isn’t it?! What a trippy lookin’ toad.
Yay and congrats to Dr. Indraneil Das for this amazing discovery!!!
Man, Chapter 1 and i have some serious love-hate relationship. On one hand, the writing is mind-numbing. You can only make so much prose out of a list of specimens. But at the same time, it makes me dig through old field photos to confirm the species identification. And then photos like these ones pop up and i’m reminded how awesome my field work was.
This beach is on the island of South Pagai, just a few yards from a village called Bulasat. It faces the Indian ocean and gets some good surf breaks, but it makes it difficult for dipping. Every day we’d walk out to the beach and hike for about 45 min-1 hr to get to our field site, and walk home at dusk to sunsets like this. If we timed it right, we get to catch a glimpse of thousands of giant flying foxes (they’re fruit bats, really) darkening the skies as they fly out of their roosts and begin their nightly forage. It was mind blowing and amazing. Just one of the many reasons i love doing what i do…
Photos by my advisor, Jim McGuire.
I’m working on my final chapter, an updated checklist of the herpetofauna of the island arc west of Sumatra. Somehow it leads me back to this picture, an elegant bronzeback (Dendrelaphis formosus) from the Banyak Islands, Indonesia. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Chapter 1.
I am all for assisted suicide. I hope to go with dignity and on my own time, if i’m so lucky. And i’ll send out a farewell invitation and everyone can say their goodbyes properly. Wouldn’t that be nice?!
