Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snakes. Show all posts
Thursday, 5 February 2009
As we're on the topic of snakes...
...the news today is full of stories about a very big snake. In Nature this week there is a paper describing the largest snake ever discovered: a a 60-million-year-old South American Titanoboa. Sounds like a snake I might not be so keen to meet up with. Being the slacker I am I haven't got to the actual paper yet, but news stories are here, here and here.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
A snake and a quoll
I've just been away for a few days, visiting people in Tasmania. It was a nice trip and I hardly went near the internet. Hence no blog posts. It was also a bit of a reminder of the somewhat cloistered world I must live in, sheltered amongst scientists and other like-minded people as I am in my usual daily life. I am clearly a bit of a science geek. My reason for making this statement about this trip? It was great to see people I haven't seen for a while and spend time doing fun things, but the absolute highlights of this trip for me were two fleeting wildlife encounters.
The first was a tiger snake encounter in a garden. Most other folk there at the time were not happy to see the snake and there was some talk of the only good snake being a dead snake. Perhaps the snake heard because it promptly moved on. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a crazy herpetologist and I am mostly definitely VERY scared of venomous snakes. I acknowledge that the snake was rather close to peoples' houses and it's probably better for them that it wasn't so close and they'd be a lot happier if it was moved elsewhere. I was certainly very careful where I put my feet for the next few days. But still, above all else it was just a wonderful thing to see. Here, judge for yourselves:
The second wildlife encounter was, if you can believe it, even more fantastic than the snake. Actually I'm sure a lot of people would find this the more favourable option. This because it involves a cute furry mammal. I saw a quoll! I have never before seen a quoll in the wild, although I've been in the right sorts of places many times. So this was very exciting. We were driving to the airport early in the morning. It was still dark and we were paying close attention to the roadside vegetation for fear of colliding with suicidal wallabies, when what should saunter across the road in front of us but an unmistakably spotty quoll. It was an Eastern quoll, I know this because it was black with white spots. We had to pretty much stop the car to avoid hitting it. It was only a quick look, but it made being up and about at 4am most definitely worthwhile!
The second wildlife encounter was, if you can believe it, even more fantastic than the snake. Actually I'm sure a lot of people would find this the more favourable option. This because it involves a cute furry mammal. I saw a quoll! I have never before seen a quoll in the wild, although I've been in the right sorts of places many times. So this was very exciting. We were driving to the airport early in the morning. It was still dark and we were paying close attention to the roadside vegetation for fear of colliding with suicidal wallabies, when what should saunter across the road in front of us but an unmistakably spotty quoll. It was an Eastern quoll, I know this because it was black with white spots. We had to pretty much stop the car to avoid hitting it. It was only a quick look, but it made being up and about at 4am most definitely worthwhile!
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
In the news today
Well, there are lots of things in the news today of course, but two in particular caught my eye.
First, one of my all-time favourite people I've never met, Sir David Attenborough, on receiving hate mail from religious fundamental types. Sir David Attenborough: 'I get hate mail telling me to burn in hell for not crediting God'.
Second, a bit of "well I never!" or "how cool is that!". A NSW couple got to see a red belly black snake eat a brown snake - cool enough alone you might think - but THEN the brown snake managed to escape from the belly of the red belly black by exiting head-first from its mouth. Now that is seriously cool!
I have seen both these snakes in the wild, but never doing anything quite so exciting. Although S did a good job of almost stepping on a brown snake on a bushwalk late last year - that was exciting for us! Here's a nice red belly black I befriended (from a safe distance) at Jervis Bay a couple of years back:
First, one of my all-time favourite people I've never met, Sir David Attenborough, on receiving hate mail from religious fundamental types. Sir David Attenborough: 'I get hate mail telling me to burn in hell for not crediting God'.
Sir David also said it was "terrible, terrible" when creationism and evolution were taught in schools as equivalent, alternative perspectives.I'm with Sir David on this one!
"It's like saying that two and two equals four, but if you wish to believe it, it could also be five... Evolution is not a theory; it is a fact, every bit as much as the historical fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066."
Second, a bit of "well I never!" or "how cool is that!". A NSW couple got to see a red belly black snake eat a brown snake - cool enough alone you might think - but THEN the brown snake managed to escape from the belly of the red belly black by exiting head-first from its mouth. Now that is seriously cool!
Mr Barton reckons that somehow the brown snake turned itself around inside the black snake.
"When you tell these stories no-one believes you, but I have the photographs," he said.
I have seen both these snakes in the wild, but never doing anything quite so exciting. Although S did a good job of almost stepping on a brown snake on a bushwalk late last year - that was exciting for us! Here's a nice red belly black I befriended (from a safe distance) at Jervis Bay a couple of years back:
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