Baby Elk

I went by the Hooved Animal Enclosure at Fleming Park last weekend. They have Buffalo and Elk out there, and the name lacks elegance, but I don't have a better suggestion.

People go and feed the elk through the fence. They mostly feed them carrots and this has totally tamed the animals. They will lick your fingers and take the food right out of your hands. If you really want a good friend, slice up an apple and feed that to them.

They are doing what Elk herds do this time of the year, they have a bull and he's got his harem. I think some younger bulls are around, unless they were shipped off, I didn't see them up by the fence. When I pulled up the bull bellowed, which is one of the coolest sounds you will ever hear.

The family that was there just finished feeding all their carrots to the elk, and the youngest elk was still trying to get something from the mother. I don't remember ever seeing them this young out there before. It seems odd that the bull is in rut (that time of the year when they loose weight, get agressive, and mate with the females) while there are still calves mixed in with the herd. You'd think the bull would run the little guys off in order to get busy with their mommies.

I'm not an elkologist, so I don't know.

Strange Fungus

The neighboring house has been vacant for about 4 years and the yard rarely gets mowed. I recently saw something I've never seen before, which is fungus growing at the base of an oak tree. These are some huge funguses. They look like brains.

I have heard that fungus and mushroom species are usually matched with a particular tree species. Mushroom hunters will tell you, for example, that the favored mushroom, the Morrell, is usually found where Elm trees have fallen and rotted.

I'm not sure what the story on these specimens is.

Siberian Tigers

The Siberian Tiger is almost extinct. There are only a few hundred left. Many people thought that it would be gone very soon.

They live in an area from eastern Russia to China. The Russians recently hired some game wardens that have been suppressing the poachers that were hunting and killing off the tiger. This is making a difference and they are making a dramatic comeback.

This year, there are over 100 cubs, and they are making signs of a comeback.

I hope it works.

They look cute when they are little, but I wouldn't want one as a pet. You'd probably have to buy a side of beef once a week to keep it fed.

Iranian Cheetahs

Luke Hunter is the Coordinator of the Great Cats Program, and he is currently working on saving the Asiatic Cheetah found in a desert area in Iran.

There aren't many left, but they are radio tracking them and trying to learn more so they can come back.

Cheetahs at one time were kept as hunting pets by Egyptians and Indian Princes. You can't breed Cheetahs in captivity because the female has to run for a few days, chased by males before she can even be able to get pregnant and start making baby cheetahs. So in the old days, they would find Cheetah kittens in the wild and raise them for hunting animals. There was a Prince in India that had over 100 of them. I guess they made great pets, but you had to keep raiding the wild ones if you wanted more.

The Geoquiz on PRI told me about this issue, and you can read about it at http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/13231 with the answer at the link below
http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/13231&answer=true

The podcast I heard it on had a Cheetah purring, which is a really cool sound. The web link only has the answer to the quiz, but the question, which has the cheetah purring, is not there. Email me and I will email the mp3 file from the podcast or you can subscribe to the PRI Geoquiz and listen to the October 10, 2007 quiz for the purring sound.

I hope we can stop them for disappearing. They are just too cool of an animal to get wiped out.

The Great Pumpkin

People love to grow pumpkins. It's the biggest fruit or vegetable (whatever it is) that people grow.

Each year, people have a contest to grow the world's biggest pumpkin, and this guy, Joe Jutras, did it this year with a 1,689 pound pumpkin, 187 pounds bigger than last years record. See: http://www.pumpkinnook.com/giants/giantpumpkins.htm

These pumpkins aren't even purely pumpkins anymore. They have been crossbred with squashes to get this big. They are so big that they sometimes grow over 50 pounds in one day and start to bend and collapse under their own weight.

I recently listened to an interview of a person that wrote a book on growing these huge pumpkins, and you can tell that people are obsessed with it. You can listen to the interview at http://www.sciam.com/podcast/index.cfm?e_type=13 and click on the October 31st episode of Science Talk. The author, Susan Warren, wrote the book Backyard Giants. Her website is www.backyardgiants.com.

Pumkin Obsession: tell me about it. We do the same thing ever since a friend threw her old pumpkins in our compost heap a few years back and the volunteer plants the next year yielded huge pumpkins.

Linus would be proud.

Four Seasons

Sometimes, when I watch the seasons shift, I think about how they are like the stages in your life. I was thinking about it again when I noticed all the fall colors finally fading and shifting into a winter looking landscape.

Spring is like childhood, everything is growing, new, and exciting. You feel youthful and invigorated, the world is full of growth and purpose.

Summer is like young adulthood, full of vigor and energy. The long days are like the rhytm of those times, full of productivity and long efforts and struggles, but fun and interesting. The heat is like some of the feeling of stress that you wake up to when you start shouldering the responsibilities of life.

Fall is like middle age, when you see a ripening of things, the promise of a full harvest for all the effort and care you have put in. The colors change and you are surprised about how beautiful something can be in the process of ending its time. The weather is colder and you slow down and start taking it easy.

Winter is like old age. People's hair finally turns white, like the snows of winter. Activity is slowed way down and getting things done is a struggle. But it is also warm and safe inside, and all the work done to make a for a comfortable life is now relied on and appreciated. The skeletons of trees remind you of all that is lost, silent monuments to the vigor of life that once was.

And then the next generation comes around and starts their cycle of the seasons of life.

Moray Eel

The Moray Eel has been known by people for a long time, but recently, scientists discovered something new about them.

If you've ever seen the part in the movie Aliens, where the alien's mouth opens up and a little headlike thing with snapping jaws and sharp teeth comes out and goes bite bite bite. Yikes. Science fiction, right? Well guess what....

The Moray Eel has something just like this.

Check it out at:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070905-eel-jaw.html

When the Moray Eel grabs something big, it's back jaw comes forward and helps move the food back into the throat so they can swallow it. A normal fish eats things underwater by swelling up, causing a suction that pulls the food into the mouth. The Moray Eel doesn't have enough size, it's this thin snakelike fish, to create enough suction to pull in food.

So it uses the Alien jaws. Cool.

In the Doghouse

Is UGAVI Greek for Ugly?