Am I Jealous?

J sent me this picture he took from his hotel room in Nairobi. Do I envy his view? Instead of the orange and yellow leaves I love so much at this time of year, in November in Nairobi the jacarandas drop their purple petals all over the ground like lavender snow. So, yeah, I guess I am envious.

Three years ago I took this photo on Key Boulevard in Arlington. Sadly, I can't find this tree this year. And I know where it once was.

The Poor Potoroo

Until the other day I had never heard of the Potoroo (nor of its companion in the wild, the Quokka) but now I may be an expert. Gilbert’s Potoroo, a marsupial, happens to be Australia’s most endangered mammal. Only about 30 to 40 are left in the wild near Mount Gardner in Western Australia. A few years ago seven of them were moved to Bald Island, off the coast of Western Australia, which is in pristine condition and has no Potoroo predators.
Some interesting facts about the Potoroo:

The adult 2 lb. Potoroo has 1/2 inch long offspring which sometimes stay in a state of suspended development (embryonic diapause) while another Potoroo is conceived.

Potoroos are the most fungi-dependent mammal on earth. They eat truffles.

Always optimistic, Australians are on the lookout. If you think you may have seen a Gilbert's Potoroo, or found animal remains which you think could be a Gilbert's Potoroo, please check the sightings page which gives guidance on distinguishing Potoroos from similar animals and complete the online sighting report; alternatively, you can note down the sighting details as listed on the page and email a message to: sightings@potoroo.org

How Hot

How hot is hell?

The Hornworm

The clubhouse garden is in terrible shape rignt now but this little "animal" still finds our tomato plants tasty. I'm not sure if he's a tobacco or a tomato hornworm (they both eat tomatoes) but he's a 2 inch long chunker, neon green with those unreal white sprinkles.

Actually, I found him kind of scary. K though wanted to pick him up (yuck) but in the end we left him munching away. Here's what he turns into:

Katydids

I forgot the "katydid" (see yesterday's post) - (no, crickets, you don't get all the credit for the evening serenade). I've seen the green katydid but how about a pink one!

Colorful Find: A rare, pink katydid
(AP) – 4 days ago
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — It's the prettiest bug in town — bubblegum pink, vanishingly rare and was likely headed for an early demise in a bird's beak.
That is until Kay Hrycko stumbled upon the shockingly pink katydid in the yard of her Springfield Township home on Tuesday.
"We were walking around looking at the logs and happened to see this katydid on one of the rocks," Hrycko said. "It was real obvious. We all said 'Pink!'"
Katydids typically are green to blend in with foliage, but occasionally one will have a mutation that renders it pink. While pleasing to the eye, the color makes it stand out like a daily special on a restaurant menu for predators.
"That will mark it as dinner for birds," said Chuck Holliday, a Lafayette College biology professor with expertise in insects.
After discovering the colorful critter, Hrycko collected it in a yogurt container and is keeping it safe inside. She said her 13-year-old son, Cody, hopes to take it to school next week for his science class.
The major difference between pink katydids and their more common green counterparts apparently is the lack of dark pigment called melanin, the same pigment that makes a panther black.
The coloration was first noted in scientific literature in 1878. The only known genetic study was published in 1916.
The U.S. name "katydid" comes from the male's loud mating call, produced by rubbing its forewings together — groups of three and four evenly spaced noises that people imitated as "Katy did. Katy didn't. Katy didn't. Katy did."
Pink katydids have been found, albeit rarely, from Pennsylvania to Michigan to Louisiana.

The pink colouring of some katydids is due to a condition called erythrism, an unusual reddish pigmentation that can affect an animal’s body, skin, feathers, hair or eggshells. It is caused by diet or a genetic mutation that either leads to the absence of a normal pigment or the excessive production of another. In katydids, the pink colouring might be a kind of camouflage that hides them on reddish or pinkish plants.

This one, the "Crayola Katydid", is from Belize:

I Don't Hate Summer

I'm not hating summer as much as I used to. Maybe it's because the weather this year has been pretty good, at least when I've been outside. This is what I actually love about summer:

1. Cicadas -I love when they are really noisy during the day
2. Birds in the morning (those noisy ones when it's cool outside)
3. Crickets at night (winter is so quiet)
4. Fireflies (sadly they seem to disappear sometime in July - where do they go?)
5. Hummingbirds!!!
6. Huge perfect Tiger Swallowtails, the Virginia State Butterfly
7. Fireworks on the Fourth
8. Iced Tea
9. Most of all- coming into the house with the ac on full blast. You feel so thankful.

Kihansi Spray Toad

Thanks, Jim

**NEWS RELEASE**

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kihansi Spray Toads
Make Historic Return
To Tanzania

Tiny toads, extinct in the wild, now reside in propagation center in Dar es Salaam after being bred by Toledo Zoo and Bronx Zoo. Toads destined to be returned to their native habitat.

Flagstaff Arboretum

The Flagstaff Arboretum was a really nice surprise - from the long, long dirt road leading to the center to the vistas once we were there. The best surprise was the Abert's Squirrel which, I swear, looks like a rabbit.

Check Out This Pic

We had a big storm the other day. Some residents were disturbed.

21573706 | The Washington Post

Green Soap?

One way to cut down on waste: remove the middle from the bar of soap.

Electric Ant

I was reminded of all the warning signs in Australia, wondering what an electric ant was. Was it an ant that lived behind electric switchplates?



From Wikipedia:

The electric ant, also known as the little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata, is a tiny (appprox 1.5 mm long), light to golden brown (ginger) social ant native to Central and South America, now spread to parts of Africa (including Gabon and Cameroon), North America, Israel, and six Pacific Island groups (including the Galápagos Islands, Hawaii, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands) plus north-eastern Australia.
The name, electric ant (or little fire ant) derives from the ant's painful sting. This ant's impact in those environments and countries outside of its place of origin has been described as follows:
Wasmannia auropunctata .. is blamed for reducing species diversity, reducing overall abundance of flying and tree-dwelling insects, and eliminating arachnid populations. It is also known for its painful stings. On the Galapagos, it eats the hatchlings of tortoises and attacks the eyes and cloacae of the adult tortoises. It is considered to be perhaps the greatest ant species threat in the Pacific region.

Rumble in the Suburbs

"A 3.6-magnitude earthquake with a center near Gaithersburg was reported around 5 a.m. Friday, and felt by as many as 3 million people in the Mid-Atlantic region, according to the United States Geological Survey."

Harry got me up at 4:52 so I was half-awake and thought a freight train went by our house. It trembled.

Butterflies Love the Butterfly Bush

Tiger Swallowtail butterflies (the official Virginia state butterfly) in the Clarendon House parking lot.

Who's Guilty?

One of Jupiter's two main cloud belts has disappeared. Did you take it?

May Flowers

My Samara Are Falling (Twirling)

“Maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) and the spiraling pattern in which they glide to the ground have delighted children for ages and perplexed engineers for decades. ...In the 1950s, researchers first tried to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic a maple seed’s spiraling fall. Ever since, their attempts have been foiled by instability, resulting in a lack of control over the tiny (less than one meter) vehicles, which were easily knocked off course by wind. ...The students studied maple seeds and developed a new design incorporating the natural flight of the tiny flyers. The insight gleaned from this study enabled the creation of the world’s smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft. The maple seed-inspired design is valuable because when dropped, unpowered, from a plane and then controlled remotely, it can perform surveillance maneuvers for defense, fire monitoring and search-and-rescue purposes.
...Part of the solution to controlling flight was to physically separate the problem of propulsion and stability. The wing of the vehicle is designed to function in the same way as natural samara and performs a stable autorotation during descent. The propulsive section of the vehicle functions like the tail rotor on a helicopter, though instead of preventing rotation, (as in the case of a helicopter), it maintains rotation (to allow it to hover)....The insight gleaned from this study enabled the creation of the world’s smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft.”
(Adapted from the X-Journals)

I Killed An Ant On Earth Day

Accidentally.

I Love Wombats

We saw lots of wombats at the zoo near Adelaide, Australia where I took this picture.

WOMBAT FACTS
Herbivorous marsupial or pouched mammal
About 1 metre (40 in) in length
Tends to graze at night
Produces cube-shaped dung
Closest relative is koala

From the BBC News:


Wombat bites Australian bush fire survivor

Wombats are normally not aggressive creatures. Bruce Kringle, 60, was pulled to the ground by the animal and bitten on the legs and arms after apparently stepping on it by mistake.
He escaped after killing the wombat with an axe.
Animal experts said it appeared the wombat had been suffering from mange, which had made it irritable.
Paramedic Robert Gill said it appeared Mr Kringle had trodden on the animal when he left his caravan in Flowerdale, north-east of Melbourne.
He was living in the caravan while he rebuilt his home after the "Black Saturday" fires.
"The wombat proceeded to get rather nasty and attacked him and inflicted some wounds to his lower legs and also to his arms as well," ABC News quoted Mr Gill as saying.
"It took about 20 minutes. He did try to exit the area and get away from the wombat but my belief is that it kept coming at him."
Kelly Smith, a friend of Mr Kringle, said that once he was on the ground, the wombat had climbed on his chest.

"Bruce managed to find an axe and killed it," Ms Smith told the AAP news agency. "It's bizarre what happened."
There were reports that local people had complained about a rogue wombat in the area in recent days.
Wombats, furry marsupials unique to Australia, are one of the country's most endearing native creatures.
They can grow up to 1m (40 inches) in length and weigh up to 35kg.
Geoff McClure of the Department of Sustainability and Environment said wombat attacks were extremely rare, but that the animal in question could have been made aggressive by mange, caused by mites on the skin.
"In the advanced stages wombats become very irritable and anyone who approaches them, they usually view as a threat and may run towards them," he said.
He told AAP Mr Kringle's action in killing the wombat was probably merciful, as it would have been suffering.

Do You Like Daffodils? Who Doesn't?

Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth