Beautiful Animals

rosborne, What is that lizard?! I traced the url back but couldn't find anything other than the photo. Wow. I think I recognize a snowy owl on the wing.

diane, gracias por los burros hermosos. Have you and dys expanded your menagerie to include one of these guys yet? I await word.

osso, I tried looking at your link. Does that count?

Green Witch, You swam with manatees (dugongs)???!!! (Those are manatees, arent' they?) I'm with osso. Tell us more.

btw, did a little digging around about nudibranchs. They're sea slugs. What spectacular looking critters they are. Thought I'd post a photo of another. They're so varied that I had a hard time choosing one. Here's what I picked.

I almost got to do that when visiting in Cocoa Beach. Anyway, I got to pet one (they don't like being scratched), and if I'd leaned over a bit more, I would have been paddling, too.

Roger, What did it feel like? Do they have hair?

I've petted a few unusual animals (elephant, armadillo, boa contrictor) but nothing as special as a manatee.

Seeing the manatees made me think of other aquatic mammals. Here are some sea lions.




And I'm throwing in another nudibranch. These critters are amazingly varied and beautiful.

Hi Roberta, it's a Basilisk lizard. And yes, that's a snowy owl on the wing

Not far from me, is a Tampa Electric plant. The water around the plant becomes quite warm, because of the generating machinery. During the time when the water is cold in Tampa Bay, the Manatees flock to the warm water of TECO. TECO has built a walkway where people can watch the critters frolic and play in the winter, Quite a sight.

Now that gives me an idea about where I can go in the next few days. Maybe I can get in a few good pictures!

I love manatees!

They are so cute...I've seen a bunch of rescue ones and that is pretty sad. They are all scarred up and what not from getting caught in propellers and other human stuff. Poor guys....

And they live for a long time!

I once knew a donkey named Taco. He died a few years ago. So sad....

some otters

a couple of beavers

some prairie dogs

a mole in his hole

Thanks for all the photos, djjd.


Now for a change of pace, here's our first spider:

Aussie redback. (poisonous, but usually only fatal if elderly small child or untreated for hours)

dadpad, A beauty. It might be easier to count the number of animals in Oz that aren't poisonous. You've got some doozies Down Under.

"Come into my parlor," said the Aussie redback to the Ecuadoran fly.

found an amazing page of spiders from vietnam



This extraordinary creature is a two-striped jumping spider (Telamonia dimidiata), the largest member of this family that I've ever seen. This colorful beastie, with legs more reminiscent of a crab spider than a jumping spider, was on a tree leaf in Cat Tien national park near Saigon. Although it repeatedly retreated to the other side of the leaf as I turned the branch this way and that, it didn't jump off and so I was able to get a large number of photos.

the rest of the page of spectacular if creepy pictures can be found here

dj, Positively jewel-like--and gorgeous. You said, "the rest of the page of spectacular if creepy pictures can be found here." Not creepy to me. I'm gonna take a look. But first I'm gonna get in as much of a2k as I can before I'm frozen out again. Sigh.

How can I resist such tears? I was staying with people who are doing conservation work on ways to save the manatees and they are currently living at a research station that tracks the animals. This location is along a canal where the manatees tend to frequent and we were out on the deck one morning when we noticed a couple of the animals gliding by. We literally paddled out on a blow up raft to see what they would do. I thought they would scram, but they are very curious and seemed happy to swim up close and check us out. Yes, you can touch them, but as Roger mentioned they don't like any rough stuff. The people I was staying with mentioned that although it is illegal to feed them, some people do toss them romaine lettuce (an OK food), so when they see humans they associate us with salad. What really needs to be done to save them is to the eliminate outboard motors from the waterways they frequent, but it does not look that will ever happen. As much as people like to see manatees swimming around their docks, they like their little speed boats more.

Thanks for filling us in, Green Witch. What did they feel like? (Aside from wet.)

As a bit of encouragement, I'll tell you what it felt like to pet an armadillo. It felt smooth and a cross between waxy and soapy. Very pleasant.

They feel like wet rough rubber with a few lumps and bumps underneath. I've been told they feel like elephants, but I never touched an elephant.