Jamie123

Klaw was doing this earlier - from the master bed, down the hall and almost smashing into the farthest window in the house - then back again as soon as I looked at him.   It was time for the squirrelies, apparently.

Interesting. According to this article, https://www.quora.com/Do-humans-actually-rank-high-in-the-animal-kingdom-as-long-distance-runners humans do beat horses for persistence running, but sled dogs, ostriches, camels and pronghorns (yes, I had to look that one up too) do better.

A pronghorn.

Did I ever tell the story of when someone shipped me a computer and 19" CRT monitor to my work and I had to figure out how to get it all home in my little Honda Civic (the boxes were HUGE).  One of the guys at work said, "You know, we men have ways of taking care of these things.  We'd pull the car under a tree, get a rope and throw it over a branch to lift the box onto the car roof, then use the rope to tie it down .... blah blah blah."  When he was done I said, "We women have ways of taking care of these things, too.  ... We get men to do it for us." 

Mmmmm...I think probably not. We aren't nearly the hunters that cats are, we don't have the sense of smell that dogs have, we don't have the visual acuity of an eagle. But we do well at what we're fitted for, just like a whale or a slug or an owl. For instance, there is no distance runner that can match humans. When it comes to "persistence hunting", we're the champions. Dogs and doglike animals (e.g. hyenas) do some persistence hunting, but nothing like humans can do. When it comes to intentionally modifying our external environment, again, we're the champions. So we fill our niche and do a wonderful, perhaps incredible, job at it. But we don't run as fast as horses or cats, that's true, or pull the weight that a bovine can pull. Our particular brilliance is in yoking the oxen to pull things for us.

I just discovered that the only wombats in the UK are in Hammerton Zoo in Cambridgeshire. London Zoo is massive, and you'd think they'd have any animal you can think of, but no, they have no wombats. No wombats today. Or any other day.

I've half a mind to go to Hammerton just to see the wombats. I like wombats. Though an adult wombat can do you quite an injury if you annoy it (which apparently is not all that difficult). They are big and heavy and can run fast, and getting hit by one would not be pleasant at all. And the oddest thing about them is that they poo cubes. I remember reading that in Physics World a few years back
This is a good video about wombats:

A normal house cat (felis catus) can run at 30mph, considerably faster than a wombat, and faster even than Usain Bolt's record of 27.5mph. It seems to me that athletics is all about humans achieving things as best they can with their limited bodies which are no mean feats at all for animals in general. Human sport is the paralympics of the animal kingdom.

How interesting! I've never seen a baby wombat in a pouch before. Lots of joey kangaroos in pouches, but never a wombat. 

His head also seems a bit swollen.  That's never a good sign...

Joey looking backwards out of pouch.

He does look a bit peaky. Maybe he has a virus.

Something seems a little off with Willie the Wombat.  You might want to contact a virtual vet...

It is illegal to keep wombats as pets, but you can have a virtual one. This is mine. His name is Willie the Wombat.

It is illegal to keep wombats as pets, but you can have a virtual one. This is mine. His name is Willie the Wombat.

We encountered this wombat wandering along the side of the road when we were on a trip to the south coast. It was unusual to see a wombat wandering around so close to a road during the day so we got out and had a closer look. Something, maybe us, must have scared it because suddenly it started running. I think it was heading for its hole. Unfortunately, I see far more dead wombats than live ones by the side of the road. 
There is a place about an hour from where I now live that does jumping crocodile tours. You can take a boat the size of a small ferry which puts you well above the water line or you can take what is commonly referred to as a "tinnie" which is a very small boat which puts you almost at the same level as the crocodils. We took the tinnie. This part of the Adelaide River has a very dense crocodile population. We saw about 10 crocs in less than a kilometer.
https://www.adrenaline.com.au/tours/darwin/jumpings-crocodile-cruise-adelaide-river/

 
 

Its really hard to imagine a wombat maintaining that sort of speed for more than, at a guess, 90 seconds on flat ground. I suspect they would have considerable energy reserves given how fat they are and how little they generally move.

Well, Pocahontas was very special in Disney's version...she somehow talked to all the plants and trees and such.  She probably had some tranquilizer dart effect with her voice which paralyzed MaMa bear there or something.  Either that or those shrooms she had were pretty strong to affect both her and John Smith at the same time.

Or Pocahontas.

I remember being amazed the first time I saw a wombat run. Until then I had only seen them move at a very slow pace. For a moment I thought it was chasing me and I got a bit worried , but when I changed direction it ran straight past me. 

I may not know much about bears, but one thing I have learned from the good people of Maine: you do not interfere with a mother bear's cubs, unless you want your bodily appendages seriously rearranged.
So what was Walt Disney thinking of with the bear scene from Pocahontas? John Smith is about to shoot the bear, but Pocahontas stops him and leads him into the bears' den. There she picks up one of the cubs and hands it to Smith. The cub playfully pulls Smith's helmet down over his eyes. Meanwhile mummy bear is standing peacefully by, not ripping anyone's arms and legs off.
The moral is, if you want to know what to do when you meet a bear, don't ask Mr Disney.
 

Many, many years ago a very good friend of mine had an abortion. She was a girl i used to hang out with a lot (not a girlfriend) and we used to watch movies together and eat pizza, and I'd go to her apartment to keep her company when she was feeling down. (And no I wasn't the father, in case you were wondering.) She didn't tell me about the abortion until afterwards, which in some ways was a good thing, because had I known I would have pulled out every stop to talk her out of it - including offering to pay for the child's upbringing myself. My own family would have then called me an idiot, but I know what I'd have told them: "All death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" (which I've probably misquoted). As it was, all I could do was try to be supportive of her. Anything else would not have brought the baby back. 

Happy St. David's Day!
The daddodils are coming into bloom too!

I just discovered that the only wombats in the UK are in Hammerton Zoo in Cambridgeshire. London Zoo is massive, and you'd think they'd have any animal you can think of, but no, they have no wombats. No wombats today. Or any other day.

I've half a mind to go to Hammerton just to see the wombats. I like wombats. Though an adult wombat can do you quite an injury if you annoy it (which apparently is not all that difficult). They are big and heavy and can run fast, and getting hit by one would not be pleasant at all. And the oddest thing about them is that they poo cubes. I remember reading that in Physics World a few years back
This is a good video about wombats:

Many, many years ago a very good friend of mine had an abortion. She was a girl i used to hang out with a lot (not a girlfriend) and we used to watch movies together and eat pizza, and I'd go to her apartment to keep her company when she was feeling down. (And no I wasn't the father, in case you were wondering.) She didn't tell me about the abortion until afterwards, which in some ways was a good thing, because had I known I would have pulled out every stop to talk her out of it - including offering to pay for the child's upbringing myself. My own family would have then called me an idiot, but I know what I'd have told them: "All death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" (which I've probably misquoted). As it was, all I could do was try to be supportive of her. Anything else would not have brought the baby back. 

So sorry about your friend. That’s an awful burden to carry. Hope she found peace. 

Many, many years ago a very good friend of mine had an abortion. She was a girl i used to hang out with a lot (not a girlfriend) and we used to watch movies together and eat pizza, and I'd go to her apartment to keep her company when she was feeling down. (And no I wasn't the father, in case you were wondering.) She didn't tell me about the abortion until afterwards, which in some ways was a good thing, because had I known I would have pulled out every stop to talk her out of it - including offering to pay for the child's upbringing myself. My own family would have then called me an idiot, but I know what I'd have told them: "All death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" (which I've probably misquoted). As it was, all I could do was try to be supportive of her. Anything else would not have brought the baby back.