Echidna

The echidna is one of the animals that has been on my short list of critters to get good photographs of (along with pangolins and platypusesisi*). This is not a good photo, because of the gloves, but it’s the best I’ve been able to get because, even if you are lucky enough to find a zoo that has one, these little guys are almost always asleep. Still, you can see eyes, nose, spines, and paws**, so it’s an OK shot, I guess.

* I don’t know the plural of “platypus” and am too tired to look it up.

** Hands? Feet?

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Gibbon

From Wikipedia:

“Flagpole sitting was a fad in the mid-to-late 1920s. The fad was begun by stunt actor and former sailor Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, who sat on a flagpole, either on a dare by a friend[3] or as a publicity stunt. Shipwreck’s initial 1924 sit lasted 13 hours and 13 minutes. It soon became a fad with other contestants setting records of 12, 17 and 21 days. In 1929, Shipwreck decided to reclaim the title. He sat on a flagpole for 49 days in Atlantic City, New Jersey, setting a new record. The following year, 1930, his record was broken by Bill Penfield in Strawberry Point, Iowa who sat on a flagpole for 51 days and 20 hours, until a thunderstorm forced him down. Flagpole sitting in the 1920s was a major part of the decade. For the most part, pole sitting died out after 1929, with the onset of the Depression.”

This tells us some very interesting things:

1) There wasn’t a lot going on in the 1920’s.

2) There was a period of time in which Iowa went 51 whole days without a thunderstorm, yet it was warm enough to sit on a pole outside.*

3) Gibbons are about 90 years behind the fads.

* I am presuming that if the pole were inside, he wouldn’t have needed to stop sitting on it.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.

Gorilla

The strong glass they use in zoos has a greenish tint to it that can be hard to correct for in post. One way to cheat is to just turn the whole photo into black and white.

Originally posted at stories.starmind.org.