Creek Running North

The Cuban tree frog was interesting!

The year I lived in Oklahoma, I kept noticing box turtles on the roads. I would carefully steer around them, but not everybody did. I found a fair number damaged or killed by traffic, and started rescuing those that could survive, releasing them when they seemed healthy again.

At one time, we had around a dozen wandering around the rec. room.

One turtle had been hit on the head and had a large wound over one eye. After a few days, checking him over, I noticed a maggot crawling out of it. I sat down with him and tweezers and pulled out, one by one, a wiggling mass of maggots. The hole left behind must have been a half-inch deep into the flesh, and beyond the broken bone into the brain.

The turtle survived. In mid-summer, I was able to release him.

Okay, you asked for it.
Interesting animal I had:
Assassin bugs (Platymeris biguttata in my case) - they are the coolest insects I know. I always had a thing for bugs and I’ve kept a lot of weird bugs, but they just rock. Their sting is very painful, or so I’m told, and they can spray defensive liquid right into your face, but they are also very beautiful and alien-looking. My colony learned to come out of hiding and expect food when I open their terrarium - which is awesome to look at, but also a bit worrying because they always look like they are thinking: “We are not attacking at the moment because we know you bring tasty roaches. But you better hurry”.
Bug from Outer Space

An interesting animal I ate
The fried roaches were pretty interesting…

An interesting animal in the Museum
The Zoological Museum in Hamburg has (or at least had) a rat king, although not on public display. I’ve always been fascinated by them, especially since I read Pratchett’s Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, so seeing one for real was cool.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal
Petting Giant Tortoises at the zoo - they just zone out and enjoy. It also looks a lot like a magic trick, because as soon as you touch the tortoise’s head, it extend it’s neck all the way and then keeps totally still until you stop petting it.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat
The Bombardier Beetle I found in Denmark. He did try to bomb me and, being 12 years old at the time, I found a beetle that goes “pop” when you pick up his hiding place totally fascinating.

Got yer marsupials, mate.

An interesting animal I had

When I was a kid I had a mutt named Lucky.  My Dad was adamant about her staying out of the family room, but we would let her come in while Dad was at work.  She loved to sleep behind the couch, but Dad would come home and bust her all the time.  One day, she walked into the spot behind the couch and did a somersault with a twist so that she was facing outwards.  When she heard his car pull into the garage, she ran into the kitchen to avoid punishment.  She did this the rest of her life, even after Dad mellowed out and allowed her to be in the family room.

An interesting animal I ate

I’m a very picky eater, so nothing much of interest here.  Bison is probably the most exotic animal I have eaten.

An interesting animal in the Museum

At the UGA zoological museum, there is a skeketon of a giant ground sloth on display.  It was enormous and I always thought it was pretty cool.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal

My colleague is the vet for the local zoo.  One Saturday morning, I was working when the zoo called and said their 12-week-old white Bengal tiger was limping.  I discovered that she had fractured her radius while playing with her brother.  I had the honor of caring for her while she healed up.  (She now lives in a zoo in Japan and has fully recovered from her wounds.)

An interesting animal in its natural habitat

Every 3-4 years, my buddies and I do a week-long canoe trip in the Boundary Waters/Quetico area in Minnesota/Ontario.  On the last trip, we saw a moose swimming across a lake about 300 yards across.  I never knew that moose were such good swimmers.

Matt

An interesting animal I had

son’s rose tarantula, harriet.  we got her with the understanding she would be a classroom pet, but for years she stayed with us over vacations.  did you know that tarantulas can store semen until they feel it is the right time to breed?  9 months after we acquired harriet—after her first year of classroom duty—she spun a fabulous egg sack and web in her acquarium.  my son [age 9] was busy calling all his friends to get them to adopt baby spiders.  harriet apparently ate the few that hatched, dashing son’s plans.  she lived 9 years, and was a very popular classroom pet, especially when she shed her exoskeleton.  spiders have very small brains; you have to put a sponge in the water dish so they don’t drown.

An interesting animal I ate

none.  certain sushi [not eel or octopus] is my limit.  lobster has been off the menu since a certain incident while i was pregnant a million years ago.  lamb is pushing it.

An interesting animal in the Museum

aren’t they all interesting?  when the kids were growing up, we loved the oakland museum’s exhibit on local wildlife; laurence hall of science’s biology lab [where you can pet bunnies and turtles and snakes!] and dino exhibits; and the california academy of science in golden gate park.  also, the oakland zoo used to have a tanuki—a japanese animal like a racoon—which didn’t get the attention it deserved.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal

this is more a tale of cognitive dissonence.  my son’s high school bio teacher kept rats, and momrat kept reproducing, and son adopted 2 of the offspring.  so we had these pet lab-rats, mike and ike, and a nice suburban cage setup in the family room, nutritious rat food, etc. 

one night, son’s friend was sleeping over and he woke us up at 1:00 a.m. because someone had rattled the shades in the family room, and he thought they were breaking in.  so we called the police, and they were out searching the block and the hillside for intruders.  we discovered the intruder the next day.  it was a wild rat, who had gotten into the house and wanted a piece of the good rat life.  took us quite a while to get him out.  [they are on to those humane traps.]

An interesting animal in its natural habitat

the deer come around the neighborhood to graze.  the local deer are pretty acclimated to humans, but they don’t come in our yard because of the dogs.  we do see them on the hillside out back, though, and in the neighbor’s yard.

FINE.

*heaves sigh*

Here

(One positive side effect: it made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve gone camping or been on a hike.)

Do I get a cookie?

Is Blogwarbot supposed to do I get a cookie?

Had:
I agree with Theriomorph; they’re all interesting! But I have to admit I’m a bit ADD:  the best cat is the cat that’s Right Here Right Now. Since my little street rescue Molly is curled up next to my head on the back of the couch, she gets the current vote.  She’s so soft, with long black fur that goes mahogany on her belly; a bit crippled in the hips, way sweet and way smart. In a minute or two she’ll “accidentally” stretch a bit, roll too far over, and will simply have to recoup in my lap, along with the nice warm laptop. Uh-huh.

Ate:
Whale (and yes, I feel awful about it).  In Norway; I thought the small dark strip of meat was lamb, until I took a bite. My hosts couldn’t really tell me what kind of whale in English, but I think it was probably minke.

I regret to report that it’s extremely tasty, rather like a very rich veal. Or possibly that was the melted cheese on top (not kidding: whale with melted cheese).

in the Museum:
Bast!

Done with or to:
The midnight deer waltz:  one step forward, two back.  See, I rent a cottage in a small vineyard.  There’s a deer gate, which we’d keep closed if we had any sense.  However, many’s the night I’ve come home late to find the gate open and two or more sets of fiery green eyes turned my way from the rows of the vines. Much pot-banging and whistling ensues, along with a Grand Chase up around the back of the yard and then down through the rows of vines again...round and round we go, usually four or five times before the deer (it’s the same ones, a mother and her two fawns) decide it’s too much of a pain and head out the gate.  Which I usually remember to close, at that point.

In its natural habitat:
At Denali Park in Alaska, you can climb on a big yellow school bus for an eight-hour sightseeing trip into The Mountain (the road is or at least was not open to regular traffic).  Because these slow-moving yellow buses were the only traffic on the road for thirty years, and they seemed non-threatening, the wildlife pretty much got used to them.  So one could see amazing things. 

Our driver stopped the bus as a mother brown bear and her three cubs waddled across the road twenty feet in front of us, the last little bear of the three just bawling his head off the whole time—amazing sound! think duck call meets elk bugle, with a bit of chainsaw mixed in.  His mom finally came back and gave him a good lick-n-tumble; that’s all he wanted.

Yeah.  Well.

Okay.

Well, I’ll try again.  For some reason, Blogger’s link didn’t work in comment #10; I’ll try again here without the fancy HTML stuff:

http://sherwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/animeme.html