Three-toed Adorableness!

Hey all,

I'm sorry to give you bad news, but this BEAUTIFUL little creature -- the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth -- is the most endangered and tiniest of all of these special creatures. I diverge from my usual upbeat message to implore you to love them as much as I do! How can we let this tiny piece of Panamanian adorableness go?!

Creepy or cute?

Hey all,

You've met Milo, the Labradoodle of all of our dreams. You have imagined that he loves snow and all things connected to winter. Thus, you might have even guessed that he has winter boots (thanks to me!), in which he loves to prance. But did you know that, in a beige sweater, when sitting down, he has the torso of a self-effacing man -- who has way too much stomach hair? Little did you really know about Milo. . . .

!Amigos Nuevos Colombianos!

Hey all,

Now for some real new from the animal world: scientists have discovered three -- count 'em -- three new species of frog in Colombia, from the Antioquia y Chocó regions of the country. Pictured below is one lovely species. Good news, indeed, when so many other species of frog are passing out of the ecosystem.

The Encounter

I offer this image for you to call to mind when you look outside at the grey winter moving in; remember that such colourful, mysterious moments are happening all the time, usually far from where humans can see them.

Beautiful bats?

Hey folks,

This is a photo of Honduran white bats, which Addie/Persephone urged me to search for in response to my last post. Am I glad she did! I never thought I'd say bats are beautiful! Superheroes, yes (after all, they can detect, and miss, an obstacle the width of a single strand of hair simply using their sonar), but lovely? I challenge you to deny it! With that lovely white fur and lemony noses, ears, and legs, what are they but lovely?

The Queen of the Andes

Hi, all!

This is a photo of two birds feeding off a rare plant from South America (here Bolivia) called "The Queen of the Andes." It takes a while to flower -- only blooming once every 80 to 100 years -- but when it does flower, it really goes for it! Enlarge the photo by clicking on it; you'll see that these avid avians have their choice of flowers to choose from. Can you believe that locals used to find these amazing plants a bother and would try to get rid of them -- until they saw that they drew tourists (and their money)? I guess tourism can be good for something, after all!

Quotidian Superheroes

Hey all,

I've always wanted to make a movie or a TV show about the superheroic feats of regular animals -- police dogs that can smell corpses at the bottom of a lake or tiny, delicate black-capped chickadees that hang out in -40 C weather jump to mind -- even before I knew about these Italian goats. These are photos (enlarge them by clicking on them) of Alpine Ibex climbing the Cingino Dam in northern Italy. Why do we invent yarns about superhumans when superheroes are all around us?