Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts

Friday, September 4, 2009

Friday, November 28, 2008

BESTIARY OF LOST LOVES PT. 1

The JAVAN TIGER became extinct some time in the 1980s from over hunting. How many thousands of years was it there? Now it is not.





Let us remember what we have lost.

the gradual end of nature



when one studies the history of ecology
one comes to the conclusion that progressively
we see less and less of what was once seen
of the wild
each generation sees fewer birds than the last
hears fewer songs in the forest
sees fewer flowers
hears fewer less intense song
and buzz and insect din

each generation is ignorant of the intensity
experienced by the last one
so that the smallest victories
feel monumental
yet they cannot know what once was
because they have no way to
they havent asked
and so each generation lowers their expectations
unknowingly
of what life in the wild might be
the intensity of song
and color and profusion

it is only by reading the naturalist
experience
of the past
that they could come to know
but the great sadness of such knowledge
keeps us from even trying

to know how the sound of and
eastern forest at dawn
would have deafened you
and the flocks of birds
would have blackened the sky
to make you tremble

..........


i wonder
if men love now as they did
in such lost times?
would it destroy you to know
such a loss
so much that you could not bear to live?
has love
over time become less
beautiful and intense?
am i even capable now...
is all of this now artifice?
as in the past is was
perhaps vast and natural and
the expanse of it would have made you tremble
just to be in its vicinity?
is the love i feel
the love i have poured onto boys
the love i sponge from bucket on your skin...
a paltry pitiable thing?
compared to antediluvian rights
of love
the love men felt for each other
then?
am i capable of that
as they were?

..........

if you knew what we had lost
would you be able to keep going?

..........



flocks of passenger pigeons once spread as far as one could see when they passed. they were quite possibly the most numerous vertebrate land animal on the planet. now, there are none, because of us.

once the flocks of millions had reached a critically low point, the females stopped brooding their eggs. you see, they needed enormous colonies to reproduce and feel safe from predators. once they had reached the low number, they stopped breeding in the wild, and that was the end. we had simply killed to many of them, and they gave up.

..........


JOY DIVISION - Transmission

..........

Saturday, November 1, 2008

God's Mistakes pt. 1 - Tree Kangaroos

Yes, I meant that ironically. Did you even know there was such a thing as a Tree Kangaroo? Well there is, and they live in the northern tropical forests of Australia and on some of the islands of the Australasian Archipelago (places like Papua New Guinea). Our friends are a little ungainly.in the trees. If I were to show you one out of habitat, you might not be able to figure that this was an arboreal animal. However, despite our judgment of their grace, they are well adapted enough to make a life in the trees. This is one of those cases of an animal not ideally adapted to its niche (it could have better legs and feet and tail for a life in the trees), but making what it has work for the life it has come to. Clumsy and awkward and utterly adorable; they have come to manners and habits that get through their homes well enough to survive. This is one of the animals that often enters the debates about evolution, because... come on, if you were to design an animal for tree life, you'd have done a better job.

This one is for my friends that view themselves as broken people... people made incorrectly... people who don't really work (as if missing a few requisite parts). You are not broken clocks, my friends. You are Tree Kangaroos... forced to live a life in the trees with your hopping feet that no longer can manage the ground. Maybe people can't change, but they can figure a way to live in the trees with the parts they have.

You know who you are, and I love you all. xxx


GOODFELLOW'S TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus goodfellowi)












BENNETT'S TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus bennettianus)






LUMHOLTZ'S TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus lumholtzi)








GRIZZLED TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus inustus)



TENKILE or SCOTT'S TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus scottae)
Critically Endangered






DINGISO (Dendrolagus mbaiso)
Recently discovered by Western Science




MATSCHIE'S TREE KANGAROO (Dendrolagus matschiei)









Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Y'all Cats Be Rocking Y'all Shit

separate thought here

you said you like cats
that was
all i could think of was cats after that










mark the chinese lawyer
he didnt seem to know
sara silverman

Friday, October 24, 2008

ORIGINAL DEFINITIONS PT. 1

CYMBALTA: Island in the Adriatic populated entirely by angry gender dysphoric goats. Even with inferior technology, these plucky goats have fended off human settlement for centuries.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

A GALLERY OF CATERPILLARS

i find it interesting that some butterflies spend more time as juveniles (caterpillars) than they do as adults. adult being the reproductive phase of life. eating machines waiting to become something else entirely. imagine changing that much, going into your sleeping bag and emerging as a... rhino, or something.


QUEEN BUTTERFLY


MONARCH


CLOUDLESS SULPHUR


GULF FRITILLARY


PINK STRIPED OAKWORM


ANISE SWALLOWTAIL


BLACK SWALLOWTAIL


GIANT SWALLOWTAIL


SPICEBUSH SWALLOWTAIL


PIPEVINE SWALLOWTAIL


POLYDAMUS SWALLOWTAIL



MILKWEED TUSSOCKMOTH

Saturday, August 23, 2008

A COLLECTION OF ARACHNIDS FOR LUKA

because i and a friend have been obsessing over spiders recently. i thought i'd dedicate a post on some of my favorite ARACHNIDS (a group in which spiders are included), but take a look at some non spider arachnids. is it all the appendages? i'm not sure. maybe it's the deliberative manner that draws us in. check it out.

oh yeah, what to notice about all Arachnids:

* 2 Body segments - the CEPHALOTHORAX (front) and the ABDOMEN (Back)
* 8 Legs
* 2 Chelicera (for food acquisition) usually up front
* 2 Pedipalps, extra arm like appendages
* Never wings, nor antennae

Enjoy!

AMBLYPIGID
"Tail-less Whip Scorpion"











tropical and subtropical predators, nocturnal, non venomous (no fangs - they have those big claws instead)


SOLFUGIDS (Solpugids)
"Sun Spider" "Camel Spider" "Wind Scorpion"











usually found in warm and arid climates, nocturnal, predatory, NOT VENOMOUS


RICINULEI
"Hooded Tick Spiders"











live in damp conditions, no eyes, cover head area with a hood like structure, only 60 species world wide, the 1st 2 pics are of a species found in GHANA in 2006


UROPYGID
"Whip Scorpion" "Vinegaroon"









no venom, the spray a vinegar smelling acid mixture when bothered from their "whip tail", predatory, tropical and subtropical

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