It’s pinkish and smiley. It’s stuck to its momma’s side, rising in and out of the waves like a shiny merry-go-round creature…
Scientists won’t know if the calf is a male or female until it rolls over and shows its belly. They do know it belongs to a family of local orcas called the J pod. And they know it has three siblings.
That’s good news for the little orca, which is being called J42 according to birth order.
And I have been waiting patiently for an hour as a…
slug…
makes its slow, patient way across my ceiling, occasionally looping downward on a connecting wall, although never down enough for me to take up arms, or at least stubby brooms, against it, then suctioning its painful, Sir Edmund Hilarious way back up, out of reach.
If it lets go and falls on my clean laundry, I think I may just have to kill myself.
Still, I guess it’s a step up from last year, when I had to pick mushrooms out of the carpet in my living room. I love my apartment: if I stay here long enough, eventually I’ll be able to farm salmon in the bathroom.
Discovered at a depth of over 8500 feet, these beautiful and mysterious life forms are unlike any known jellyfish. What no-one knows is, why are they pink? Colour is theoretical at that incredible depth, as there are no naturally-occurring light sources except the glow of the phosphorescent hunters. If there are gay rights activist/jellyfish enthusiasts out there, this is definitely their totem animal.
The new species is from the Cnidarian (phylum of jellyfish, corals, anemones) order stauromedusae… The new species is unusual in its color (pink) and its proximity to to the superheated vent fluids.
We’re talking Sea Monsters, people. So you know we mean business.
Now, everybody knows that Nessie‘s just a big ol’ lump o’ dinosaur, not a serpent at all. And Caddy‘s a figment of some screech-addled sailor’s story-telling impulse. And Ogopogo…well, we do not speak of Ogopogo. The ancient Fossil Shark was a shark, after all, if quite serpentine in spots and from certain angles, especially in candlelight.
Beneath the surface of our crystal blue waters live a myriad of marine life.
Sometimes we can see them from the air — steely eyed shark congregating by the thousands, graceful stingray, gliding along the shallows.
But go deeper…
You never know what you’ll find. Just ask Jay Garbose.
“This is a first and I’ve traveled and video’ed all over the world.”
Take a look at what he found and listen to the story — it’s no fish tale.
“I was diving on Juno Ledge. That’s about a mile off shore of Juno Beach. At first I thought it was a sea cucumber although no one has ever seen one stretched 7 to 10 feet the way this one was. It’s sort of grey and putty like and very smooth and taffy like in the way it stretches. Some of my friends and I have sort of dubbed it the living intestine.”
And it is just exactly as beautiful as that description would lead one to believe. At first, I thought it was a hoax. Once I saw it moving and had observed its blundering, slow, mindless, horrible writhings, I prayed it was a hoax.
You’ve got all the usual suspects here: your bonobos, your banana slugs, the old “exploding bee testicle” thing, but they also have a penis fencing video and a little something about snake orgies that puts some of those Zealia Bishop Yig-Mythos stories into perspective. Charming.
The annual red-garter mating balls are a big tourist attraction in Manitoba—and a source of many tales. One unsuspecting couple built a house on top of an empty snake pit one summer, only to find their property swarmed by thousands of red-sided garters returning to their traditional hibernation den in the fall. The couple quickly relocated their new house.
It is to be noted that a roundup like this often brings the realization that some humans are not all that far from those we call “beasts” if you really give it some thought.
Actually, “court” may be too strong a word: the male … basically follows her around until she gives in and lets him have her!
For those who walk on their hind legs, just a reminder: that is never going to work.
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
raincoaster 