BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: ANIMALS

For Gregory Abby who would keep all animals from harm
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THE SINGULAR BEAUTY OF A PURE WHITE GOOSE

“No night time sight can compare with the singular beauty 
of a pure white goose, or several, their motionless, 
luminous contours on dark moonstruck grass that absorbs 
the light, the contrast of each bird’s brilliance, glowing 
as if lit from within,”

Paul Theroux. “Diary”. London Review of Books (20 June 2019)

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PENGUINS AS PARENTS

“Penguins are super parents. When the female provides 
dinner she doesn’t just reach for the pesto but launches
 herself into the treacherous, icy depths, returning with a stomach full of half-digested fish to be spewed down the gullet of her needy chick. His Fluffy Eminence, who is then installed in creche so protective it makes the average nursery look like the workhouse in Oliver Twist. Yet, even for penguins, rejection comes after the winter huddling and the pre-ledge commutes, deep dives and the exhausting feeds, the mother will waddle off across the tundra, never to be seen by her children again. Abandonment, we understand, is not the devastating catastrophe that wrecks the child’s system of trust, but the crowning achievement of good parenting.”
Andrew O’Hagan. “Off His Royal Tits” in London Review 
of Books (2 February 2023)
**

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HORSESHOE CRABS

“Endotoxins are a worry to medicine. They exist 
in the cell walls of certain bacteria and can be 
released when the bacteria break down or die. These 
toxins can send a patient into a tailspin of fever,
 chills, septic shock and death.
  “To keep patients safe, pharmaceutical companies 
run roughly 70 million tests a year on injectable 
medicines and implants for the presence of those toxins 
with a substance called limulus amebocyte lysate. It is 
an extract of cells from horseshoe crab blood and can 
identify even infinitesimal amounts  of the toxin by 
reacting with it, No other natural substance is known
 to work so well.

Deborah Cramer. ”When the Horseshoe Crabs Are Gone,
We’ll Be in Trouble” in The New York Times. 
February 18,2023.
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THE WORLD'S OLDEST LLAMA

A 27-Year-Old Llama Sets World Record for Oldest of His Species — And He Has the Best Name
The Dalai Lama is the highest spiritual leader and 
head monk of Tibet, considered a living Buddha. Dalai 
Llama, on the other hand, is the oldest living llama 
in the world. And he just turned 27.

From NICE NEWS (March 2, 2023)

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THE ANAL CATAPULT OF GLASSY-WINGED
SHARP SHOOTERS

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/watch-these-glassy-winged-sharpshooters-fling-pee-bubbles-with-anal-catapult/

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SPIDERS & AUTOMOBILES IN THE COLD OF WINTER

"A spider can hide out in a barn. Some spiders 
do survive outside in the cold, relying on the glycol 
in their blood to keep their cells from freezing, 
similar to the chemicals used to keep your car 
running in the winter."

Josephine Sedgwick. "Nature is Alive in Winter" in
The New York Times (March 7, 2023)

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ON IGUANAS ON THE GALAPAGOS ISLAND

"A basalt coastline crowded with large, lounging iguanas 
looks nothing short of Jurassic. When I first saw these 
striking creatures in the Galapagos, I was impressed 
most by their placidness. Unfazed by humans, they spend 
long, sunny days warming in the equatorial sun like 
scaly house cats, sometimes in heaps, between foraging
 missions at sea to feed on marine algae.
   "Charles Darwin was famously unimpressed with this rare seafaring lizard. "It is a hideous-looking creature,"he
 wrote in The Voyage of the Beagle, "stupid and sluggish 
in its movements."

Katherine Harmon Courage."Heroes of the Wild" in
Smithsonian  (March 2023)
**

MINK RHYMES WITH STINK

"Mink is the name of a water-dwelling weasel. Minks 
are vicious, bloodthirsty, and evil smelling, and 
when annoyed, they spray a foul-smelling fluid from 
glanda beneath their tail. The mink's old sciehtific 
name, Putorius means 'stinker.' Yet a coat made  from 
the fur of this thoroughly unpleasant animal has long 
been a synbol of success. And, thanks to its durable, 
lustrous fur the mink is one most valuable animals in 
the world."

Peter Limberg. What's in the Names of Wild Animals
(New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1977)
**

ELEPHANTS


It is mealy, this world with so little substance.
Frequently our dreams are not mammoth enough.
No more poetry! I shall say it bluntly:
I do not wish to live in a world without elephants.

Wide-eyed I listen for the click of tusks,
Herds of elephants rumbling into the bush.
By way of greeting, elephants place their trunks
Into one another's mouths. How shall my sons grow
Without sensing the imponderable bulk of the world?

How necessary it is, even in so paltry a landscape,
Ivory-stained, & large enough only for killing,
To be reminded of lives larger than ourselves.
More than 50,000 muscles in the trunk alone, &
Then it happens: a large orange moon trumpets
Over woodland; we sense a planet going musth.

LJP

--
http://louis-phillips.com

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