Tuesday 30 July 2013

The Blobfish - Psychrolutes Marcidus

Hello readers, I'm back with more facts about our animal pseudonyms. Next up, the Blobfish!
  1. The density of a blobfish’s flesh is slightly less than water’s, allowing it to float underwater without needing to use energy to swim.
  2. If it’s taken out of the water, it dries out completely.
  3. The blobfish doesn’t hunt, it waits for food particles to float by, then sucks them in.
  4. It is inedible and has no predators, but are endangered by overfishing of other deep sea creatures.
  5. It has almost no muscles in its body.
  6. THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT BLOBFISH ON THE INTERNET
  7. OR ANYWHERE ELSE???
  8. ?!??
  9. !!!
  10. !?
  11. blobfish yo
Do you want to see facts about your favourite animal or plant in a future post? Leave a message in the comments!

sources


Thursday 25 July 2013

Perspective #1: Baby Things

The baby things.
They were lying in the grass under the coconut tree in the garden, in  feotal positions, pretty much the eptiome of cuteness for anyone. Their heads were covered with a dusting of hair, and the tail was curved around them. They were basically what people define as cute, especially on the internet. My mother took one look at them and said dismis
sively, "Rats."
"No!" squealed Person A. "They're squirrels! Just look at them..."
"They are quite cute," I admitted grudgingly. I'm not so much of a 'aawww so cute' person. It's quite easy to tell from some of my earlier posts, like the rather controversial one condemning pandas, or the other about cute animals though even I'm not sure whether that one's for cute or against it.
"So adorable!" cried Person B.
"Let's call pest control," my mother said.
Cute or not? Either way, they're definitely small...
Immediately a cry of "NO!!!!!!" rose up from the ranks. My mother took one look at us, her lips curling up on the edges, and stalked inside to her phone. I stalked inside to the computer. Maybe Google could answer some identity questions. I still don't know what they are- I'm thinking mouse. Or rat, though rats are grey.
When pest control came, they unceromoniously dumped them in a bag (at least one out of three were dead), probably destined for the nearest rubbish dump, paying no heed to Person A's calls of "No!" followed by some what I think was Kannada gibberish that seemed to be a desperate plea to their base instincts, why did they want to kill babies, they're squirrels I tell you, etc. etc. And I started thinking. These were probably rats, or mice. If we had found a fully grown one, no one would have hesitated to call the appropriate authorities with their spraying guns and repellents of doom. A certain half-eaten mango we had found in our kitchen springs to mind... Our neighbours had regaled us with how, confronted with a rat, they had all huddled together in fear as it ran across the hall. When they first got married, a ratty visitor to their apartment had caused my dad to leap with amazing skill onto the bed and remain there, hopping up and down, while my mother showed the guest out with appropriate courtesy i.e. a broom whacking the floor. For mice the reaction would have been a little more subdued but no less brutal. But us, confronted with a baby version of one of those things? We immediately started fawning over it, with no thought to what it may become. The plastic bag containing the babies on the rubbish dump would probably grow into a home for ruthless scavenging rats or mice. It only goes to show that you can't judge by looks alone when it comes to baby things.

The Glasswing Butterfly

Tuesday 23 July 2013

The Glasswing Butterfly - Greta Oto

After a long break of almost two months, I return with 10 (give or take a couple) facts every week about an animal or plant of your choice. I'm going to start with the pseudonyms of this blog's admins. First up, the Glasswing Butterfly!

  1. Its name in Spanish is espejitos, meaning “little mirrors”. 
  2. It can carry up to 40 times its own weight.
  3. The glasswing butterfly lays its eggs on the poisonous nightshade plant, which makes both it and its caterpillars toxic to predators.
  4. The alkaloid poisons in a glasswing butterfly are turned into pheromones and used in courtship by male butterflies.
  5. Its translucent wings are made by lack of scales rather than translucent scales.
  6. As well as feeding on nectar, glasswing butterflies feed on insect-eating birds’ droppings to get amino acids.
  7. Its wings allow it to hide from predators, rather than scaring them off like other butterflies do.
  8. There are many types of glasswing butterfly, including ones with translucent pink wings.
  9. Even though butterflies do not typically migrate, glasswing butterflies do.
Do you want to see facts about your favourite animal or plant in a future post? Leave a message in the comments!


Tuesday 9 July 2013

A Tale of Tiger Pee

I tried to silence my heart but I couldn’t. It refused to slow down its beating, echoing in my ears like a twenty-one gun salute. I wasn’t trying to listen to my heart for a magical choice that could change my life. Though quite a good option in soppy stories, that wasn’t my aim, because I was trying to listen to the forest for a creature that could disappear. The Royal Bengal Tiger.
The undergrowth was far too thick. Why, oh why, did we have to come during the monsoon, when all the plants just grew thick and fast and beautiful, also very conveniently covering any creature that wanted to hide in it?
It was doing this on purpose to annoy us, I was convinced.
“Listen!” whispered Phillip. “Alarm calls!” My heart started its gun salute again as I strained my ears. Peew… peew… peew… Those were the chitol (Indian Spotted Deer). They made those sounds only, and only when they smelled a tiger, or a leopard.
“Look, Phillip!” whispered someone else, a touch too loudly, I thought. “Tiger pugmarks.” I leaned over the side of the jeep. There were, indeed, huge footprints, much akin to that of a dog’s enlarged tremendously. I took my camera out and the click of the shutter seemed to resound through the jungle, probably scaring off any big cat in a 10-mile radius.
The mark of the elusive tiger...
“Basmati rice,” I heard Phillip say. To say that remark puzzled me is an understatement, but you don’t realize that then such outwordly things like that had no effect on me. Then, my attentions were solely on the undergrowth and the grass, hoping against all hope that a secret, an orange, large secret, striped with black, would be revealed.
 “Tiger pee,” came another perplexing remark. But with the next one, the murky depths of these strange words were all revealed, but the strangeness did not decrease to any extent whatsoever. “Tiger pee smells like cooking basmati rice.”
 Curiosity got the better of me and keeping a wary eye on the surrounding forest, I drew in a huge sniff. And indeed, along with the smell of the fresh grass and the trees and the unavoidable whiff of some creature’s poop, came an undeniable scent of basmati rice. But this just wasn’t any basmati rice. This was basmati rice’s smell exaggerated to an extreme. You almost wanted to gag.
“It’s close by,” whispered Phillip, excitement growing in his voice. “It’s here, somewhere.”
My heart sped up despite all efforts on my part. My full attention as lavished on the trees and the ground. Come on… come on… come on… I tried to imagine how the tiger would appear. Would it come striding out of the undergrowth like it owned the world? Or would we catch a glimpse of its face in a bush? Would it cross the road majestically? Would it…
My stock of would its ran out and reprimanding myself at my lapse of attention I looked again at the unyielding bush. What if I’d missed it as I meditated on its appearance, missing the appearance, as it were, by thinking about it too much? You could have cut the air with a knife. The ‘peew, peew, peew’ of the deer continued on and on, like suspense music. Added to it were the hoots of langurs, repeated over and over with growing intensity. A tree rustled. What was that? My frantically searching eyes turned sticks into legs, grass into faces.
Suddenly, along with the deer and the langurs, came another sound. It was a hoot, but not really a hoot, a growl, almost, but a hootish growl, if that makes any sense. It probably doesn’t make any sense.
“That’s the tiger!” Phillip’s careful whisper rose a little. “It roared!” I was a little mystified. Tigers don’t roar like that. In movies, in books, in comics, everywhere, tigers have earsplitting roars that echo everywhere. Not that thing that we just heard. Phillip rapped on the driver’s cabin, a signal to move. The engine started again, and the sound resounded through the forest. Slowly the deer’s calls ceased with the langurs.
“It’s not here any more,” Phillip said loudly over the sound of the jeep splashing through puddles. “The roar was far away. The deer caught the scent of it, that’s why.”
Slowly my heart slowed down, overwhelmed with disappointment. We had missed the tiger. But, as I thought with a shiver of the sheer excitement of waiting and listening and watching and smelling basmati rice, I had gained an experience.

Have you ever seen a big cat? Or gotten close? Tell us about it in the comments, or, if you have a tale to tell, mail it to amazinganimalssociety@gmail.com!

The Glasswing Butterfly

Sunday 7 July 2013

Pawsome Scribbles: Thanks Natalie!

Another prominent thumbing to the Blobfish for disregarding preparation of Pawsome Scribbles, but a big high-five to Natalie for producing the first ever guest Pawsome Scribbles! Which follows...
According to her, this was something she did hastily, according to me, this is completely PAWSOME!!! (ha ha ha ha? Oh, forget it.) Though there is the fact that I have no idea what bird this is, unless it's a new type- the Natalie Bird, perhaps? Natalius birdinus... So, thanks Natalie, and to all invisible people in cyberspace out there, your contributions are welcomed too!
(Also, guest posts if you're not the drawing type.)

Friday 5 July 2013

I Can't Think of a Good Title but Read It Anyway!

Sighs rolled out of the gate as the jeep’s wheels did.
“We just missed it! I mean, we could smell it. Smell it! We knew it was there…” exclaimed someone.
“Oh, why did we turn left instead of right? I knew we shouldn’t have left that area.” I lamented.
“Just missed it! The tiger!” reiterated another person.
Slowly our grumbles ceased but an audible sigh could be heard from time to time. The jeep had stopped just out of the gate, as one of Phillip’s friends had called him over for a chat. Had they seen it? I directed a stream of silent jealousy, veiled as animosity, at them. Just missed it… Why, oh why, was my luck so terrible?
 “Again, huh?” I said, leaning forward to chat with Sam, the assistant. She had missed a tiger before, too, having heard the alarm calls of the deer and actually finding a dead deer before being called out of the park as it was closing time.
“Yeah, again. And we were pretty close, too!” she said. Disappointment tinged both our voices. I turned back to look at the forest we had just left. What if, by some miracle, right at the forest’s end, it came striding out? I laughed at myself. I hoped too much. What if… there was no point in playing the ‘what if’ game now. It would only increase my disappointment.
There wasn’t much of a chance in seeing a big cat tomorrow, in the last safari, either. Phillip’s streak of seeing a big cat every time in Kabini would be broken, and luck would have its way. Oh, cruel Fate! Why did you tease me so? But this was no time to break into poetry- I had better concentrate on clicking some birds so I had at least something to show for this drive. We had just been concentrating on tigers and leopards and hadn’t stopped for any birds, or anything else, for that matter. Not that we had seen anything else. No mongoose, or gaur, or sambar (a type of deer). Just endless herds of chitol (Indian Spotted Deer) and birds.
Suddenly Phillip came sprinting back from his friends. “Start the jeep! Quick!” he cried, and ran to the forest official’s office/hut for something. The driver reversed back into the park, and turned around, just as Phillip came sprinting back. The car was moving when he jumped in. “Might be a false alarm, but we have to try. Hold on tight, switch on your cameras, and take off your hats. We need to go at full speed!” My heart leapt. Tiger? Leopard?
I started to remove my hat when the jeep started moving. Fast. Gripping onto the seat in front of me, I sat on the hat and looked around. The excitement was obvious on everyone’s face. Hair was flung back in the wind that raced past us, so deliciously cool. I opened my mouth wide, ready to scream but didn’t for fear of scaring it, whatever it was, away. My heart beat fast and I looked around at everything, at everyone. What was it? What would it be? Tiger? Leopard? Please, God, please… The wind continued moving, moving, moving, buffeting us back and forth as the jeep raced at full speed over every pothole and puddle.
Suddenly the jeep shuddered to a halt, and we were thrown back. A group of jeeps like ours and buses were all gathered around an area, blatantly disregarding the rule of being 30 meters apart when looking at wildlife. “I can see it!” said Phillip excitedly. “It’s on a tree, leopard!”
My heart rate rose. “Where? Where?” I asked, my eyes as usually blinded when important things were happening. Someone pointed. I looked. I stared.
There, on a forked tree without leaves that was probably destroyed by lightning lounged a leopard. It was magnificent. Feet hanging over the edge and tail hanging down, eyes closed, silky gold fur iridescent, it was just sheer beauty. I got my camera out and zoomed in. Everything was silent but for the birds and the clicking of cameras. It yawned, canines bared, and a flurry of clicking arose. I just kept looking at it, then at the camera, awed by it. My finger didn’t move off the shutter button. This was amazing. It needed to be recorded. This was a leopard, right there, about 30-50 meters away, huge, resplendent in its glory. This was it. This was a big cat. This was the big cat. I thought of what it made of all these people looking at it with strange blank devices and strange concentrated expressions, and chuckled to myself. But it didn’t really seem to be bothered. Perhaps it was used to it, or just too tired or sleepy. Slowly it turned its head towards us and quickly I clicked, clicked, clicked. I had never seen anything like it before. Nothing at all.

Even as the jeep rumbled away from the leopard, still resting on the tree, I couldn’t take my eyes off it, or stop thinking of it. It was just amazing.

If you've got a tale of an animal you saw, or an amazing behavior you experienced, tell us about it in the comments, or mail it to amazinganimalssociety@gmail.com!

The Glasswing Butterfly

Wednesday 3 July 2013

THE GLASSWING BUTTERFLY IS A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!

First of all, a prominent thumbing to the Blobfish. With her usual lack of planning, he hasn't bothered to prepare anything before she left on vacation. So, don't expect any Pawsome Scribbles for quite a couple of weeks. Unless I move my butt and draw something, which is highly unlikely and will most probably not even be worth looking at. And onto my second piece of news:
I'M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!
Happy happy happy happy happy happy dance!
Remember that very slightly hyperactive piece I wrote about the Common Birdwing earlier? I emailed someone at the Nature Society Singapore's Butterfly Interest Group about it and he asked me to write about it for the NSS newsletter... so I did. The Common Birdwing is a new location record in the area: Oh my god! Almost a month later, and as many emails, it's finally in the newsletter! Squee! Here's the link for all those that want to appreciate how awesome I am...
http://nss.org.sg/newsletter/1046d612-aNN%20Jul-Aug%202013.pdf
Also, I recently visited the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve so you do not have my permission to be bored at the prominently big-cat themed posts that will follow in a couple days.

The Glasswing Butterfly, Published Author (:D)

Monday 1 July 2013

The Horticultural Gardens: Lepidoptera Philes


The Horticultural Gardens, to my knowledge, are usually not washing rooms. But it seems like people in Calcutta hadn’t got the message. The entrance to the gardens was covered in saris laid out to dry and in the distance, I think I saw people wringing out clothes. Trying to ignore the fact that this garden, despite being a public facility, was being treated like a private one, I walked on, eyes peeled for: you guessed it, butterflies. Despite flowers lining the paths and everything being very green not even the tiniest Lesser Grass Blue was in sight. Just need to get a little inside, I reassured myself, not very convincingly.
 “Come, let’s look at the bonsais!” called my aunt. I followed her like a good little niece. The bonsais weren’t overgrown, which showed evidence of maintenance, or of buying a new one every time it grew too high, and here I saw a couple of lepidoteras darting back and forth. None of which, of course, paid me the courtesy of settling. So impolite! Were they not aware that the Glasswing Butterfly, completely unknown blogger and lepidopteraphile, was passing by?
Emerging out of the little circuit lined with bonsais, my opinion of the garden still wasn’t very high. Sure, there were a lot of flowers. Sure, at least there was a garden. But in my mind, NO GARDEN IS COMPLETE WITHOUT A HEALTHY DOSE OF BUTTERFLIES! Keep that in mind, folks, unless I pay a visit to your garden and blog about it. And also, I just wasn’t getting why there weren’t any butterflies. Not much human interference… check. The place was deserted it, a far cry from Singapore’s botanic gardens. Flowers… check. Maintenance (as in lack thereof, since high maintenance will almost certainly kill caterpillars and cocoons)… huge check. Everything was overgrown. Apart from a few branches tied up, there was no evidence of gardeners at all. It was like we had stepped into the Secret Garden, minus the little robin and all the other birds. Here, all you could here was crows caw-caw-cawing.
Then a miracle happened. A butterfly settled. (Cue heavenly music and trumpets.) I rushed over and snapped. It was new to me, most probably a type of Glassy Tiger, and I was just so overcome with relief that a) butterflies actually settled and b) I could identify one. I turned back to my mother and aunt with a big smile, for the moment forgetting the fact that I was probably in the worst Horticultural Garden in the world.