Millennium's Favorite Pics
Some cool celebrity pics images:
Millennium's Favorite Pics
Image by MillenniumLuxuryCoaches
Some of Millennium Luxury Coaches’ Favorite Must see Pictures. These 45ft rolling mansions combine cutting edge technology with world-class luxury and elegance. Check Back Soon, New Pictures Posted Every Week!
Millennium's Favorite Pics
Image by MillenniumLuxuryCoaches
Some of Millennium Luxury Coaches’ Favorite Must see Pictures. These 45ft rolling mansions combine cutting edge technology with world-class luxury and elegance. Check Back Soon, New Pictures Posted Every Week!
Millennium's Favorite Pics
Image by MillenniumLuxuryCoaches
Some of Millennium Luxury Coaches’ Favorite Must see Pictures. These 45ft rolling mansions combine cutting edge technology with world-class luxury and elegance. Check Back Soon, New Pictures Posted Every Week!
Endangered Nilgiri Tahr @ Eravikulam National Park-Kerala, India
Check out these animals endangered images:
Endangered Nilgiri Tahr @ Eravikulam National Park-Kerala, India
Image by www.beontheroad.com
The endangered Nilgiri Tahr grazes on at the Eravikulam National Park near Munnar in Kerala, India.
Endangered Wild Asses at Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, India
Image by www.beontheroad.com
The endangered wild asses live in large groups at the Little Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, India. These wild asses come from the equine family and are related to the zebras in Africa and kiang in Ladakh.
Little Rann of Kutch, along with the Greater Rann of Kutch is the largest Ramsar site (wetland) in the world and is also the largest salt desert in the world.
Cool Wild Animals images
Some cool wild animals images:
Preening Pelican (Explored)
Image by Kjunstorm
A pelican preening while babysitting the little ones. Taken at the WIld Animal Park in Escondido.
Forgotten
Check out these toy animals images:
Forgotten
Image by Anders Adermark
I'm starting to build up an archive with these forgotten toy animals. Third one here :)
Tater's Toys
Image by Dyvo
The fuzzy, soft, playful kitty of Mom's household. Hiding just under the bed is Leia, the skittish kitty.
After watching way too many "Cats 101" episodes on Animal Planet, I think I've determined that this is at least part Maine Coon.
Strobist:
Vivitar 285 HV 1/16 power 7 o'clock with shoot through umbrella
n288_w1150
A few nice marine animals images I found:
n288_w1150
Image by BioDivLibrary
Oceanic ichthyology. v.22 atlas.
Cambridge, U.S.A. :Printed for the Museum,1896.
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4330898
n88_w1150
Image by BioDivLibrary
Oceanic ichthyology. v.22 atlas.
Cambridge, U.S.A. :Printed for the Museum,1896.
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4330828
n208_w1150
Image by BioDivLibrary
Oceanic ichthyology. v.22 atlas.
Cambridge, U.S.A. :Printed for the Museum,1896.
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4330770
Favorite Puppy Toy
Some cool toy animals images:
Favorite Puppy Toy
Image by cobalt123
A look at the large view is funny to see the eyes of the toy raccoon looking shell-shocked as Buddy has his way with it. I had to come up with a "stuffing-free" stuffed animal as Buddy has taken to eating out the fluff filling any other stuffed toy. This toy was the hit of the day and it was fun to give the guy such a prize. I guess Buddy would have made a great varmit-chaser if he was "in the wild".
Animal Rescue's stand :) Aren't they cute? ^^
Image by Meffi
Cool Animals For Free images
A few nice animals for free images I found:
Animal Sheds
Image by fabfemme
For Sale - MLS 5824792
4319 County Road 3210, Kempner, TX
Asking Price: 9,500
Map
*23.6 acres – Great hill country views, plenty of space for livestock, horses and crops, located right on the Lampasas River
*A hunters paradise - Deer, Turkey and Dove all make this area their home.
*3 bedroom and 2 bathroom manufactured home. Approximately 2,197 sq. ft.
*2 storage buildings, hay barn, stables and tack room and a screened in cabin by the river. All with electricity and water
*An RV or boat pad with electrical and septic hook up.
*The property currently has an agricultural exemption.
*The Lampasas County Free-Range Record Buck Hunting Season 2012/2013 was shot on this property in November 2012.
*Great location - 20 minutes from Fort Hood and 15 minutes from Lampasas and Copperas Cove.
*12 mother strawberry cabernet sauvignon & 12 blanc de bois grape vines.
*Dinosaur Tracks along the river – You can walk in the footsteps of a Postosuchus, a meat eater and a Tenontosaurus, a plant eating dinosaur, both common to the area.
Feel free to contact me with any questions or if you or someone you know would like to set up a time to visit the property.
Kelly B Realty with Keller Williams
Kelly G. Bolinger
(512) 553-3542
Smiling Animal
Image by jronaldlee
This photo free for use under a Creative Commons copyright (see link for details).If you have time, I enjoy it when I am left a note saying where the picture was used.
Cool Names For Animals images
Check out these names for animals images:
Ryder IMG_0294
Image by maplegirlie
Ryder was adopted on Jan 26, 2010
:)
Below is her original ad from the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter:
My name is *RYDER*. I am an unaltered female, black and white Pit Bull Terrier.
I have been at the shelter since Nov 21, 2009.
Ask for Animal ID# A334043. You will find me in kennel K15.
Salt Lake County Animal Shelter/Services
511 West 3900 South
SLC, Utah 84123
(801) 559-1100
Ryder IMG_0379
Image by maplegirlie
Ryder was adopted on Jan 26, 2010
:)
Below is her original ad from the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter:
My name is *RYDER*. I am an unaltered female, black and white Pit Bull Terrier.
I have been at the shelter since Nov 21, 2009.
Ask for Animal ID# A334043. You will find me in kennel K15.
Salt Lake County Animal Shelter/Services
511 West 3900 South
SLC, Utah 84123
(801) 559-1100
Ryder earning treats IMG_0223
Image by maplegirlie
Ryder was adopted on Jan 26, 2010
:)
Below is her original ad from the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter:
My name is *RYDER*. I am an unaltered female, black and white Pit Bull Terrier.
I have been at the shelter since Nov 21, 2009.
Ask for Animal ID# A334043. You will find me in kennel K15.
Salt Lake County Animal Shelter/Services
511 West 3900 South
SLC, Utah 84123
(801) 559-1100
Nice Photos Of Animals photos
Some cool photos of animals images:
Paper Wasp Playing House
Image by John_X
She is setting up camp in the backyard.
Mouthparts are for chewing. Nests are built from wood fiber collected from posts and occasionally from live plant stems, causing some plant damage. This fiber is chewed and formed into a single paper-like comb of hexagonal cells. Nests are oriented downward and are suspended by a single filament. Mature nests contain up to 200 cells.
insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/cimg348.html
Harris's Hawk on Airline
Image by qnr
When I ride my 49cc Yamaha Zuma, I generally use Yorktown to travel to and from Flour Bluff, instead of the Oso Bay bridge. One advantage of this is that I travel the quieter (relatively) roads and have a chance to pull over for sights like this. Now, if I could just find some way of getting to Padre Island on it....
Mini Donkey
Image by World of Good
He was a miniature donkey. I was on the ground looking up (obviously).
James's Flamingo
Some cool names for animals images:
James's Flamingo
Image by szeke
The James's Flamingo (Phoenicopterus jamesi), also known as the Puna Flamingo, is a South American flamingo, named for Harry Berkeley James. It breeds on the high Andean plateaus of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. It is related to the Andean Flamingo, and the two are often placed in the genus Phoenicoparrus.
It is a small and delicate flamingo, approximately 3 feet in height. Its plumage is pale pink, with bright carmine streaks around the neck and on the back. When perched a small amount of black can be seen in the wings. There is bright red skin around the eye. The legs are brick-red and the bill is bright yellow with a black tip. Immature birds are greyish.
James's Flamingo is similar to other South American flamingoes, but the Chilean Flamingo is pinker, with a longer bill without yellow, and the Andean Flamingo is larger with more black in the wings and bill, and yellow legs.
Petrified Forest National Park Wildlife Couch's Spade-foot Toad
Image by PetrifiedForestNPS
Couch's Spade-foot Toad is named for a spur-like attachment on his back foot. Credit: NPS
Elephants arriving at railroad yards in Charlestown for circus
Image by Boston Public Library
File name: 08_06_021365
Title: Elephants arriving at railroad yards in Charlestown for circus
Creator/Contributor: Jones, Leslie, 1886-1967 (photographer)
Date created: 1939-04-30
Physical description: 1 negative : film, black & white ; 4 x 5 in.
Genre: Film negatives
Subject: Circus animals; Elephants
Notes: Title and date from information provided by Leslie Jones or the Boston Public Library on the negative or negative sleeve.
Collection: Leslie Jones Collection
Location: Boston Public Library, Print Department
Rights: Copyright Leslie Jones.
Nice Animals That Are Extinct photos
Some cool animals that are extinct images:
3 faeries 2012
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
Hot Faerie 2012
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
merry pranksters
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
See the Zebroid for free.
Check out these animals for free images:
See the Zebroid for free.
Image by SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent)
One of the attractions along the Midway at the State Fair. For 50 cents, you can walk into a tent to see the Half Zebra/Half Horse, or the Zebroid. Also on display is the elephant-skinned dog (not pictured.) I Have nothing to justify the following statement but I would expect that this animal unfortunately lives a miserable life..
Flying Free
Image by szeke
This flamingo is proud to fly freely. I love how his head is up. Photo taken in the Laguna Hedionda in the Bolivian Altiplano.
The James's Flamingo (Phoenicopterus jamesi), also known as the Puna Flamingo, is a South American flamingo, named for Harry Berkeley James. It breeds on the high Andean plateaus of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. It is related to the Andean Flamingo, and the two are often placed in the genus Phoenicoparrus.
It is a small and delicate flamingo, approximately 3 feet in height. Its plumage is pale pink, with bright carmine streaks around the neck and on the back. When perched a small amount of black can be seen in the wings. There is bright red skin around the eye. The legs are brick-red and the bill is bright yellow with a black tip. Immature birds are greyish.
James's Flamingo is similar to other South American flamingoes, but the Chilean Flamingo is pinker, with a longer bill without yellow, and the Andean Flamingo is larger with more black in the wings and bill, and yellow legs.
Vielfraß
Image by Mara ~earth light~ free potential
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vielfra%C3%9F
* free for your creativity - please add a link of your work at this picture -
many thanks and have fun :)*
Red Tailed Hawks
A few nice endangered species animals images I found:
Red Tailed Hawks
Image by Lehigh Valley, PA
The Lehigh Valley Zoo in Schnecksville, Pa. is home to more than 275 animals representing 70 species from around the world. The core purpose of the zoo is to save species from extinction and educate the public about conservation.
Discover Lehigh Valley!
zooalacarte2011-08
A few nice exotic animals images I found:
zooalacarte2011-08
Image by photojeffic
zooalacarte2011-10
Image by photojeffic
Nice Extinct Animals photos
Check out these extinct animals images:
We are pre-extinct
Image by Ryan Vaarsi
Who will dig up our bones?
Will they be put on display?
Marveled at?
Understood?
Will they serve as the lesson that we ourselves were unable to learn?
Caracara plancus
Image by passengercis
The Southern Caracara (Caracara plancus), also known as the Southern Crested Caracara, is a bird of prey in the family Falconidae. It formerly included the Northern Caracara (C. cheriway) of southern USA, Central America and northern South America, and the extinct Guadalupe Caracara (C. lutosus) as subspecies. As presently defined, the Southern Caracara is restricted to central and southern South America. As its relatives, it was formerly placed in the genus Polyborus.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracara_plancus
Caracara Plancus.
Taken in Lago Argentino, Argentina
Thylacine - Tasmanian Tiger
Image by cenz
Extinct since 1933. I remember writing a small project about these at school when I was about ten and their story has fascinated me ever since. If you're interested, there's more information here: users.aristotle.net/~swarmack/index.html and here www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/. There's also currently one other Flickr photo at: www.flickr.com/photos/mlhs/538156/
Shine on
Check out these extinct animals images:
Shine on
Image by Mark Witton
It’s summer blockbuster season at the cinema. This year, we’ve already had another superhero flick, a new Terminator doing the rounds at the moment, giant transforming robots hot on his heels, and an angsty teenage wizard following behind that. Depending on your point of view, this is either the best time of the year to visit the silver screen or good reason to stay outside and work on your suntan. For me, it’s got to be the latter: sure, I loved the blockbusters of my day: Ghostbusters II, Independence Day and Jurassic Park stand out as memorable cinema trips from yesteryear, but, even though the same people are still making the movies, I’ve grown out of them. The Jurassic Park guys had a heavy hand in the new Indiana Jones movie, and it was crap. Likewise, the Independence Day boys have filled our screens with several unadulterated pieces of tripe, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 10,000 BC. I figured that it was them doing something wrong, that they’d lost some of their magic in the way that musicians can loose their spark over time. Unfortunately, I checked: their old movies are just as bad, it’s just that I’m no longer a puppydog that laps up any onscreen action as long as the movie as plenty of roary-roary creatures and some lasers.
Nowadays, being a whole week and a bit from 25, I’d rather watch a movie based on Chekov than Clancy, or be confused by Lynch than bored by Bruckheimer. The difference is the emphasis on scale: I don’t need big set pieces, action and devious plots to overthrow the world as we know it to be entertained: I just need two people in a complicated relationship, perhaps an edge of surrealism, and I’m very happy. I want to be emotionally challenged: I’ve seen enough celluloid explosions already, now I want to see real life. Give me longing and desire, or explore the brevity of happiness. Show brooding revenge and darkness, or people struggling with their own salvation. Instead of chases involving gruff men in black cars, I want people running away from their pasts. This is the stuff that makes for a rewarding film. American Beauty or, say, Mulholland Drive may be stories set within a narrow space and feature only a handful of players, but they offer a reward that just can’t be paralleled by any globe-trotting, high-octane thrill-seeking adventure with dozens of characters.
The same can be said for your world of pterosaur research*. There well over 100 pterosaur species now known and you can make a good name for yourself by studying the whole lot of them at once. Work on, I don’t know, an epic comparison of flight styles or some sweeping study of their systematics. Tell the world that everything they thought they knew about one aspect of pterosaur palaeobiology, mass estimation, say, is wrong, or reveal a finding from one critter that has implications for the whole clan. Alternatively, you could be really, really specific and work on just a few species at once. This is also kind of cool, because you become a total expert on that one little clique: you know everything of note that’s ever been said about them, and can spout streams of information to anyone foolish enough to ask. While this doesn’t really put you in excellent stead for conversation at parties, it does mean that you begin to feel a real affinity for your little corner of the Big Picture and you can tell the Big Boys doing the grand, epic work things that they just haven’t had time to notice.
*Yes, yes, I know: flimsiest link ever.
This brings us neatly to one little group of pterosaurs, Thalassodromidae. They’re the sexy-looking pterosaurs with stonking sail-like headcrests made entirely from bone and, for the moment, we only know of two genera: Tupuxuara and Thalassodromeus. They both come from the Cretaceous Santana Formation of Brazil and, to date, there’s no conclusive evidence that they existed anywhere else. There are some pterosaur arm bones from Europe and Texas that could be thalassodromid, but they could also be something else. Regular readers, if I’ve got any left after such a long posting hiatus (I have good reasons, honest) will recognise them as reasonable regulars of this corner of cyberspace: they appeared yonks ago in my first-ever press release image (the consequences of which are another reason for my lack of posting – fair number of folks after original artwork, these days) and then appearing several more times, most notably in the ‘down with skim-feeding’ press work of 2007. They were also a focal point of my PhD, as I not only discussed their feeding habits through research into skim-feeding, but also looked at virtually ever aspect of their taxonomy. Turns out, y’see, that the thalassodromid story is far more complicated than you might expect, full of enough twists, turns and heightened emotions to fill a period drama. Here's why.
Firstly, their name: Thalassodromidae. Not much can be controversial about a name, right? Well, there’s been some disagreement about whether the group should be christened this or another moniker, Tupuxuaridae. No one’s actually come to blows over this yet, but different teams of authors have firmly stuck to one name or the other. While you may imagine that there’s no real issue with using different names for the same group, it defies the weighty International Commision of Zoological Nomenclature, the institution that has governed the naming of animals since 1895. These chaps state that you cannot name the same animal, or the same group of animals, more than once. This is sensible enough, especially when you’re trying to write specifically and scientifically, and both Tupuxuaridae and Thalassodromidae are exactly the same thing, so there should only be one name. Thankfully, the ICZN provides guidelines to suss this sort of thing out, and, typically, the earliest name wins out. This would make Tupuxuaridae the winner, as this was first coined in 2006. However, it was only mentioned in passing as part of a discussion over pterosaur phylogeny and, in fact, it was almost certainly an error: the authors of the paper were paraphrasing another set of authors who mentioned tupuxuarids, not the formalised term Tupuxuaridae. Is this a big deal? In the eyes of the ICZN, yes: their code explicitly states that names need to be erected explicitly, and the casual naming of the group in the 2006 doesn’t cut this gravy. Or mustard. Whatever, the important thing is that Thalassodromidae, despite appearing a year later (2007) was erected explicitly, and therefore takes priority.
So, now we know what to call them, then, but what are they? There’s no disagreement that they belong to Azhdarchoidea, the same pterosaur group as the short-faced tapejarids, stork-amatic azhdarchids and slender-skulled chaoyangopterids, but which one of these groups are they most closely related to? This argument has been raging since at least 2003, with some authors saying their crest structure ropes them to Tapejaridae, while others argue that other aspects of their skulls and skeletons tie them to azhdarchids and chaoyangopterids in a group termed Neoazhdarchia. The jury is perhaps still out on this, but I think the weight of evidence places thalassodromids in Neoazhdarchia: all pterosaurs in this group have long, straight jaws with shallow mandibles, relatively long snouts in front of their nasoantorbital fenestra (that big hole positioned in front of the skull in pterodactyloid pterosaurs), eye sockets significantly positioned below the top of the same opening, straight or concave margins along the top of their snouts and a fused shoulder region (the notarium). Several features have also been used to lump thalassodromids with tapejarids, but the only remaining valid character of this pairing is that their headcrests start at the front of the skull. Compared to the number of characters that suggest the contrary, this is argument is pretty weak and, for my money, nowhere near as well supported as the Neoazhdarchia hypothesis.
OK, so we’ve got a name, and a good indication where they fit on the pterosaur tree, but how many thalassodromids are there? We've already mentioned the two genera of the group, Tupuxuara and Thalassodromeus, but how many species were there? Well, more than most have suggested, in my view. Circa 2002, we recognised two species of Tupuxuara and single speceis in it's sister genus, Thalassodromeus. Then, the controversy wand was waved again and it was suggested that all these taxa represented different ages of one Tupuxuara species. This has since been proven not be the case, and we’re back to at least three species again. At least? Yes, at least: there’s two Tupuxuara skulls with unusually reclined crania, particularly low orbits and angular, diamond-shaped nasoantorbital openings. These features aren’t known in any other Tupuxuara material, suggesting these skulls may represent a third Tupuxuara species. Problem is, one Tupuxuara species is only represented by rostral remains, and these elements are unknown in the two Tupuxuara skulls with peculiar crania. Hence, the two morphologies cannot be compared and we’re left wondering if we’ve got three or four thalassodromid morphs in the same locality. Sheesh.
So, thalassodromids are clearly a taxonomic minefield, with disagreements over just about every aspect of their systematics. Do details of their palaeoecology fare any better? Well, not really. My Portsmouth chums published a paper a few years back about growth in thalassodromid headcrests, noting from an immature specimen that the top-portion of the crest appears to grow along the skull as the animal aged, suggesting only fully-developed adults would sport the full flamboyance of a thalassodromid headcrest. This isn’t the fist time such a finding has been made, of course: we know that at least some other pterosaurs underwent similar growth patterns, and thalassodromids seem pretty typical in this regard. Even this finding is tinged with a caveat, though: the specimen that showed this growth strategy, identified as Tupuxuara by my buddies, is very probably a piece of Thalassodromeus. D’oh.
And then, of course, there’s the skim-feeding stuff. Thalassodromeus, y’see, was meant to be the Pterosaur Skim-Feeder Extraordinaire, and it’s descriptors were so confident of it’s proposed feeding habits that they named it, accordingly, ‘sea-runner’. It’s no secret that I think this is hokum, but I’m not going to write out why again: it will suffice to say that biomechanical modelling and comparative anatomy have clearly demonstrated the total lack of substance behind the proposed skim-feeding habits of Thalassodromeus and all other pterosaurs, for that matter (and yet, bizarrely, it still crops up from time-to-time in the technical literature).Unfortunately, there has been no further investigation into exactly what thalassodromids did do for a living, but some loose conclusions can be drawn from their skeletal bauplan. Like other azhdarchoids, their wings are relatively short and, bearing a relatively low aspect ratio, would’ve been handy for flight in terrestrial settings (what with the high lift such wings produce, not to mention the fact that their stunted ends will clip less vegetation). Their hindlimbs are pretty typically developed for non-ornithocheiroid pterodactyloids, meaning they were probably quite comfortable when milling about terrestrially. The neck of Tupuxuara is pretty short but otherwise strong and flexible: it bears no indications of dip-feeding, but it presumably didn’t place as many lifestyle-restrictions on its owner as the necks of azhdarchids probably did. Thalassodromid skulls show some variation: the Tupuxuara skull is quite slender and delicately-built with flat occlusal surfaces at the jaw tip, whereas the skull of Thalassodromeus is pretty durned chunky and has laterally tapered, superficially scissor-like jaw tips. Presumably, this reflects niche partitioning between these contemporary genera, with Thalassodromeus perhaps capable of taking relatively big prey compared to the delicately-built Tupuxuara. In fact, I’ll bet that the bladed jaws of Thalassodromeus were quite a limiting factor on prey size: while they would increase bite pressure along the occlusal margins, bladed jaws might make handling small foodstuffs awkward – imagine substituting chopsticks for two knife edges and you’ll see where I’m coming from. There’s nothing noted in their skeletons to suggest a preference for any type of prey however, so we may provisionally conclude that thalassodromids were generalists that ate anything from fish through to small dinosaurs. However, seeing as excellently, excellently preserved, complete thalassodromid skeletons are still sitting on museum shelves awaiting description, we may eventually be able to pin down their habits more specifically when more details of their anatomy are known.
And that, dear friends, may be all we can sum-up about thalassodromids for the time being. Like a Gore Verbinski movie, it's been a tale of frustration and convolution and there’s clearly some way to go before all the loose ends are wrapped up. However, the point here, I suppose, is that so much drama has been got out of so few species from one point on the map, and that sorting out these relatively minor controversies can be just as rewarding as figuring out some enormous, pan-palaeontological issue.
And, speaking of very focused views, there’s a profile up top of the aforementioned Tupuxuara with a strange skull, complete with a frog dangling from its mouth. It’s not the most exciting contribution to my portfolio and, what with the lighting and all, you can only just see the low orbit and reclined crania. Oh well: at least it’s something new and, hey, I’ve never seen a pterosaur depicted in lateroventral view before. And that’s important. Like recycling.
And on that note, I’m starting to yawn with alarming regularity and should shove off to bed. Before I go, though: apologies to all those who've tried to contact me with no success in the last few months: I'm not deliberately being rude or lazy, just a bit swamped. Accordingly, this leaves me a bit knackered most of the time, just like now. Hence, with the Sandman a callin', toodleoo for now.
Siberian Tiger
Image by Lightningboy2000
Classed as endangered, Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, are the largest of all the big cats. They are one of 9 sub-species of tiger, 3 of which are now extinct.
Siberian tigers are solitary cats found mainly in Russia. They inhabit forests and have large territories, which they scent mark to communicate to other tigers.
Tigers are carnivores feeding mainly on red deer and wild boar and sometimes smaller animals such as hares
After a pregnancy of around 3 ½ months, the female will give birth to a litter of 2 – 4 cubs. The female cares for her cubs alone until they are 18-24 months old.
Mermaid and Plantem
Check out these animals that are extinct images:
Mermaid and Plantem
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
skinny dipping girls
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
Faerie Dance 2012
Image by mardi grass 2011
Endangered Species: Psychedelic Water 26>
“Hippies are an endangered species here now,” the feral said through the knotty plaits of his beard.
“Not in Japan!” The slight sunbrowned man with a far neater beard and designer dreads laughed over the flames.
“No?”
“No – in Japan, many hippie!”
“We hear nothing about it out here, but in Japan there’s a hippie revolution right now,” Ram interrupted.
“That right.”
Ram turned to the Nipponese man. “It’s because that’s where the young people are – all over Asia. In the sixties and seventies the demographic balance was like this;” He steepled his fingers into a pyramid. “Old people…” He indicated the triangle’s pinnacle with a wave of his fingertips. “Young people…” he swept his wrists outward. Then he inverted the pyramid. “Now in the West, it’s like this. Very few young people, and all more tightly constrained.
“But not in Japan.”
“No,” agreed Zen. “In Japan many young people. Many hippie.”
Cameron conceded the point. “Well, there are a lot more Japanese in town this year, and they’re not all like the squeaky cleanskins that used to turn up, it’s true…” The shaman excused himself to water a nearby tree. When he returned Cameron was describing a strange small creature he’d seen nearby. “It’s only about the size of a rabbit – but it’s not a rabbit.”
“Not a rabbit?” The Japanese hippie couple repeated in unison.
“No – about the same size, but different.”
“Not a bandicoot?” Ram asked.
“No – wait – there it is now!” Cameron’s whisper morphed into a gasp. “You hear that?” A strange loud squeak filled the sudden silence.
“You’re right,” Ram whispered, squatting forward on his toes by the small cooking fire. “That’s no bandicoot.”
“Here it comes,” Cameron said as a squat shrub rustled only a few paces away and a small dark form emerged. He flicked on a blue-white LED flashlight and a diminutive rat-like creature was brightly illuminated for a flashing moment before it leapt and darted for the rainforest underbrush beside the creek. “Sorry – I probably shouldn’t have frightened it. But it’s here every night.”
Catalogues of photographs, drawings and paintings riffled through Ram’s mind; reams of images of native and imported animals studied during years of fauna surveying, or witnessed live and firsthand in plains, woodlands and deep forests throughout the eastern half of the great island continent. None of the remembered forms quite matched this tailless, two kilo marsupial with a surprisingly flattened and rounded face. “Another unknown,” he announced. “A little like a bettong, but not a bettong. Not a bandicoot. Not a potoroo. And definitely not a rabbit.”
“Not rabbit?” Zen echoed. The Japanese Wwoofa (a willing worker on organic farms, exchanging work for board as he travelled the country) still peered into the darkness in stupefaction. His beautiful mate Shi clung to his bare arm, patiently awaiting an explanation.
“No,” said Cameron. “Something very rare and unusual.”
“What is ‘bennon’?” Zen asked.
“Bettong.” Cameron corrected. “Like a bilby.” Zen and Shi regarded him with nonplussed expressions.
“A small kangaroo-like creature, only a foot tall – thirty centimetres,” Ram explained.
“Ah!”
“Oh! But that not one of them?” Shi’s voice is a gentle purr.
“I can’t work out what it is,” Ram admitted, listening to the creature rustling just out of sight in the darkness. “Around here,” he gestured at the massive tree-clad cliff facing them, “anything is possible. Up there above us is an escarpment - a great flat plateau full of rocky land, forest and caves. Anything could live up there…”
“And now that everything round here is regenerating so well, things’ll be coming down here, too,” Cameron continued.
“What that animal?” Zen enquired.
“Buggered if I know.” Cameron flashed his torch around for a few seconds. “It’s still there, somewhere.”
“You not know?” The young lovers peered into the dark.
“No idea,” Cameron confirmed, glancing at the shaman.
“Speaking from a view gleaned after years of fauna surveys and travelling and camping in remote bush,” he said, inwardly disapproving of the self-aggrandisement implied by his words, “that creature is a small marsupial that may be totally unknown to anyone but the Aborigines.”
“They know?” Shi’s eyes were glittering pools of firelight.
“Maybe,” said Cameron. “Probably.”
“You not see it before?”
“Not even in reference books,” Ram assured Zen. “All the images are spinning through my mind now. It’s not a bandicoot or a bettong… even if the tail’s been gnawed off by a dog. And those white splotches look like the markings on a juvenile koala, but its face is more like… a hamster…”
“But that definitely wasn’t a koala,” Cameron assured the visitors. Two flying foxes circled the Sally wattle they were seated beneath and the Japanese visitors looked up as the macrobats alighted in a nearby quandong tree, screeching and warbling in their complex semi-simian language.
Zen was amazed. “Wooah!”
“This animal unknown?” Shi’s eyes were wide, flickering in the firelight as she blinked up at the stars. It was only the third or fourth time that Ram had heard her shy, self-abnegating voice during the evening’s converse. “Not them –other little one,” she said.
“Well it’s unknown to us,” Cameron clarified. “But it could be completely unknown as well.”
“This country is recovering from a century and a half of logging and rampaging cows.” Ram gestured at the dark, hulking, lightless hills that surrounded them. “But it’s ringed by rugged country that no living white person has thoroughly explored. Between here and the mountains that run down the entire eastern side of the continent is a wild, wild country that’s almost totally uninhabited… by modern humans…”
“Like the Washpool and the upper catchments all along the coast and up on the mountains,” Cameron agreed. “Real wilderness, National Parks and reserves no-one lives in…”
“No human live there?” Zen was surprised.
Cameron bared his teeth in a grin. “Not for hundreds of square miles, in many places.”
The shaman shifted into a sitting position. “Last month all the Oz state governments in the east announced they’re declaring a wilderness sanctuary strip that will stretch from the far north tropics of the continent all the way to the far south, on the edge of the Southern Ocean. They’ve realized that you need at least that much land to preserve all the endangered creatures and forest types when you take climate catastrophe into account. And that last wild strip is the land they say they’re going to reserve.”
“Climate catastrophe?” Zen inquired.
“What they call ‘global warming’.”
“Really?” Cameron was incredulous. “When did this happen? I haven’t heard a thing about it!”
“It was front-page news for a day,” Ram replied. “Hardly anyone noticed, it seems.”
“Wow! Good news for a change! That’s incredible.”
“But true. We should really all be celebrating, but it seems most of the people who spent years getting arrested for saving those ecosystems don’t even know that we’ve won. Tell any feral forest fighters you see!”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
The shaman stared up at the brilliant star that still held Shi’s attention. “On the other hand, it is just an announcement by governments that may not be around for more than a year or two. But we can hope.”
“And there wild animal no-one know there as well?”
“You just reminded me,” Ram slapped his knee. “Less than a year ago eye saw an ‘extinct’ huge black quoll on the roadside… one of those mysterious big cats people occasionally report seeing…”
“The ‘black panthers’ you mean?” Cameron smirked.
“I can see why they’d think so.” The shaman returned his smirk. “If you hadn’t seen a quoll up close you’d have nothing better to mistake it for.”
“A koll?” Zen asked.
“Quoll,” Cameron corrected. “A native marsupial cat, called the spotted-tailed quoll.”
“Like koala?”
“About the same size, but you wouldn’t cuddle a quoll, mate, it’d tear you to pieces – unless you trained it from a kitten, and maybe not even then. You ever see a Tasmanian Devil?”
“You mean like on cartoon? Bugs Bunny?”
“That’s the one. Like that, but in real life. You don’t try to pat one.”
“You see one of them but black?”
“And big,” Ram agreed. “Almost as tall as the bonnet of the four wheel drive.”
“That big?”
“Aye – hai – completely black, like a panther, but with a couple of major differences, like a tail longer than it’s body, curved up over its back…” Ram swept his hand up into the firelight, “with a plumed, almost bulbous fringe on the end. A prehensile tail…”
“Just like a quoll,” Cameron suggested.
“And standing… well, almost on tip-toes, not like a cat at all – except for the curved arch of its spine when it turned to look at me. And the face was more squashed in than a cat’s – the face of a big sabre-toothed dasyurid marsupial quoll.”
“With pouch?” Zen suggested as Shi clung to his arm.
“With a pouch,” Ram confirmed. “Though it may face backward, not forward as in most other marsupials; some of the carnivores here are like that.”
“Ahh.”
“Should we tell anyone we see this animal?” Shi whispered.
“If you like,” Cameron said. “Just don’t tell any scientists.”
“Why not?”
“Because they come and catch it. Or kill it.” Cameron mimed the act with a chopping motion.
“No!” Shi was appalled. She looked to Zen for assurance that she’d understood the conversation correctly. Her beau translated for her in a rapid barrage of Japanese.
“Yes!” demurred Cameron. “They kill it, for research.”
“Really?” Zen was obviously confused and a little distraught. “If it so rare?”
“Because it’s so rare.” Cameron looked away and began rebuilding the fire.
“There used to be another species of quoll, all through this country,” Ram told them. “A smaller quoll with a more rat-like tail…”
“Not the spotted-tailed quoll, like the one we’ve been talking about,” Cameron explained as he built the pyre higher.
“No, a smaller quoll that became officially extinct a couple of decades ago. It’s not completely extinct – eye’ve seen one on the Carrai Plateau, a few hundred kilometres south of here, in that new wilderness reserve we were talking about.” More bats joined the small family at the nearby quandong tree. A dog began to bark in the far distance while Cameron filled a blackened stainless steel kettle from a large polycarbonate water container. The attention of the Japanese guests was riveted to the spectacle of the broad-winged fruit bats soaring a few metres over their heads.
“So this quoll not extinct?”
“Well… it’s debatable whether there are enough contiguous family groups to allow the species to survive long-term – enough of them to make it - but no-one really knows. You can’t count them by satellite - they usually live in surprisingly remote areas away from imported carnivores like dogs and cats, and the only people who work out there – the loggers – hardly know the place at all. They spend almost all their time in air-conditioned machines and don’t have the time or inclination to go exploring – and they’re not likely to tell anyone if they see any endangered species.”
“They have to pay for their mortgages,” Cameron explained.
“And the double-mortgages on their trucks,” Ram conceded. “Most of the areas we saved from logging in the past decades had never been surveyed before they started cutting them down. That’s why it was so easy for us to save many places. All we had to do was conduct flora and fauna – plant and animal – surveys, and in most of those untouched or barely touched areas we’d find rare and endangered species…”
“…That were about to become a whole lot more endangered,” Cameron filled in as he began rummaging around in the shadows to explore beverage options.
“Exactly. So we had legal grounds to stop the destruction because the workers and surveyors working for the government supposedly never saw a thing – but the first time anyone else looked, there were rare and unique animals there. I’ve seen four higher-order animals - marsupials - that aren’t described in any book. Five if you count whatever this is in the bushes… but we need a closer look to be certain.”
“Well hang around – it’ll be back,” Cameron assured him. “It’s here every night. Tea? Mint tea? Maté tea? Hot chocolate?” Shi climbed daintily to her feet and helped fill the small table with containers of milk, soymilk and honey.
“But back to the eastern quoll,” Ram continued. “When the authorities realized there were hardly any left, the museum in the Emerald City sent a surveyor out to find some. He came back with over sixty pelts…”
“Pelt?”
“Skins,” Cameron translated.
“…and the pelts were all female.”
“What?” Cameron laughed in shock. “Females?”
“They’re still in the drawer in the museum. You can see them there. They may have been the last sixty females – but as far as the museum knew, they were definitely from the last site where they were known to exist…”
“And they kill them?” Zen and Shi were dumbfounded.
“Of course,” Cameron said. “To prove they exist.”
“So… we not tell anyone then,” Zen decided. Shi nodded enthusiastically and reached for the honeypot. The flying foxes screeched and wheeled, inhabiting their own reality between the starry sky and the domesticated primates who huddled round the flickering fire below.
A true story
By R. Ayana
Continues @ centraxis.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/endangered-species-psyc... BE AWARE - THIS LINK LEADS TO IMPLICATE & XPLICIT CONCEPTS & IMAGES!
