Zuul, Destroyer of Shins

I just heard about this, and I really wanted to share. 

This is one of the possible looks of Zuul, from the link below for the Royal Ontario Museum. I'm not entirely certain about you, but I think that this guy could easily take out my shin...and most of the rest of me, if he so chose. 

Zuul is a species of Ankylosaur that got discovered in Montana in about 2017. Originally, it was just named Zuul, but they found out that not only is it a different species, but it's a new genus in the Ankylosaur family, so the genus name is Zuul now, and it has the scientific species name of crurivastator, which is Latin for Destroyer of Shins. That name might have come from the damage to the leg bone of a t-rex that was dug up at the same site, under the assumption that Zuul might have destroyed the leg of the Rex. 

These dinos are about 20 feet long and weighed more than 2 tons, with a wide and flat body covered in armor. This specific species has four horns on it's skull and a lot of ornamentation on it's snout that is part of what proved this to be new. 

Zuul is also important because it's the most complete skeleton of an ankylosaur found-- or at least was at the time, being that it was the first with head and tail. It also was somehow mummified, so there is more preserved than there usually is, so we got to see more of it. 

Zuul got named that for the Ghostbuster's character, the demon-dog that possessed that woman, because there was a similarity. It was meant to be the name of the skeleton itself for a bit, but became the genus name. We welcome the nerdiness now. 

I hope you had as much fun with that as I did. There's more information below if you want it, including an official research paper about Zuul that you can go to for more pictures of the skeleton as it was, or other articles that will tell you the less technical side of things. Have fun either way, and I'll see you again soon. 

Sources:

Royal Ontario Museum-- Zuul

The Guardian-- Zuul

Live Science-- Zuul

National Geographic-- Zuul

Smithsonian-- Zuul

Royal Society Publications-- The research paper about Zuul

Beauty Contests for Camels

You're not the only one that was surprised about the existence of such a thing, and I hope I wasn't the only one to laugh a little bit about it. It makes sense though. Camels are extremely important to a lot of people in Africa and the Middle East, their lives depended on having a healthy and well cared for animal, and it would be a mark of wealth to have a camel that is well taken care of, since it takes time and supplies to take care of a camel and if you're able to do that, you obviously have enough luck to be able to survive happily. 

Enough about that. I can't actually back that up--it's just a guess from me. Back to the Camels. There is a celebration that centers around the camel pageant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) every year. It's in January/February and the winner of the contests get some seriously large prizes. 

Unlike human beauty pageants, the camels are split into a lot of categories-- 6 for age, and I think there are also categories based on the breed. In 2008, apparently there were over 350 rounds of judging, since there were over 1,800 camels entered. In 2017, there were over 30,000 camels entered. Those that rate well here can be sold for a lot of money, so even if you don't win, it can be very profitable to try your hand. Those that win though, they get around 5 million dollar prizes for the first in any category. 

This is from AP News and is a picture of one of the winners. Meet one of the most beautiful camels in the world. I disagree slightly because the neck seems a bit thin to me, but what do I know? I'll leave this to the masters. 

Like a lot of people, I actually found out about this pageant because 40 camels were disqualified for having been given Botox. Some also got kicked out because their owners gave them lip filler or other cosmetic enhancements. Since the camels were judged by their coat, neck, head, and hump, any enhancements weren't allowed. My main amusement here is that they are rated on their eyelashes and pouts, like a normal beauty pageant. I'm not sure if they get more objectified because they're rated purely on appearance instead of the human pageants that supposedly care about how their contestants act, their minds, and what they can do. Either way, I'm not going to be part of either. 

I hope you're as amused by this as I was. For more information, there are links below, or you can google for more. I'll warn you though, most of what I could find that was in English was about the cheating, since that brought it to the attention of a lot more people in the Western world, where English is more common. Either way, have fun. 

Sources:

Broken Boots-- Al Dhafra Festival

Gulf News-- Camel Beauty Pageant

Playing with the light-- Camel Beauty Pageant

Harper's Bazaar Arabia

BBC-- Cheating Camels

Quartz-- How to judge a camel

AP News-- Camel Pageant

Times of Israel-- Qatari Pageant

Arab News-- Welshman's Camel won the Pageant

National Puzzle Day

 Welcome to National Puzzle Day! It's also National Corn Chip Day if you care about that at all. 

I found an interesting site that has all of these listed, so I'll probably be using those as one idea for what to do for posts here sometimes. National Day Calendar is the link, in case you want to investigate it at all. Looking through for your birthdays or things like that is fun, and sometimes I find one that I want to celebrate myself. You'll probably hear about those days. 

Today is National Puzzle Day, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about puzzles. Specifically, I plan to tell you about Jigsaw Puzzles. 

The first Jigsaw Puzzle was created in 1760 something by a mapmaker named John Spilsbury, who drew out a map of the world and cut it into pieces so that he could teach kids some geography, or so some of the stories tell at least. The tool he used to cut his wooden map up was a saw, which is where the puzzles get their names. Hilariously, a 'jigsaw' wasn't really invented or given that name until the late 1800's. 

In the 1800's, they started becoming popular with adults too, and pictures were used instead of geography. With new inventions, things got a lot better and puzzles got a lot easier to make. The treadle saw allowed for more complicated shapes and it got easier to make chunks of wood wouldn't fall apart when cut, since cutting small pieces that you could play with multiple times might be hard. Then, during the Great Depression, they were rather popular as something people could do at home, and it just took off. 

In hilarious things, the 1,000 piece puzzle actually has to have a few more pieces so that the shapes work out right, people who want a challenge can get an all-white puzzle to try, and the puzzle with the most pieces ranks in with more than 550,000. Excuse me, I need to cringe about even thinking of trying a puzzle even close to that hard. 

Hopefully you found this interesting, or puzzling, and now you have something fun to tell people next time you have to look at a map or do a jigsaw puzzle. Sources are below if you want to know more. 

Sources:

Wentworth Puzzles-- History of the Jigsaw Puzzle

Los Angeles Public Library-- History of Jigsaw Puzzles

Encyclopedia Britannica-- Jigsaw Puzzles

WTXL News-- Little Known Facts about Jigsaw Puzzles

Takin

 Today, we're talking about takins. Also known as Gnu Goat, antelope goat, and a dozen other things, this is the national animal of Bhutan--which is what brought it to my attention. 

These guys live in Southern Asia, up in the mountains. They're a form of goat, but they really look weird. They've got a secondary coat that gives them thicker fur and keeps them warmer than most, and they secrete an oily black substance that acts like a rain jacket to keep them from getting wet. They've also got giant nostrils so that they can heat air up before inhaling it, meaning they don't lose as much heat from just breathing. None of these are things we'd really expect from a goat, but DNA evidence came in that this is one, unlike what we thought. 

This picture is from the Animal Diversity Web link below. Because of their size and strangeness, most people would think twice before figuring out that Takins are goats, and instead might consider them to be more closely related to cows, antelope, or something else entirely. The thing that says 'goat' most to me is their habit of climbing mountains and being up high, so I don't blame anyone that thinks this isn't a goat. 

This pair of pictures comes from iNaturalist below, and are part of their large collection of pictures of them, if you want more. 

In case there is any concern, these guys are herbivores and are more likely to steal your salad than hurt you. They spend a lot of time trying to find food in the mountains they call home, and in conditions most humans would avoid if they had the choice. They're also more likely to be your dinner, because they're hunted by natives some. Not a lot, since there aren't a ton of them left and we want to keep them around, but still some. 

There are four subspecies of Takin that are different colors and live in slightly different ranges, known are the Mishmi Takin, Bhutan Takin, Sichuan Takin, and Golden Takin. That last is actually up for consideration as one of the possible sources of the mythical golden fleece from Greek Mythology. It would make sense that it was hard for Jason and the Argonauts to get the fleece if they were having to get it from the middle of Asia, and it would be rather unique in Greece. The picture below is of a Gold Takin, taken from the Live Science link below. 

So, now you know about Takin, the national animal of Bhutan, and possibly tied to Greek mythology, who looks like they could belong to any of a half dozen different families more than the one they're actually part of. I hope you enjoyed that. Sources are below if you want to look into them more. They're cool, so go for it. Either way, I'll see you tomorrow ish. 

Sources:

San Diego Zoo-- Takin

Animal Diversity Web- Takin

Merriam Webster-- Takin

PBS-- Bhutan--Takin

iNaturalist- Takin

Encyclopedia Britannica-- Takin

Live Science-- Takin

Knagg's Derivative of Murphy's Law

 The more complicated and grandiose the plan, the greater the chance of failure. 

I've got a pair of very old books about Murphy's Laws and similar other laws that were gathered up and published by Arthur Bloch, and that's where I've gotten a few ideas for posts. That's where I found this one. Normally, I can just google the law and find other sources for things, but this time apparently not. Again, normally, the lack of sources I can give you would usually have me deleting this post and finding something else to do, but I think I want to leave this one for today even if I don't have sources to back it up. 

In some ways, I want to post this because everyone runs around with these giant plans that they want to make the world a better place by doing this big changes, but it doesn't work like that. They might be better off working on a thousand tiny steps rather than one giant leap, because then the change is more likely to stick and remain even if there are problems with other steps. It's easier to keep working on something if you fail at a small step than a big swing. Or, at least, that's what I think. I do understand why people want some giant leaps, but sometimes taking the big leap and failing can make things harder than starting with the small steps. 

That's all rather complicated and depends on the person and situation though, so I know there will be people who object or situations where the opposite is true. I've just been listening to politicians a bit lately and it drives me nuts when they make giant promises that I know they can't keep. 

I hope that this proves helpful to you somehow, and that it's ok that I am pushing personal philosophy instead of just pure science today. I have plans to put most of my personal opinions elsewhere, but that's going to have to wait a bit longer and I thought this one would be ok here for now at least. Let me know what you think, and feel free to look it up to see if you can find out more about this law or anything else. 

Dumbo Octopus

Named for the elephant from the classic Disney movie, this is an adorable octopus that lives about 10,000 feet underwater. 

This is a picture from the first link below, the Smithsonian's Ocean section. Isn't this an adorable little creature? If you follow the link, you can actually see a video of them swimming around. That video is actually taken about 200 miles off the coast of Oregon, and at only 6,600 feet deep, which is a lot shallower than Dumbos usually are. (How should I pluralize them? Dumbos sounds mean, but anything involving a plural of Octopus is likely to start an argument about how to correctly pluralize it...This could be hard. I think, to play it safe, I'll use all options so I can make sure I used the right one at least once. Sound good?)

Dumbo Octopus is actually a name used for several species of 'umbrella' octopus that live in the depths. They are actually the deepest known types of octopi, though we've still got a lot to explore in the deeper waters, so no guarantees about that. These types got named because of their  'ear' fins, which they flap to propel themselves, using their legs to steer. Most octopie use a form of jet propulsion expelling water forcefully, but Dumbo flaps it's 'ears', which makes their nickname more fitting because it's using it's ears in an unusual way to propel themselves. 

 

This is from the Aquarium of the Pacific link below. One of the other strange things about these guys is that Dumbo Octopuses don't have ink sacks. The article I was reading said it was because they don't encounter predators often, but I think part of it might also be because of how deep they are--how useful would the ink be when the water would be pure black anyway? 

These two are from the National History Museum link below. 

Since they don't move very fast and their mouths are not developed into full beaks, these adorable Dumbos eat whatever they can find, generally small things like oysters and worms and whatnot. Since they're such deep-sea creatures, it's really hard to study them. Like with Blobfish, dragging them up to the surface can cause a lot of damage to them, meaning they don't get a good specimen to look at and have to guess a lot from what they've been able to see. 

There's a lot of research left to do, both about the ocean depths and about the creatures there specifically, but at least we've got a bit of a start. I hope you enjoyed learning about these adorable little ones, and there are links below if you want to learn more. 

Sources:

Smithsonian Ocean's Section-- Dumbo Octopus

Oceana-- Dumbo Octopus

Aquarium of the Pacific-- Dumbo Octopus

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management-- Dumbo Octopus

Natural History Museum--- Dumbo Octopus

National Geographic-- Dumbo Octopus

One Earth-- Dumbo Octopus

Lunatic

This one is going to be a bit weird, but bear with me. I'm feeling a bit ridiculous, so I'll pass it along. 

Lunatic is a term that now means someone insane, but it actually was created as a description of someone who is 'moon crazy'. (Using today's terms for things, you could call anyone that really loves the moon a lunatic, but I'll leave that one alone for now.)

(This picture is from the Griffith Observatory link below, in case anyone forgot the phases of the moon or what the moon looks like.)

The theory was that the phase of the moon influenced people a lot and they would get sick on full moons (or possibly new moons, or even possibly both, depending on the time and place and who was doing the deciding), or would go crazy then. A pair of examples for this would be epileptics, which I'm not entirely certain of the reasoning behind, or a female who has a strong reaction to her period, such as crabbiness or feeling sick. The term could probably be applied to pretty much any cyclic disorder. 

In modern times, we tend to just think of someone being a lunatic if they're crazy, but...it could easily tie into the theory that everyone goes a bit crazy during full moons and we're more prone to commit crimes or something. And possibly werewolves. Have enough angry women on a full moon night and I can see someone claiming they turn into rabid beasts who will tear people apart and eat their weight in sugar and chocolate. The werewolf thing makes more sense to me now. 

So, all things said and done, try to remember this next time someone decides they want to do something weird on a full moon night and maybe distract them from their acts of lunacy with a quick history of the term. If you want more, I've got sources below you can check. 

Sources:

English Usage Stack Exchange-- Lunatic

Science Friday-- Why the word Lunacy comes from the moon

BBC- How Offensive is the word Lunatic

Merriam Webster Dictionary- Lunatic

National Library of Medicine-- The Disease of the Moon

Griffith Observatory Moon Phases Picture

Kākāpō

Today, we get to meet the world's only nocturnal parrot. This bird is also known for being mostly ground-dwelling and flightless--because it's a fat bird, mostly. It's also got a bit of fame because it is rather rare and was thought extinct for almost a hundred years. 

Before we get too far in, I do need to point out that this bird is found in Australia. And New Zealand. Since it's in Australia though, I'm going to assume it wants to kill me somehow. I haven't figured out how yet, but that doesn't mean it doesn't. It's mostly New Zealand though, so maybe it's safe? They called it gentle and sweet, so maybe just the Australian cousins want to kill us? I don't know. I'll just be a bit wary of them if I ever meet them. 

Other things that are interesting about these birds is that they are perhaps among the longest living species of bird, possibly living up to about 90 years, and they are the only parrot known to do a thing called 'Lek Breeding' where the males gather up to show off for the females, mate, then have nothing to do with the babies. 

This picture is from the Department of Conservation link below. It also has a lot of information and some of the Kakapo's calls, if you want to listen. 

Evolution lost these birds their ability to fly because there weren't any mammalian predators around to scare them into the sky, but they've adapted well. Despite being rather heavy, the lighter females can glide for a few meters, and they've learned to walk long distances easily. They also climb things sometimes, getting higher up and using their wings to do a controlled fall back down when they find what they want. 

This is from PBS below. 

Because of their nocturnal nature and lack of predators, these bird's populations were heavily depleted by cats and similar carnivorous pets that were brought to the land. They were thought extinct from the 1920's to about 1980, when they were found by a bird-watcher again and they had picture proof. Since then, they've been working to study them and help their numbers grow again, which has been pretty successful. 

This is from the New Zealand Bird link below. They've got a lot of good information also. 

This picture is from the PBS link below. 

These birds are seriously unique, being the only nocturnal, flightless, and lek-breeding parrot, among other things, and it's hopeful that they won't disappear entirely. They don't have any close relatives, and losing them would be a tragedy. 

I hope you found them as interesting as I did, and I'll see you soon with another interesting thing to tell you about. 

Sources:

Bush Heritage, Australia--Night Parrot

Youtube-- A BBC show snippet about this (Warning, part of this is a bird attempting to shag the photographer's head. Don't watch where you can't laugh.)

Department of Conservation, New Zealand-- Kakapo

Department of Conservation, New Zealand,-- Kakapo Behavior

Animal Diversity Web-- Kakapo

New Zealand Birds Online-- Kakapo

Natural History Museum-- Kakapo

PBS-- Featured Creature-- Kakapo

(This picture is from PBS above)

In case you want to help, this is a page for Kakapo Recovery.

The Smoot Unit of Length

 Sorry to be gone for so long. This last week has just been...not good. I kept wanting to post, but something came up. 

For today though, I want to tell you about a unit of measurement created by MIT in the 1950's. The Smoot. Before I explain what it is exactly, I need to share the story. 

As part of their testing of pledges, a fraternity at MIT asked the pledges to measure the length of a bridge. Without using instruments. One of the pledges figured out a method and laid down, then had one of the others mark where his head was, and he would get up and lay down with his feet on the line. Oliver Smoot then calculated how long the bridge was, using his height to come up with an answer. 

This became a bit of a thing and apparently the fraternity keeps Harvard Bridge, the chosen bridge, painted with marks of the number of Smoots across it is, and there's a plaque commemorating 50 years of the Smoot. The picture below is from the article from Interesting Engineering, also below. 

One Smoot is 5'7", or 67 inches, or 1.7 meters, and it may have started as (and still be) a joke, but it's also something you might be able to find sometimes in places where measuring is required. Google Earth actually kinda popularized it a bit because it's one of the options they have for measurements. It makes sense, because this is the kind of joke they seem to like. 

There isn't a lot more to say about this, so I'll pass you my sources if you want more information, and I'll hopefully see you tomorrow. Have fun and I hope you smiled at this. 

Sources:

Interesting Engineering: The Smoot, the most hilarious mathematical unit

NPR: What's a Smoot

MIT news-- This one has quotes from the man himself

Larson Design Group; Understanding the Smoot

Aether- The Smoot

Atlas Obscura- Harvard Bridge and the Smoot

Google Earth, in case you want to measure things in Smoots

Pom Pom Crab

Somehow, I am a bit shocked I've never heard of this kind of crab before, and I feel like I have been let down by the world for not showing me this. 

Meet the Mosaic Pom-Pom Crab. This picture is in several places, so I'm not going to list which of the sources it came from. 

It's also known as a cheerleader crab or a boxing crab, and the reason for all three of these names is that it holds tiny sea anemones in it's claws that it uses to catch food, using the stinging poison of the anemones to shock it's prey and the tentacles of the anemone to hold it so the crab can eat it. It also uses the anemones to keep predators at bay.

 

This picture is from The Innovation Show below, which has some good information in the first half of the post before veering off into other things. I thought it very much deserved to be shared. 

I was surprised to find out that these crabs are actually available for people to put in salt water aquariums, so you might be able to get one (or a few) for yours if you have one. They're tiny, about the size of a fingernail, so you don't have to worry about them taking on your fish much. You might actually have to worry about your fish eating them, so be careful on that. Also, they're normally found in the Phillippines, so they might not be happy in your tank anyway if it's too hot/cold/salty/etc. 

For anyone worrying about it, the sea anemone does get to eat enough of the crumbs left by the crabs, so it survives. The thing that makes me cringe just a little though is that, if the crab loses one pom-pom somehow, it'll rip the remaining one in half to get two again. Both survive and grow after this, but it's still a bit mean to force asexual reproduction just so it has both hands full. 

So, this is absolutely adorable. Look closer and not so much, but still. I thought they were fun, and I hope you did too. Thanks for the time, please let me know what you think, and if you're curious, there are links below to find out more. 

Sources:

The Innovation Show

Spangler's Scuba-- Pictures of Boxing Crabs

Private Scuba-- link here to a video of the boxing crab in action

Flip Science-- Boxing Crab

Just Add Water-- 8 Facts about Pom-Pom Crabs

Seven Seas Media-- Boxer Crabs

Peer J-- A study on the crabs and anemones (This is a scientific study, complete with charts and summary and citations, if you want it. I didn't use it, but if you're interested, go for it.)

Symphony of Science

This one won't have a very long source list because I'm going to just tell you about it and post the website to go to it. I figured it's better to just use their 'about us' page rather than check what others say about it, which is technically bad research, but I think it's ok right now. 

Symphony of Science is something I came across years ago and has been growing since. It's a brain-child of John D. Boswell, who has good taste in places to live since he's in my region of the world. He's done a lot of work as a music writer and filmmaker and a bunch of other things. He worked with Disney and National Geographic. 

But the project that I want to bring attention to right now is that he took video of scientists speaking and put it together in a mashup about science. He took snippets to create a single song that shares scientific knowledge and is still a good song. I would seriously suggest going to watch the videos for at least the first time you hear the songs because he pulled together video of the scientists too and it's fun to recognize a few of them--Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Jane Goodall, and so on. 

This series of songs was created to get more people interested in science, and I hope it will work for you. I hope you have fun listening to it and that you can find more people to share it with so it can spark more interest in science in other people. For now, I'll just leave it to you to investigate further, and I'm going to go listen to them. 

To quote 'A Glorious Dawn' though, I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand the cosmos. I hope this will blog overall will help someone understand it a bit better. 

Sources:

Youtube-- Melodysheep, for the videos

Symphony of Science About Page

Melodysheep About page

Symphony of Science download page

Widdershins

 Here's another interesting word for you. 

Widdershins. 

Now, it tends to mean counterclockwise, but it used to mean basically going the wrong way. One use I heard of was describing hair as being widdershins when it's not doing what it's supposed to-- going in every direction instead of laying flat. Some used it to mean left-handed, since that's against the norm, but I don't like that because it suggests bad things about people who are lefthanded, that they're doing things wrong. They aren't. 

This word got used by people to describe being approached by demons, and it was also considered unlucky, but I have a feeling that if it comes back, it won't be nearly as bad of a thing. Doing things your own way and being unique? Getting approached by something exciting? Sounds like a good thing to some people at least. 

So, I hope this year doesn't go widdershins like 2020, but I also hope that it does go widdershins to make things interesting. 

If you want to know more about the word or it's history, please look at the sources below. 

Sources:

Merriam Webster- Widdershins

Cambridge English Dictionary-- Widdershins

Word of the Day- Widdershins

Oxford Reference- Widdershins

English Language and Usage-- Widdershins

Red Lipped Batfish

 Since I've written about a few birds lately, here's a fish. 

More specifically, here's a fish you can reference if you ever feel the need to insult someone's look because...well, you'll see. 

That picture comes from BBC Science Focus below, and should show you why this is a valid insult to someone. Especially someone who is caking on the lipstick. 

Or apparently someone who has a large nose and lipstick on. Galapagos Conservation has that picture, and I giggled when I saw it. It reminds me of some of those snooty ladies that look down their nose on everyone. 

This lovely fish can be found near the Galapagos Islands, from about 10-75 meters deep. It is a poor swimmer, but it uses it's fins to 'walk' along the ground in the water, a lot like those lovely sharks in Australia. If it needs to be faster, it pushes off the ground and uses it's tail to go faster.  Interestingly, it's rather closely related to anglerfish, and what I called a nose is actually the lure that it has, similar to the light of an anglerfish. 

Considering the red lips, I also find it very hilarious that it's scientific name is for Darwin-- the Ogcocephalus darwini. Because, what male scientist wouldn't want to have a creature named after it that looks like it likes cheap makeup? 

This picture, from Animalia below, makes it look grumpy and uglier, which I hadn't thought possible. 

Something you might like, is that the females birth sticky eggs that get stuck to the ocean floor, then the male has to keep the water around them flowing and guard them from predators. 

I hope you found this fun, and if you want to learn more, I've got my sources below. 

Sources:

Galapagos Conservation-- Red Lipped Batfish

BBC Science Focus-- Red Lipped Batfish

A-Z Animals-- Red Lipped Batfish

Animalia-- Red Lipped Batfish

Ocean Conservancy-- Red Lipped Batfish

Galapatours-- Red Lipped Batfish

iNaturalist-- Red Lipped Batfish

Pamola- Moose Bird

 I'd say I'm leaving the norm here for this one, but I'm really not. I'm a bit of a mythology lover, so there are times when I'll bring that up. For today, I recently came across a legendary creature that I wanted to tell you about because it's a cross between a moose and a bird, and that's just so interesting to me. 

The information I've found about it's appearance is pretty varied. It's either something with the head of a moose, body of a human, angel wings, and the feet of a bird, which sometimes is more satyr/minotaur like, and sometimes is more moose with hands and eagle legs, or a pegasus type, just a moose with wings, or even just a bird with a moose head. Some stories claim it's just a bird, no moose at all aside from being big enough to carry off a moose. But, apparently part of the thing with the creatures in Native American lore is that creatures can shift to become what they need at the time, so sometimes he may be pretty different than others. 

Also split is the type of creature he is. It's pretty much agreed that it's a protector of mountains, but some think it's more of a protective spirit or a more vengeful one, and some say it's all the mountains in the area or just Katahdin Mountain. 

Pamola is a Native American myth, but specifically Abenaki, Penobscot, and Micmac. Each tribe had slightly different stories though. One source, the Coffee And Creatures blog below, has separate stories from the tribes, and some artwork of what the Pamola might look like. 

The Penobscot apparently had stories of one man snowed in on the mountain being saved by the Pamola after greeting him as a friend and offering to share food, then the Pamola married him off to a daughter. He was returned to the village with the warning to remember that he's already married, but apparently got nagged into marriage to a villager and disappeared the next day. Another story from them says he kidnapped a woman and kept her for a year, then gave her back when she was heavily pregnant with the warning that the child she carried would be able to kill people by pointing and that he'd save them if the boy lived to adulthood. She also  got nagged into marriage and disappeared, along with her son. 

The Micmac apparently considered him an evil night spirit, and the Abeneki considered him something like the thunderbird myths. 

This picture is from the Coffee and Creatures blog and is one of the depictions of the Pamola. Certainly a rather scary one. 

The Maine Green link below has a rather reassuring--to me at least-- version of him as a more protective creature. 

These two are another pair of options for what Pamola might have looked like, from the Atlas Obscura link. 

This, as you can see, is another depiction of the Pamola as described by Leroy Dudley, who climbed the mountain against suggestions. 

The final one I want to leave you with is a bit more adorable than he's been so far, and is something from Etsy, for Cryptid lovers. 

So, now you all know about the Pamola. It's certainly an unusual creature. As with all things, what it is to you depends on how you want to think about it. In some stories, it's protective of it's mountain, and accepts those that respect it. Others, it doesn't like people coming to visit without permission. And in some stories, he's a father with a family. 

Either way, I hope it was interesting and that you had fun learning about him.  If you want to know more, there are sources below or you can look him up yourself. I'll see you again soon with something else interesting. 

Sources:

Appalachian Mountain Club-- Katahdin

Coffee and Creature Blog-- Pamola

Maine Green- Pamola

Atlas Obscura-- Pamola

Native American Language and Culture-- Pamola 

Ancient Pages-- Pomola

Etsy- Pamola Sticker

Inca Tern

 Since yesterday was another scary thing, I'll tell you about something fun today. 

Meet the Inca Tern-- and, before anyone objects, it is Inca, not Incan. That picture is from Just Birding below. 

This one is from the Lincoln Park Zoo. 

And this one is from American Bird Conservatory

This bird has a mustache better than 90% of human mustaches, and earned it the nickname of being the Poirot Bird. And, this mustache exists for one of the same reasons that men grow out theirs-- more impressive mustaches get these terns mates. The longer and better looking the mustache, the healthier they are and the more likely they are to get mates. 

These awesomely mustached birds live in the same area that the Incan Empire once ruled, which is where they got their name, and they're actually somewhat unique for not migrating away from there much. They're considered at risk of becoming endangered because they eat fish, along with a lot of other animals around there, and they're small enough that they have a lot of predators coming after them and their eggs. 

To cheer you up from that some though, here's a picture of a young tern from Just Birding, because isn't he adorable?

And if that didn't cheer you up enough, these guys' call sounds like a grumpy cat, and they're known to cackle. 

Ok, so, you've got enough awesomeness about them. If you want specifics like size, where they are exactly, and so on, there are a lot of links below. Most of them are zoos, but still. I mostly wanted to tell you about the mustaches. Aren't they cool? 

Sources:

Just Birding-- 27 facts about the Inca Tern

Louisville Zoo-- Inca Tern

Oregon Zoo- Inca Tern

El Paso Zoo- Inca Tern

Cincinnati Zoo- Inca Tern

eBird-- Inca Tern (Go here for the sounds of an Inca Tern)

American Bird Conservancy-- Inca Tern

Lincoln Park Zoo-- Inca Tern

Fire Wielding Birds-- AKA, Australia did it again.

 So...Apparently Australia went and got scarier? They've got a set of birds called Firehawks that apparently might use fire to hunt, and mythically may have taught the Aborigines about fire. 

So...not only might you get stabbed in the foot by the sharp arrowheads and thorns from the grass if you go walking into a lovely plain, you might have to run out of there because a hawk decided they want a mouse from that particular field and now things are on fire, and it's probably dry enough that you should run. Not too fast though, you want to be careful about the spiders and snakes and everything else still. 

This is a picture of a Black Kite from A-Z animals. They're one of the species known to do this firehawk thing, along with at least two other known species, and a few that might do it. 

Explanation time: The raptors, at least three different species of kite and hawk but possibly more, grab sticks of fire and carry them across the river/road/whatever to start a fire on the other side, where they can then grab grasshoppers or other small creatures that run from the fire. Aboriginal stories have history of this happening forever, and that they taught the natives about fire, but it wasn't seen by people until more recently, and they're still trying to study it. They're sometimes seen following smoke to find fire to scare the prey out. There are some other birds that take advantage of this, but only a few raptors set fires.  

This may not be limited to Australia, especially since some of those birds have ranges beyond Australia, but let's pray that it isn't common elsewhere because we have plenty of fires without them. Either way, you now have another reason why I will never go to Australia even though I know they've got some really beautiful things there too. I hope this was interesting to you, and there's more information in the sources below. You can also use them to prove this to whoever you're telling this because it sounds like something someone made up, but i really isn't. 

Sources:

The Wildlife Society- Australian Firehawks

Pennsylvania State University-- Researching Firehawks

A-Z animals-- Australian Firehawks

Cool Green Science-- Firehawk Raptors

Bio One Digital Library-- Intentional Fire Spreading by Hawks

The Immortal Jellyfish

 As promised, here's the Immortal Jellyfish.

Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the immortal jellyfish, is only about 3-5 millimeters long, and can potentially live forever. Please note that I just say potentially, I do not guarantee it in any way. There is a possibility that one of the tiny jellyfish that is floating around in the oceans now, was also floating around with dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but no guarantee because I seriously doubt there is any fossils of these tiny creatures anywhere. They're found in most tropical oceans because they got carried around by humans in ballast tanks and things like that for a while, and they're small. Seriously, stack 2-3 pennies together and the size of the edge of that, is about how big they are. Not the entire pair of pennies, just the thickness. 

This picture is from the American Museum of Natural History article below.

A bit of backstory about their immortality though, I need to explain the life cycle of a jellyfish. It's different from most animals I can think of, and a bit weird. So, we'll start with a fertilized egg, which can be a bit more complicated than you'd think since jellyfish are mostly moved by the water around them and can't do a lot to direct themselves, that hatches into a larva, also known as a planula. The planula wanders around for a while until it finds somewhere to latch on and form into a polyp. The polyp then starts 'budding' and grows/releases ephyra that then turn into adult jellyfishes. 

Is this a bit weird? Yes. 

Are there a few sources below about that so you can understand better? Also yes. 

Is there a reason I need to try to explain this? Still yes. 

The Immortal Jellyfish, if hurt or stressed, can turn itself from a fully-grown adult into a polyp again. 

It also does that after sex, because that's a traumatizing experience apparently. 

So, they're still studying this, especially since they only noticed this less than 50 years ago and it takes time for scientists to study this strange lifecycle, but it's still really cool. There are sources below if you want to investigate further, or google if you don't want my sources, or YouTube for cat videos if you don't really care about this at all. Either way, I hope you enjoyed learning of the existence of this strange and tiny creature, and that you have a good day. 

Sources:

Science Focus-- Immortal Jellyfish

Natural History Museum-- Immortal Jellyfish

BBC Earth- Immortal Jellyfish

American Museum of Natural History- Immortal Jellyfish

Encyclopedia Britannica- Immortal Jellyfish

Smithsonian-- Oceans-- Jellyfish Life Cycle

Virginia Institute of Marine Science-- Life Cycle of Jellyfish

New Year Post

 So, we're now in 2025. Let's hope this year is better than the last few, and that the world continues to change in good ways. 

Since we're in the New Year, I'm going to share one of my New Year Resolutions and I hope you'll be here to see me doing it, or you might be able to look back to see it. This year, 2025, I want to make at least 225 times. That's a bit less than 2/3 of the year, and about 4 times a week. That's my planned minimum. Hopefully you'll be able to see me do it. 

Interestingly, I didn't plan it, but I did 52 posts in 2024. That's one a week, but I only had it for 3 months, so about 4 a week, like I plan to continue with. I just found it amusing that I hit an important calendar number without noticing. 

But, for some interestingness. 

I wasn't sure what to write for this post, so it's going to be a bit all over the place. 

We just started a new calendar year, so here's some random calendar information. 

Ancient Babylonians studied the sky a lot, and they created their calendar based on the ways the stars went around the sky, coming up with a 360 day year. Before you object that it isn't 365.2422 like we know it is now, they were doing it by what they noticed and things might have been a little bit different then. One story I heard also says that this is where we get 360 degrees in a circle, because they watched the stars going in a circle around them and decided they were moving by one degree a day. 

Also, our calendar is the Julian Calendar, and when it was being created, there was a lot of shuffling because a few Roman Caesars wanted months named after them, and they had to get it agreed on by different people, so things got shuffled. 

For what I was considering for posts today, things that get reborn. 

My first thought of what to tell you about for things that get reborn is actually the Immortal Jellyfish, but I'll save that for tomorrow because it's a fun critter that deserves it, and there are plenty of sources to work on. 

My second thought was Phoenixes. Since I've got a lot of mythology in my head already, I'm skipping sources here too. 

Phoenixes are mythical fire-birds that die and get reborn. There is a lot of mythology of them and around them and variations on them. That's one of the most interesting and annoying things about mythology, everyone has a different version, and as time goes on, people tend to combine things that maybe weren't supposed to be combined. The oldest possible phoenix story comes from Egypt, if I remember correctly, and it was because of Ra/Horus, a sun-eagle. Otherwise, the Greeks had a story about fire-birds that did things. The healing tears aren't required for the fire-bird, so there are some that ignore that part. An interesting  thing is that phoenixes are said to have a thing for cinnamon, which might be a mix of things since old spice traders used to say that there was a dangerous bird guarding cinnamon trees to justify making cinnamon expensive, or it could be because cinnamon was seen as a healing herb and phoenixes supposedly have healing powers. They're also generally guardians of balance because they symbolize life in their rebirths and death because they do tend to die. The stories there differ, some having them build giant nests of branches to burn and get reborn in, while others don't specify or say that they just turn back into a baby if they're attacked/die. 

In some myths, Phoenixes are also matched with Dragons as opposites or partners in some form. Some suggest that it's the ultimate good and evil, but there's also the thing about them both being creatures of fire, which might be why they are combined. 

Part of the thing with balance is also a tendency towards justice, and different myths say they might attack bad people or heal victims, but others have them as guarding things and waiting for 'pure hearted' people to come for things. 

You probably know about Fawkes from Harry Potter, or any of a thousand other books/movies/anime that have phoenixes there in some form, and those forms of phoenix are just as valid as those from the ancient stories because they cherry-picked (there's that term again) the parts they liked, just like Bards and Elders and Priests did over the centuries, keeping what worked for them and ignoring what didn't. 

Before I sign off on this article, I do feel the need to point out and request, again in some ways, that you understand the concept of Cherry-Picking and how it affects every part of life, and how it changes things. It's impossible not to cherry-pick even if you are consciously trying to avoid it, but that's because you're cherry-picking what it is that you remember or think about, even from things that are already cherry-picked about what to present to you. I'm not going to say it's something you need to avoid, just something to be aware of. Because, once you know, you can start understanding just how much you don't. 

And with that almost paranoid or conspiracy-theory-sounding line, Happy New Year everyone, and I hope to see you later.