So priketh hem nature in hir corages...
First of all, sorry for posting under a title that probably only one of you will get. I've had a bunch of nature-related posts I've been meaning to put up here for a while, and my discovery of a bizarre looking bug served as the catalyst. Thanks to Northwest School, though, I can't think of nature and England in the same context and not think of that line as well (for the same reason, you should never mention "April showers" around me). Now, without further ado, some thoughts on the local fauna:
-Speaking of "smalle fowles maken melodie," our courtyard was visited by a pair of European Jays yesterday. This will seem boring to most of you, I know, but jays are some of my favorite animals, they're relatively rare (for a jay) over here, and they're much more colorful than the species we have back home. They can also make a really awful squawking noise, which I was able to hear very clearly with my door and windows closed and my music turned way up.
-One of my spiders has gone missing! Actually, this happened a while ago, but for lack of anything else to say today, I thought I'd mention it. According to my "British Wildlife" book, my resident arachnids are Pholcus phalangoides, one of those long-legged cellar spiders we also have back in Seattle. I realize that many of you will think I'm a bit crazy for not swatting spiders in my room, but they really make excellent house guests. These ones in particular stay unobtrusively up on the ceiling and do an excellent job of keeping the insect population down. I'm not just making this up: since the spider in the bathroom went missing, I've had a lot more flies and gnats around. Oh well, at least I still have the one.
-Moving on from animals that no one likes to animals that everyone loves, I think I may have been seeing water voles in Brandon Hill Park. Water voles are strictly European, and I'd never heard of them before I came over here. If you've ever read "Wind in the Willows," though, you've come across them before: Ratty (you know, the one who loves "simply messing about in boats") is in fact not a rat, but a water vole. Granted, there's very little difference between a rat and a vole, which makes it so hard to say for certain if that's what I've been seeing in the park. I have no way of knowing for sure until I see another one, and until then I'm going to assume that I'm seeing a relatively rare endemic water vole instead of a boring old sewer rat.
-Recently, someone posted a fantastic (in every sense of the word) article in the MSc room. It's title is "New molecular phylogeny demonstrates extensive convergence between the 'yeti' and primates." It explains how, based on DNA evidence, the Abominable Snowman is not actually a relative of humans, but an ungulate that happens to look just like a primate. I'm afraid I can't do the story justice, but it's really well done. The only things that really give it away are its lack of an abstract (for shame, gentlemen) and the fact that its primary source is Herge 1960 - Tintin in Tibet.
-In the kitchen this morning, I found one of the most bizarre insects I've ever seen. It looked something like a leafhopper, but it had huge extensions of its head and a really long body. Basically, it was an inch-long, living 'T.' None of my books say anything about an insect like that, unfortunately, so I have no clue what it really was.
I realize that it may say bad things about the state of this journal that I'm commenting on things like these now, but bear in mind I am a biologist. At any rate, our first term will be done after this week, and I'll be able to get back to doing fun things again, so please do stay tuned and I promise things will get better.
-Speaking of "smalle fowles maken melodie," our courtyard was visited by a pair of European Jays yesterday. This will seem boring to most of you, I know, but jays are some of my favorite animals, they're relatively rare (for a jay) over here, and they're much more colorful than the species we have back home. They can also make a really awful squawking noise, which I was able to hear very clearly with my door and windows closed and my music turned way up.
-One of my spiders has gone missing! Actually, this happened a while ago, but for lack of anything else to say today, I thought I'd mention it. According to my "British Wildlife" book, my resident arachnids are Pholcus phalangoides, one of those long-legged cellar spiders we also have back in Seattle. I realize that many of you will think I'm a bit crazy for not swatting spiders in my room, but they really make excellent house guests. These ones in particular stay unobtrusively up on the ceiling and do an excellent job of keeping the insect population down. I'm not just making this up: since the spider in the bathroom went missing, I've had a lot more flies and gnats around. Oh well, at least I still have the one.
-Moving on from animals that no one likes to animals that everyone loves, I think I may have been seeing water voles in Brandon Hill Park. Water voles are strictly European, and I'd never heard of them before I came over here. If you've ever read "Wind in the Willows," though, you've come across them before: Ratty (you know, the one who loves "simply messing about in boats") is in fact not a rat, but a water vole. Granted, there's very little difference between a rat and a vole, which makes it so hard to say for certain if that's what I've been seeing in the park. I have no way of knowing for sure until I see another one, and until then I'm going to assume that I'm seeing a relatively rare endemic water vole instead of a boring old sewer rat.
-Recently, someone posted a fantastic (in every sense of the word) article in the MSc room. It's title is "New molecular phylogeny demonstrates extensive convergence between the 'yeti' and primates." It explains how, based on DNA evidence, the Abominable Snowman is not actually a relative of humans, but an ungulate that happens to look just like a primate. I'm afraid I can't do the story justice, but it's really well done. The only things that really give it away are its lack of an abstract (for shame, gentlemen) and the fact that its primary source is Herge 1960 - Tintin in Tibet.
-In the kitchen this morning, I found one of the most bizarre insects I've ever seen. It looked something like a leafhopper, but it had huge extensions of its head and a really long body. Basically, it was an inch-long, living 'T.' None of my books say anything about an insect like that, unfortunately, so I have no clue what it really was.
I realize that it may say bad things about the state of this journal that I'm commenting on things like these now, but bear in mind I am a biologist. At any rate, our first term will be done after this week, and I'll be able to get back to doing fun things again, so please do stay tuned and I promise things will get better.
posted by John D. Orcutt | 11:02 PM
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