It’s late July and I’m obsessed with the profusion of [tag]lotus blossoms[/tag], water lillies, and crazy seedpods at [tag]Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens[/tag]. This morning I was out in the marsh, drinking coffee and watching the sun burn off the fog when the Bluebird of Happiness paid me a visit!
Okay, so he wasn’t actually the Bluebird of Happiness, but I’d like to think he was. In reality, he was an [tag]Indigo Bunting[/tag]. Details, details.
The New York Times just ran a short piece on the impact of non-native species on the Florida environment, and the $100 billion dollar a year impact of non-native species on the U.S. economy as a whole.
“A Movable Beast: Asian Pythons Thrive in Florida.”
…
Opening a packed freezer in a park laboratory, Mr. Snow sifted dated plastic bags containing fur, feathers, bones and other vestiges of recent python prey.
“We’ve found everything, from very small mammals — native cotton mice, native cotton rats, rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons, even a bobcat, most recently the hooves of a deer,” Mr. Snow said. “Wading birds and water birds, pied-billed grebes, coots, egrets, limpkins and at least one big alligator.”
The South Asian snakes, which can top 200 pounds and 20 feet, probably entered the park as discards or escapees from the bustling global trade in exotic pets. Year-old, footlong pythons are a popular $70 item at reptile fairs and on the Web but in a few years can reach room-spanning, cat-munching size, prompting some owners to abandon them by the roadside. That practice may not pose an ecological problem in Detroit, Mr. Snow said, but in a near-tropical Florida park, it is an unfolding nightmare.
[read the rest of the article]
On a tangent (here? never!) – I’m familiar with the list of non-native species of concern in Florida, but this is the first time I’ve noticed that the Nile Monitor is not only on the list, but has been breeding for ten years. I’m creeped out by monitors, you’d think I’d have noticed that before.
It’s important to learn something new every day.
In “Chicken Protein Shakes and Snake Wraps” my middle and high school classmate [tag]Jungle Pete[/tag] explains how to forcefeed an [tag]Indigo Snake[/tag]. (I love the pictures)
Hey, you just never know when this kind of information will come in handy.
The Washington Post Magazine cover story this week is about the Snakehead! There hasn’t been a snakehead reference on this site in nearly a year. Time flies when you’re having fun. Luckily, the snakeheads don’t.
Yet.
I still haven’t seen the new [tag]cheetahs[/tag] at the zoo.
Their names come from characters in the Harry Potter series of novels by J.K. Rowling.
They weigh 104 to 110 pounds each.
Be careful, that link takes you to a page of seriously excessive cheetah cuteness. I doubt a cheetah can take a bad picture, they’re so handsome from every angle, but still, those are some nice pictures.