Mountain Gorilla

[guppiecat]

One thing we forget, living as most of us do, in a rapidly expanding zone of ecological devastation, is how many insects there used to be in the world. Whenever I traveled in the jungle, I’m reminded that for most of humanity, we’ve had to share space with critters we consider pests. However, I grew up and live in the Midwest, so I’m pretty used to mosquitoes and ticks. So when I hit the jungle, it’s more “oh yes, this again” and less “what fresh hell is this?”

It’s to the point where, whenever the guides to impress upon me how bad the mosquitoes are, I’ve been surprised, instead, at how light they are. To date, the worst mosquitoes I’ve ever encountered have been in Minnesota and Manitoba. (The worst may have been at Banning State Park this summer.)

What I forget about, though, is how much insects will show up in photos. Every time the gorilla moved, a swarm of little insects would fly up. I had to toss a large number of photos because one of more insects were preventing me from seeing the gorilla’s eyes.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

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[netmouse]

Have you ever read 1491?

The author, Charles C. Mann, is writing about archeological excavations in The Americas and what they tell us about life on those continents before Columbus and other Europeans arrived.

Describing a 1940 project by then Director of the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology Matthew Stirling in the southern Mexican State of Veracruz, Mann quotes Stirling’s discussion with their local driver concerning conditions in a meadow where he is dropping them off.

“The ticks are not bad, are they?” I asked him hopefully, viewing the tall grass and underbrush between the road and the mounds.
“No,” said the driver, beaming. “When full, like grapes they fall off and no harm is done. There are millions of them here, however.”