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