V is for Vulture

Normally when vultures descend it isn't a good sign. Vultures survive by scavenging carcasses. If they are swooping low it may mean you are on your last legs.

A case in point is a participant in the A-Z challenge. By the time we reach V we are twitching and muttering and heading under darkening skies down the crow road. Here I am mixing metaphors and scavengers but it's all the path of death.

 

Culture Vulture (H Zell)

In my novel Red Savannah, which is presently languishing in the waste baskets of half a dozen agents who I got round to sending it to, the vultures are seen low in the sky as an African adventure turns tragic.

In reality I'm not so sure if vultures can sense the approach of death, although they can certainly hone in on it once it has occurred. However, it's not unknown for vultures to attack sick and dying animals and they swarm over battlefields in large numbers.

They are also attuned to the demise of careers such as that of Rolf Harris

There are essentially two kinds of vultures - Old World Vultures associated with Asia and Africa and New World Vultures found in the Americas.

Old World vultures are not closely related to the New World Vultures. While the American vultures detect carrion by their keen sense of smell, which kicks in as far as a mile away, the Old World Vultures rely on eyesight.

A particular characteristic of many vultures is their bald heads, devoid of feathers. This helps the vulture remain clean when its head is shoved in a zebra carcass. Anything dead, really.

The largest of vultures is the Andean Condor which has a wingspan of up to 10.5 feet. I can never think of the Andean Condor without a mental image of folks wearing brightly colors blankets and blowing pan pipes coming to mind.

 

The Condor (Ester Inbar)

There are a few misconceptions about vultures but I'm not going to tell you they aren't badass. Get a budgie if you have any doubts.

And while it's not true that vultures' projectile vomit' on their attacker as a deliberate defense, this may be a distraction technique and it's a lot easier to fly away after jettisoning your lunch. Don't try this on Delta, even though you may want to when you see what's on the menu.

Vultures have played a part in some funerary rites. In the Zoroastrian tradition, the dead were put in towers, later described as the 'Towers of Silence' by an Englishman, and pecked by the vultures. This tradition continued into the 20th Century in Bombay.

Little Known Fact About the Vulture

A project called "Vulture Restaurant" is presently underway in Nepal to address the dwindling number of vultures. The "restaurant" is an open grassy area where naturally dying, sick, and old cows are fed to the vultures

What Not To Say to a Vulture

I'm dying to go to lunch

U is for Unau

It's appropriate that I should be writing about the unau, otherwise known as the two toed sloth today, because I can't be bothered to write an A to Z challenge post. Last night I dreamed the challenge had returned to A and we were stuck in a Groundhog day kind of scenario in which we never got to escape.

On sunny afternoons there would be few things better than hanging from a tree all afternoon; well lying on a hammock would be considerably better. Ideally with a steady supply of cocktails.

Although similar to the somewhat smaller and generally slower moving three-toed sloths, there is not a very close relationship between two-toed sloths and three toed sloths.

 You don't need to be Sir David Attenborough to realize the two-toed sloth received its name because it has two toes - at least on its front feet.

The unau are also larger than three-toed sloths. Other distinguishing features include a more prominent snout, longer fur, and the absence of a tail.

Sloths, Wikipedia points out "move only when necessary and even they very slowly; they have about a quarter as much muscle tissue as other animals of similar weight."

Any likenesses to that woman down at City Hall who waddles slowly between disgruntled customers muttering to herself, is purely coincidental. Sloths are Xenarthra, that include anteaters and armadillos. The earliest xenarthrans had fused pelvises, stubby teeth and small brains. Matters don't seem to have improved much since.

Generally sloths don't do much and certainly very little of any interest. It is commonly believed they sleep 15 to 18 hours a day but a recent German study in which a group of rather serious Germans stood under trees and counted how long they sleep, indicated sloths sleep just under 10 hours a day.

 The Bible doesn't seem very keen on the qualities displayed by the sloth. Proverbs says. "The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor."

However, your average sloth seems not to give a rats about this dire prediction.

Sloths hang out in South America. Given that up to two thirds of an amply fed sloth's body weight consists of its stomach contents, the digestive process can take a month to complete. Sloths have been known to continue hanging on trees, even when they are dead.

Time for a well earned nap, I am thinking.

Useless Fact About the Unau Sloth

Sloths only urinate or defecate once a week. More than that would get in the way of hanging out time. They go to the ground to spend a penny, making them vulnerable to predators.

What Not To Say to a Sloth

Want to go for a run?

T is for Tiger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
William Blake

The tiger is the biggest of the big cats and the most striking. Its body reaches a total body length of up to 3.3 m (11 ft) and can weigh up to 306 kg. It's also the third largest land carnivore behind the polar bear and the brown bear.

Like many other animals in this series tigers have lost much of their habitat and are now endangered. Even since the 1990s the tiger has lost 40 percent of its domain.

Still, even in zoos these powerful predators retain much of their mystique. They're like domestic cats on steroids.

The Bengal tiger is the most commonly found but numbers in India have now declined to about 2,500. The Sumatran tiger is critically endangered while the population of the Siberian tiger has plummeted. Siberian tigers are the biggest of big cats to have ever existed, weighing as much as 500 pounds. White tigers are widely bred in zoos and are an ideal fashion accessory for cheesy entertainers such as Siegfried & Roy.

Unfortuantely in 2003 the act went somewhat awry when a white tiger bit Roy's neck and almost killed him.

 A couple of gasps went up in the crowd, though many people thought the incident was part of the act. “It wasn’t like he grabbed him viciously,” audience member Andrew Cushman, was reported as saying in Reader's Digest. “He just grabbed him by the throat and walked offstage.”

Although tigers are solitary creatures, research suggests they share a kill amicably unlike lions who squabble.

While tigers will often shun human they are are thought to be responsible for more human deaths through direct attack than any other wild mammal.

Most man eater are older tigers missing teeth. This was the case in the Champawat Tiger, a tigress in India and Nepal that was responsible for an estimated 430 human deaths, the most attacks known to be perpetrated by a single wild animal per the Guinness Book, by the time she was shot dead in 1907.

Useless Fact About the Tiger

The pattern of stripes is unique to each animal, and can be used to identify them just as fingerprints are used to identify humans.

What Not To Say to a Tiger

Fancy a glass of milk kitty?

S is for Spider

Perhaps we were jealous of Matty. He had a car and a private school education, even though his establishment was considered second tier in the English system. He had a job lined up in the Navy, was skilled at rugby and had a string of women in tow.

Backyard spider (David Macaulay)

We were the spotty nerds who inhabited the same living space for a while. He reluctantly allowed us to share the same air. But Matty had an Achilles Heel that showed itself one night when we were entertaining the girls from the flat upstairs in our grubby student kitchen. We heard a high pitched scream and saw a flash of rugby player torso moving fast down the corridor. Matty was quivering by the door with just a towel to cover his modesty, pointing and jabbering in the direction of the shower room.

We followed his sign and walked into the bathroom. The fan had cut out and there was a deadly quiet. Then we saw it; a large and venomous looking house spider sitting on the shower head.

We thought it best to leave if there for a couple of weeks.

British house spiders aren't harmful to humans but they can get big and certainly look unpleasant. If any creature is likely to instil fear, it's the spider. Studies suggest 10 percent of men and 50 percent of women suffer from arachnophobia. I'm sure the figure for men is higher than this.

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. If you are really keen to avoid them you might be out of luck. There are 43,678 spider species out there.

They also vary a lot in size from the tiny Patu digua Colombia which reaches 0.39 mm, to the big tarantulas such as the Goliath Bird Eating Spider which can have body lengths up to 90 mm (3.5 in) and leg spans up to 250 mm.  They are certainly big enough for you to know about it if one is crawling on your chest at night.

Chicken tonight ? The Bird Eating spider is the biggest of the bunch

As in most species, but particularly in spiders, the lot of the male spider is not a happy one. Male spiders have a wide array of a courtship rituals which are intented to avoid being eaten by the females. They are not always successful.


Males of most species survive a few matings,before they become a quick post coital snack. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which can contain hundreds of eggs.They may care for their young by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A few species of spider hang out in large communal webs which can house as many as 50,000 of them but the communal gig is not the accepted pattern.

Spiders have been around for 400 million years and are among the most successful carnivores in the history of the planet. Spiders are a good reason for not being reincarnated as a fly; that and having to eat poop.

Despite their fearsome reputation spiders kill far fewer humans than snakes and scorpions. Although tarantulas look creepy, their bite is unlikely to prove fatal unless you have an allergy. The Brown Recluse is one of the most deadly spiders, although most people who claim to be bitten by them in the United States, have been attacked by something else. Alarmingly the black widow, a little black critter with a sinister red hourglass marking, poses a bigger threat to humans. Every time I see a spider in the garage I managed to convince myself it's a black widow, thus leading to a cancellation of the lawn mowing.

The Sydney Funnel Web Spider is more aggressive than the brown recluse and the black widow. However, since funnel-web antivenin arrived on the scene in 1980 nobody has died from a bite. Like most of the world's deadliest creatures, this spider hangs out in Australia. The Brazilian Wandering Spider is another one to watch for - if you are in Brazil at least. As its name suggests, it tends to wander.

Interestingly, the venom of the Brazilian Wandering Spider is being studied for a possible cure for erectile disfunction. As well as pain and cold sweats, men who have been bitten by this spider end up having erections. Sooo if he appears to be pleased to see you, but isn't feeling so good, it may be he has been bitten by a wandering spider, if you are anywhere near Rio...

Spiders have spawned numerous depictions in literature and film from the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet to J.R.R. Tolkien's hideous Shelob in The Lord of the Rings.

In Greek mythology Arachne was a weaver who wove a tapestry featuring 21 episodes of infidelity amongst the Gods of Olympus, which made Athena a trifle miffed. The goddess destroyed Arachne's tapestry and loom and cursed Arachne to live with extreme guilt. Out of sadness, Arachne soon hanged herself. Athena took pity on her and brought her back to life as a spider, making sure that the spider forever after retained Arachne's weaving abilities.

Spiderman, took the web spinning qualities of the spider to a comic book level, whereas there are numerous horror flicks of spiders or giant spiders on the rampage, such as Kingdom of the Spiders and Arachnophobia.

A recent email hoax described attacks by the South American Blush Spider in public toilets. The alleged spider's scientific name Arachnius gluteus translates as "butt spider."

Tarantulas are eaten in parts of south east Asia. They taste like chicken.

When in Cambodia and all that...

Useless Fact About the Spider

 Spiders often have eight eyes as wel as eight legs. The jumping spider has a telephoto-like series  of lenses, a four-layer retina and the ability to swivel its eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. However, its scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow.

What not to Say to a Spider

Bite me you eight legged freak

R is for Rhinoceros

A couple of years ago in Z is for Zoo, I described those beloved days at zoological parks. I have always found zoos to be like theme parks. I arrive excitedly clutching a map, like Clark Griswald, all pumped up about seeing the world's largest ball of twine. Then half an hour later disillusion sets in.

Anyone who has ever been to Vegas may know the feeling. After wandering down the Strip passing the faux Eiffel Tower of the Parisian and the canals of the Venetian Hotel, I find myself longing to be in the real Paris or Venice. Now while the Okavango exhibit at Virginia Zoo may be tastefully done, notwithstanding the plastic rocks, I start to feel empty and find myself imagining the majestic delta as it radiates through Botswana.

White rhino (David Macaulay)

Recently the zoo held a behind the scenes event for the media which I tagged along on. I was disappointed to find out much of the visit entailed a tour of emergency exits, but there was one highlight while I was standing in an area behind the pens, where the general public isn't allowed.

I heard a stomping noise, looked behind me and saw a gigantic white rhinoceros, separated from me by a flimsy metal fence. The rhino appeared to be docile and we crowded around it. "Can I ride it?" one girl asked a member of staff.

I shot one of those looks in the direction of her neat blonde bob, concluding she must have been a TV reporter. This wasn't exactly pony corner.

"They're not for riding," said the member of staff.

I'm not sure which rhino it was. The zoo used to have Rufus and Alfred, two males that had to be kept apart because they showed few signs of male bonding. Unfortunately, in 2008 a zookeeper failed to shut a gate and they charged each other. Two ton Rufus died from a ruptured liver, the local newspaper reported. Maybe I was staring at Alfred.

In 2004 Jesse, a female white rhino died at the zoo, when she was chased into a moat by a zebra and drowned.

The sad reality for the rhino is they face even greater danger in the wild, even though they have few natural predators.

The white rhino which lives in Africa is actually gray. The northern subspecies is critically endangered with as few as four remaining. White rhinos have been recorded weighing as much as 10,000 pounds.

The black rhino also lives in Africa. It's gray too but smaller than the white rhino and more bad tempered. Its head isn't as square. Numbers of the species declined from about 70,000 in the late 1960s to just over 2,400 in 1995.

A Rhino gets irritated with a tour bus

The Indian rhinoceros is the largest sub species in Asia. The Javan and Sumatran rhinos are smaller and the Sumatran is hairier. Neither attribute have saved them from the poachers. The demise of the rhinoceros is testimony to the greed and hubris of mankind.

Practitioners of Chinese medicine consider the horn an effective medicine against fever, although the aphrodisiac theory is largely myth.  There's no evidence that the powdered horn alleviates fever and convulsion.  In the meantime it seems this impressive animal has to die in large numbers to fuel a dubious theory that it might improve the well being of humans. Conscience doesn't come into the equation where there's a buck to be made. Almost 450 rhinos were killed for their horns in 2010 in South Africa alone. In Vietnam one horn can fetch a quarter of a million dollars. It's perhaps no coincidence that the Javan rhino is almost extinct in Vietnam.

A lot of people think rhinos are among the most dangerous animals in the world. A recent list of the most dangerous 25 lists them at number 23, one place below the tiny cone snail, a little bugger whose venom can end 20 lives in one shot.

The fact rhinos can weigh 2 tons; have poor eye sight and can reach speeds of 40 mph means it's not a great idea to run up behind them and let off a party popper in their armored rear ends. However, rhinos kill far fewer people than horrible hippos and African elephants.

Of course there are also fewer of them. The sobering reality is at some time in the future zoos are likely to be the only place we can see a rhinoceros.

Useless Fact About the Rhino

An odd legend that rhinos stop out fires has been doing the rounds in south east Asia for decades. The rhino has a mystical name that relates to fire in Malay. In the film The Gods Must be Crazy, an African rhino stomps out two fires. Reports that the Prodigy will be featuring a rhino in their new release Fire Stomper are yet to be confirmed.

What Not To Say to a Rhino

Maybe we should get the guys together.

Q is for Qinling Panda

The Qinling Panda is not like any old run of the mill panda. It's a sub species. The last time I was at Peking House I was rather upset not to be able to order Qinling Panda chop suey.

That's probably just as well because people tend to like pandas because they are black and white and look cuddly. While the whole teddy bear concept is a bit misleading because bears are notoriously aggressive, the cuddly thing is more appropriate about pandas up to a point.

 

The Qinling Panda

"Though the panda is often assumed to be docile, it has been known to attack humans, presumably out of irritation rather than aggression," states Wikipedia.

Oh that's OK then.

The Qinling panda is restricted to the Qinlin Mountains of China. It differs from the more familiar panda because it has a smaller skull and dark brown and light brown (rather than black and white) fur. There are an estimated 200–300 Qinling pandas living in the wild.

All types of panda are endangered. A 2007 report estimated there were 239 pandas living in captivity inside China and another 27 outside the country. There are about 2,000 living in the wild, which is not many considering the size of China.

Giant pandas are generally solitary and the females get pissy in more ways than one. Pandas communicate by marking territory by urinating. A female is not tolerant of other females in her range. Intruders have been known to receive black eyes.

As in the case of orangutans, the male pandas tend to leave child rearing to the females. The panda's diet is 99 percent bamboo which may explain why it gets irritated, and gives rise to the crude sex joke about the panda that eats, shoots and leaves.

In reality pandas don't seem to be into sex much, particularly in captivity. As soon as pandas were in the zoo, they lost all interest in mating, leading to artificial insemination programs, Viagra and even showing dirty panda vids of giant pandas mating. Getting them to breed was about as successful as getting Victoria Beckham to crack a smile. I'm not sure if the mating vids were in black and white. In the wild it doesn't help that when twins are born, only one survives.

Pandas are increasingly becoming the national symbol of China. They have even been used in diplomacy.

Loans of giant pandas to zoos in Japan and the US formed an important part of the diplomacy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s, making cultural exchanges This practice has been termed "Panda diplomacy". However, in more recent years China has retreated from the idea of gifts and demanded large loan payments. Sounds familiar that.

Useless Fact About the Qinling Panda

Like all pandas its a herbivore but it has the digestive system of a carnivore. It derives little energy or protein from bamboo. There's a bear roaring to get out but for the most part the panda just ambles off in search of a new type of bamboo.

What Not To Say to a Panda

Fancy a quick one

P is for Puffer Fish

Let's face it. We have all had a puffer fish moment at some time or another. You know the kind of thing. You are at an Indian restaurant; you woof down too many poppadoms followed by a heavy duty Madras and enough naan bread to sink a small penguin (my other P option). Then you glug down a Kingfisher or two. At some point in the evening you waddle to the bathroom and catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror.

The thing that stares back at you is no longer human. It's a puffer fish.

The puffer fish is known for its ability to expand its body and puff up when threatened, revealing its spikes. Now should you ever see this phenomenon, it's not a great idea to pet the fish uttering the words: "Here puffer, puffer."

More specifically, there's nothing wrong with uttering the words, beyond the fact you will look like an idiot and be shunned by other folks. But petting the puffer is definitely a foolhardy course of action. The puffer is the second most poisonous creature in the world after the Golden Poison Frog. Given that there are a lot of species out there, this is something of an achievement.

There are 120 known species of puffer fish alone and they are found in tropical waters. When not puffed up they can be hard to identify, coming in many shapes and colors. Generally they resemble oversized tadoples with bulging eyes. Puffer fish also have a shed load of names. The family is called etradonidae and they may also be known as puffers, balloonfish, blowfish, bubblefish, globefish, swellfish, toadfish, honey toads, toadies, sugar toads and sea squab.

The only other advice I can give is don't hire a puffer fish as a driving instructor. See the episode of Sponge Bob where aforementioned yellow sponge drives Mrs. Puff nuts.

Oh and don't eat them, of course....

Except people do. The Japanese have eaten fugu (which means river pig and is yet another name for the puffer) for centuries, despite the fact its toxins can paralyze the victim while still conscious as asphyxia sets in, a process that can severely curtail one's interest in dessert.

There's a rather strict system now in place if you want to sell fugu to the public. Chefs have to undergo an apprenticeship of up to three years. There's a written test and a fish-identification test as well as a practical test and the chance to eat the fish. Only 35 percent of applicants pass. A small percentage pass out for good.

Despite the precautions, which extend to puffer knives being kept in a separate place, about six people die a year from eating the puffer fish in Japan and up to 64 are hospitalized. Oh and you can pay as much as $50 per serving for the pleasure of dining on puffer. A famous victim was the actor Bandō Mitsugorō who died in 1975 after consuming four large liver portions. The liver is one of the most risky parts of the puffer to eat.

I'm not sure if puffer tastes like chicken. But, all in all, sticking to chicken is probably the way to fly. Call me boring and all that...

Useless Fact About the Puffer Fish

Wade Davis, who wrote about the famous Clairvius Narcisse case of becoming a 'zombie,' claimed that puffer fish toxin, made a person seem to be dead and later a zombie. Now some people think that Narcisse was simply mentally ill, and Davis had coached or at least been too willing to believe his story.

What Not To Say to a Puffer Fish

I'd like to eat your liver with some fava beans and a Chianti

O is for Orangutan

OK this is surely the point in which the A-Z challenge has caught up with me and kicked me up the backside. I saw Juliette's post called overload, and thought this challenge overwhelm what it referred to but it wasn't.

You know you are slipping under when you groan at the thought of writing about big red monkeys on a Wednesday afternoon. My hump day is haunted by the thought of them, sticking out their rubbery lips and sucking their toes - and they're not even monkeys, they're apes.

Orangutans are my favorite apes. While gorillas can be scary and chimps are a pain in the backside when not advertising tea, orangutans are solitary and intelligent as well as terribly endangered. They are also fun to watch at the zoo where their mournful faces and bum scratching routines can keep kids amused for hours. They are also disconcerting to watch at times because their characteristics can appear a little too human for comfort.

Orangutans are found in Sumatra and Borneo, great forested islands in which their habitat is being destroyed by the day. If it's worth your while becoming Sting and banging on about the rain forest or hanging out there unwashed for a few decades for any species, it's worth it for this one.

Much became known about these creatures due to the work of Birutė Galdikas, a leading primatologist who hung out for 30 years in a primitive bark hut in Borneo, dubbed Camp Leakey - because it probably did - for 30 years.

She became an outspoken advocate for orangutans and the saving of their rainforest habitat, which is rapidly being devastated by loggers, palm oil plantations, gold miners and forest fires.

Orangutans are known for their solitary behavior and the close link between mothers and children. In contrast, fathers have little interest in child support.

Many studies have pointed to the intelligence of orangutans which suggest they may be having the last laugh at the kids who stare at them scratching their bottoms for two hours at the zoo.

For instance, a 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo showed these apes can use 'calculated reciprocity', which involves weighing the costs and benefits of gift exchanges and keeping track of these over time.  They have also been known to use tools and to develop linguistics. Indeed, my recent efforts to fit blinds compare unfavorably with those of an orangutan.

Useless Fact About the Orangutan

There are many folklore theories relating to interaction with humans. In central Borneo, some traditional folk beliefs claim it's bad luck to look in the face of an orangutan. There are even folk tales of orangutans mating with and kidnapping humans and stories of hunters being seduced by female orangutans, which seem a bit far-fetched to say the least.

What Not To Say to an Orangutan

Come on baby light my (forest) fire.

N is for Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat

Pity the poor northern hairy nosed wombat. Unlike my last creature - the mosquito - the hairy nosed wombat (known to his pals as the HNW) is crtitically endangered. And he hasn't done anything to hurt anyone, being in appearance rather like an oddly misshappen teddy bear.

Yep the HNW is this year's must-have fasion accessory. Paris Hilton would have one, but she's last year's fashion accessory so who cares. At least the HNW would be the hot ticket item if you could get your paws on the northern variety for love or money.

There are, in fact, three types of wombat. The northern hairy-nosed wombat is similar to the southern hairy-nosed wombat, but hangs out up north instead of down south and its nose isn't as long. It's still hairy, though. And by oop north I'm talking about northern Austrialia. The other species in the Vombatidae family, the common wombat, has longer ears and, funnily enough, has managed to find itself some nose haired clippers.  The common wombat is distinguished from both types of hairy nosed wombats in that it has a bald nose ie. it's not hairy. I feel I am over laboring this point.

Northern hairy-nosed wombats can grow up to 35 cm high, and can be a meter long and weigh up to 40 kg. The females are slightly bigger than the males because they have an extra layer of fat. The northern hairy-nosed wombat's nose is said to be very important for its survival because they have very poor eyesight so they can smell their food in the dark. It can take a northern hairy nose a full day to dig a burrow, which makes me think they should be employed by Virginia Department of Transportation.

Sadly the HNW doesn't have a much of a nose for survival. Its numbers are presently restricted to one place, the Epping Forest National Park in Queensland. In 2003 the total population copmprised just 113 hairy nosed individuals, including only around 30 breeding females.

Opinions differ as to why the northern hairy nose is facing tough times. The Queensland Department of the Environment says: "It might have already been in decline when Europeans settled, and was probably the least common of the three wombat species at that time.

"Since then, competition for food from introduced grazing animals, such as sheep, cattle and rabbits - particularly during droughts – has been the main reason for the species rapid decline since European arrival in Australia."

So yeah - basically you can blame the Europeans again...

Useless Fact about the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat

You know when you cough politely when someone is in your way. Well while much communication between wombats occurs through olfaction and scent marking, wombats will emit rough coughing noises when they waddle past each other.

What Not To Say to a Hairy Nosed Wombat

Fancy a hairy nosed barbie Bruce?

M is for Mosquito

One time in Montenegro we thumbed a lift and were dropped off by an old walled town called Kotor.

Kotor is set on a deeply indented bay surrounded by towering mountains. Its walls crumble quietly into the surroundings and there are old churches and fortifications. It was gloriously undiscovered, almost too much so, as we found when we located a ramshackle courtyard cafe that served nothing more than Coke in rusty old cans.

It was before the war and old men muttered darkly about conflict in Kosovo. In the event the conflict arrived closer to the Adriatic at first, in Croatia and then Bosnia.

In the former Yugoslavia in those days it was never hard to find accommodation. Women would crowd you as soon as you got off the bus offering to put you up in their places. We chose a pleasant home down on the shore and crashed out for the night. But about 30 minutes into my sleep I was woken up by an unpleasant buzzing in my ear. I swatted something away but it returned again just as sleep came on.

I switched on the light and saw small black specs on the wall. The whole room was infested with mosquitoes.

For the next two hours I declared war on the mosquitoes, killing droves of them with a rolled up newspaper from my bed. Yet, every time I returned to sleep, the pesky buzzing would return to my ear, as they sought to suck my blood. It wasn't the most pleasant night's sleep I had ever had.

Which brings me to mosquitoes. These insects are a family of small, midge-like flies: the Culicidae.

Unlike most of the other creatures featured here, mosquitoes have absolutely nothing good going for them.  The mosquito is, in fact, the most deadly of creatures.

It has been estimated that mosquitoes transmit diseases to almost 700 million people annually resulting in 2 to 3 million deaths every year.

Those itchy, pesky bites are due to an immune response from the binding of IgG and IgE antibodies to antigens in the mosquito's saliva, apparently.

Some of the goodies transmitted by mosquitoes include:

Viral diseases, such as yellow fever, dengue fever and Chikungunya.

The parasitic diseases collectively called malaria.

Lymphatic filariasis - the main cause of elephantiasis.

West Nile Virus, which occurs in the United States as well as other places.

Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus

Tulaemina

I am particularly paranoid about mosquitoes, particularly after reading this. Mosquitoes like my skin. I'm looking around me nervously as I write this, even though I'm in Starbucks.

Useless Fact About the Mosquito

The females are the ones to watch for, not that you can really tell gender if one is on your skin. In many species, the female has to obtain nutrients from a blood meal before she can produce eggs. For female mosquitoes  to risk their lives on blood sucking while bloke mosquitoes abstain, also occurs in some other insect families, such as the Tabanidae.

What Not to Say to a Mosquito

Come on. Do your worst sucker.

L Is For Lemming

Anyone ever had this conversation at work by the water cooler?

You: What are you going to do this weekend?

Colleague: I think me and the wife might take a nice trip to the coast, get out of the car and jump off a 200 foot cliff.

You: Sounds like a good idea. Think I'll jump off a cliff too.

Colleague: Actually my cousins are visiting. They'll certainly want to jump off a cliff this weekend.

So might go the typical work water cooler conversation of a lemming, one of the most curious of rodents.

Lemmings are small rodents that live in tundra biomes near the Arctic. They are most famous for their acts of mass suicide, although it's not clear if this is down to suffering SAD due to the lack of light in the Norwegian winters, or just for the hell of it.

Lemmings see wild population fluctuations. The Norway lemming and the brown lemming reproduce so rapidly they suffer sudden populations fluctuations, going from population explosions to near extinction.

The near extinction problem is not helped by the mass suicides, although there's some evidence this is an urban, or rather a treeless wilderness myth.

Those good old lemming misconceptions date back to the 1530s when the Swiss geographer Zeigler of Strasbourg proposed the theory the lemmings fell from the sky in stormy weather. By all accounts he would stroke his long beard and proclaim: "It's raining cats, dogs and lemmings."

A similar theory was proposed in the folklore of the Inupiat/Yupik at Norton Sound. Later this theory was modified to that of mass suicide. When one lemming jumped off a cliff, the others follow, the theory went. However, the reality is more about mass migration than depression.

When the lemming population goes nuts there's a major urge to get out of Dodge City. During these crazed migrations they may attempt to swim across water that's too wide and drown en masse in the process.


Disney is much to blame for the mass suicide myth. The 1955 adventure comic "The Lemming with the Locket" showed the creature jumping in large numbers off cliffs in Norway, while the 1958 film White Wilderness  features staged footage of lemmings jumping off cliffs. It turns out they were being flicked into the air via a turntable by the kindly lemming lovers at Disney.

Lemming behavior is now associated with people who go along unquestioning with a dumb decision or idea which is detrimental to them. 


Useless Fact About the Lemming

Although they are depicted as being passive the brightly colored lemmings can behave aggressively toward predators and even humans.


What Not to Say to a Lemming

Fancy a Cliff bar?