Gratuitous Bat Photos

In light of yesterday's bat guano roaches, I thought I'd post a bunch of gratuitous bat photos. Enjoy. I'll be staying indoors the next few nights.

Cave Roaches

Here's a video to watch during a meal. Ever wanted to see a gazillion guano-eating roaches scrambling across a cave floor? Your wish is granted.

Thanks Menolly42. You've given me one more reason to steer clear of dark, foreboding places.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Amanda made this. Since she's single, she thinks she can get away with it.

But as a husband, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be in this photo. The chameleon, the man's hand, or the bug? Or maybe I'm the irrelevant scraggly bit of desert shrub in the background. I'll keep trying to noodle it through...

Anyway, Happy St. Valentine's Day.

Titanoboa

You may have read about this in the news. The world's largest snake has been discovered in the hinterlands of Columbia. It is a boa, Titanoboa cerrejonensis, that reaches 42 feet in length, and weighs in at well over a ton. The one saving grace in this whole story: the snake has been extinct for eons.

The snake is so large, that given our understanding of how snakes regulate their body temperature, it would have required a much hotter tropical environment than we find on the earth today...

The finding calls into question the idea that the climate system has a 'thermostat' that regulates tropical temperatures.

But I'll leave that debate to those who are smarter and more educated than me (an easy feat to accomplish). Let's get back to it's size. It's about the length of your typical city bus, and in terms of girth, if it slithered past you, it would brush against your hip. They most likely preyed on crocodiles, deer, and fleshy, out-of-shape bloggers.

Thanks for the article, Jennifer and Rebecca.

Credit: Jason Bourque, University of Florida














Rebecca pointed out that this picture is well done, but too idyllic -- happy snake in a happy park. When she saw the show about this find, the scientist said that if this snake and a T. Rex faced off, he'd put his money on the snake. We need a scarier image. Anyone care to doctor it up, or conjure a new one?

Creepy Crawly Theory

Here's a video from Science Friday (great show!) about humans' responses to various creepy crawlies, including arguments for the thought that maybe our responses are more cultural than biological. It's compelling, and it's gross and creepy and oogy. What else did you come here for?

Thanks for the video, Wendy.

Predatory Sea Spider

The sea spider is no stranger to this blog. And though I have lamented the presence of anything spider like in the ocean, never before have I been so freaked out by this denizen of the arctic depths. It's all thanks to Alexander Semenov (see more photos here).

From above, especially with the majority of the legs out of view, the predatory Nymphon grossipes can almost be mistaken for coral. Almost.



















It's not until we get to the side and frontal shots that the sea spider is seen for what it really is: the colorful inspiration for the larvae from Aliens. This next photo is of a pair in the process of mating (yes, have all children and those lacking intestinal fortitude turn away).

































Here's a daddy sea spider, complete with his little clutch of eggs. Don't let his doting parenthood lull you into a false sense of security. He's just waiting on a chance to ram them down your esophagus with his ovapositor.

Fatigue

I've been behind in my posts because my wife recently underwent surgery, and I'm helping her convalesce (which is complicated by all the juvenile, barely ambulatory human offspring running around at my feet). At the end of each day I look like this sun bear.

We may not share the same prodigious tongue and claws, but we have exhaustion in common. Fatigue is universal.

Orangutan Teeth

It's been a while since my last orangutan post. The problem is that most photos you find are of fairly placid individuals, or of adorable little ones (twins, or in diapers--too much, with the tufts of hair, and liquid eyes...anyways).

But here we have a dominant male in his wrath. That's a mug that commands respect. Once again, I appreciate the flashing of teeth and the pee-my-pants vocalizations that so often precede attacks from mammals. They give me a chance to run away and cower another day.

Photo via Knuttz