While at home last weekend, me and the Mrs. watched King Kong. I must admit, it really surprised me. Surely it must be difficult to make a movie this bad.

The movie starts off well enough — you don’t see King Kong for the first hour. While that might seem like a long time, trust me, it’s nothing compared to the next two hours you’ll spend with him.

Most offensively to us was the portrayal of the natives on Kong’s island. We see black people living as animals, while at various times the good white folk from the ship (with an exception to the black first mate who’s killed off as quickly as possible) shoot a few here and there to save their own. Gee, couldn’t we move past our disgusting stereotypes?

Then comes the ecological lala land. Where enormous apex predators and herbivores, like dinosaurs and Kong, live on an island. No one bothered to ask an ecologist about the limitations of body size on island. Okay, for this I can forgive them, even if it doesn’t win any points with me. It’s just a movie, I can accept the idea.

What I cannot accept is the next hour of utterly pointless film, with little dialogue and lots of fighting between Kong, T-Rex, and the crew. The special effects were so dominant over the actual movie that I expected Jar Jar Binks to get involved in the fray at any moment.

I understand the idea behind the movie and where the tension is supposed to come from… Kong loves the hot blond, but unfortunately the prezygotic barrier is just too big, and there can be no hope of a relationship. Still, this is not enough to sustain a three hour movie.

Even the ending stunk. Jack Black’s character, who is obsessed with exploiting Kong for a quick profit to show him off to the public, utters the worst ending line in recent memory.

It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.

Man, glad I waited three hours to hear that!

Just in case anybody else is like me, and catches up on the latest and greatest six months to year after it happens, don’t worry with King Kong. You can do far better.

For the three or four people that like my pictures, week four is now up in the gallery.

This is by far the best group of pictures I’ve taken since arriving, and I’m quite proud of it. Highlights include such morsels as a very prehistoric looking Short Horned Lizard, a species which gives birth to live young (sorry, no pictures of that yet), a gorgeous snake, mountain vistas, and ladybugs having sex at extreme altitudes.

Enjoy.

I hate what I’m having to do, but I’ve put up a comment policy. It’s a short set of guidelines that I think are mostly common sense, but you know what they say about common sense these days — it’s not so common.

This was precipitated by my newest friend Ray, a person whose comments have lately become obnoxious. I want to briefly mention this, on the blog, in the interest of transparency. I do not expect everyone who reads Ocellated to hold the same opinions that I hold. While I wish that they would, I’m a little more realistic than that. What I do expect is a certain level of discourse when someone doesn’t like what I say.

Ray is a young earth creationist. We’ve had one or two friendly arguments. To Ray’s credit, he was respectful. Nice even. No name calling. No threats of fire, hell, and damnation for not sharing his views. He doesn’t understand much biology though, and after trying to civilly have the discussion, I grew tired of the whole thing. There’s no sense in arguing with someone who’s mind is completely made up and who is not willing to learn about the subject they wish to argue. I left a comment saying I was no longer interested in the discussion, and I expected that to be the end of it.

Well, the short and the sweet of it is that Ray has been going back through the old posts, leaving the same argumentative comments elsewhere. A particularly poignant example of what caused the comment policy and me to moderate his comments can be found in my annotated analysis of a creationist textbook. I made a joke that my wife and I were so desperate to find her a job that she was even looking at private schools. Ray’s first comment provides me all the proof I need to see that he’s not even reading my posts before commenting…

It’s not desperation to trust in scientific observation – evolutionists are not doing that. They speculate with dating techniques based
on very doubtful assumptions rather than accept the testimony of the only person who was actually there.

See? This has absolutely nothing to do with the post. This is the kind of thing that I simply won’t ignore. It falls squarely into the realm of an internet troll.

Ray, you’re welcome to keep reading and keep commenting where you think appropriate, but I really don’t see eye to eye with you on, well, anything, so if I don’t seem excited to debate your latest silliness, you’ll understand. However, if what you’re really interested in is arguing with everything I say, feel free to get your own blog and argue away. I’ll even link to it from here, and anybody who wants to read it can. Otherwise, play nice, okay?

It’s not so much that I’m tired of nature, but that I’m just tired generally, and in particular, I miss my wife. I’m running home for a few days. I’ll be back soon enough, with lots of great pictures from week 4.

Well I’ve only been gone three weeks, and already things are falling apart back home. It seems my wife wanted to replace The Bruce’s food and water bowls, as the old stainless steel dishes weren’t so stainless anymore and were starting to rust.

Well, this is all fine and good. I’m all for the royal treatment for the world’s best cat. But without my supervision, I fear her choice of bowls is an insult to Bruce’s manly sensibilities.

I’m so sorry Bruce. Had I been around, I would have made sure you acquired something more befitting a cat of your stature. Something with little metal spikes or at least a picture of a lady Persian in a suggestive pose.

Look at the bright side, they could have been pink.

Since arriving in the Davis Mountains, I began noticing what looked like mosquitos… Only they looked weird, unlike any mosquitoes I had ever seen. They also seemed kind of wimpy (to use the proper biological terminology). Though they landed on me, they didn’t try to suck my blood. (I watched them in fascination with my hand prepared to be deliver the strike of death should one try to stick its proboscis where it didn’t belong — inside my arm.)

So I did what any curious biologist does. I took pictures.

I emailed them to someone who might know what they were. My friend Kelley, who frequently comments here is just such a person. A bright curious type wrapping up a master’s degree in entomology. She too thought they were mosquitoes, though she agreed they looked very bizarre and said she would ask her professor. Her reply was quite exciting, even for a bird guy like myself.

Turns out, not a mosquito at all. It is a obscure genus of Tabanidae (the horse flies/deer flies) named Esenbeckia (pronounced Eye-zen-beck-ee-a). And actually, there is practically nothing known about them. They have that freakishly long proboscis, which is atypical of the rest of Tabanidae, and are largly nectar-feeders. But they have been known to take a blood meal, but don’t seem to be as voracious in their attempts to get one. Nor do we know whether they actually need the blood meal for oogenesis (egg production), let alone whether only the females take a meal or if both sexes do. Nor do we know how exactly they get a blood meal, since their mouthparts are so different from the rest of the family. However, my PI [Principal Investigator] did agree that he thinks the one on the flower has the presence of a blood meal in the midgut. He’s not sure if both are the same species. But he did say the dead give away that it was Tabanidae was the structure of the antennae…typical of the horse flies.

Naturally, she and her professor want to get their hands on one. Well Kelley, I have talked to the powers that be, and have a green light.

The search for a specimen begins.

Pictures from week three are up. I’m a little prouder of these pictures. They offer a little more eye candy than the previous two weeks. Enjoy.

Sorry for the lack of communication lately. Though I’ve been busy, the internet connection has been on the fritz lately, making updates darned near impossible. I’ll provide a brief personal update, before moving on to other, more interesting topics.

My parents came out this weekend. A good time was had by all. Mom and I found Flammulated Owl, one of the birds I had most hoped to find in my spare time here.

I’ve also moved out of the McIvor Center, at least at night, as the Center for Big Bend Studies from Sul Ross University is doing an archeological study in a cave on the preserve. I’m now sleeping in my tent.

Speaking of which, I had the funniest experience yesterday. While talking to the cook, she suddenly pointed outside and I turned around to see my tent blowing across the ground like a tumbleweed, end over end. Normally I stake the tent down, but I had a bunch of stuff inside (sleeping bag, ground pad, sheets and blankets — probably 15 pounds worth), and I figured it wouldn’t go anywhere. In fact, it had been there all day without a problem. I hit the door running like a jackrabbit crossing the highway to catch it. I was scared to look inside, as predictably, it looked like a tornado had rearranged my stuff.

I mentioned that I was reading The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen and how impressed I was with his writing.

It’s unbelievable. I could spend all day sitting in front of a computer and not write one page as well crafted as this entire 600 page book.

I’ve included three excerpts that serve as an example of what a master wordsmith he is. I’ve changed the order a bit, as the first excerpt appears after the last two in the book. It’s an example of good, fun writing. But it’s the last two that are truly moving. The last excerpt is Quammen’s exploration of how the last dodo might have died. It is purely imaginary, though entirely plausible. I’ve reread it over and over, and I can’t describe the feeling of sadness and anger that it envokes in me. I truly feel as if I’m there, watching the last dodo breathe it’s last breath.

Today there has been an extra distraction, not quite so routine. His ladyfriend, a bright and serious plant ecologist named Wendy Strahm, is momentarily miffed at him. She has reason to be. Within the tall adult body of Carl Jones there lurks a strain of feckless schoolboy, and that schoolboy had appropriated the shipping box from Wendy’s computer to serve temporarily as a pigeon cage. Wendy’s computer had meanwhile gone on the fritz and needed to be shipped away for repairs, which sent her hunting for the box. Of course the pigeons had shat in it. So there was hell to pay — a little hell, nothing dire, nothing irreconcilable, but Jone’s hell-paying account was already overdrawn. Jones merely ducked his head guiltily when Wendy stormed past us through the compound, and then with a nervous smirk he suggested we walk to the beach.

Now we’re on the coast, and the coast is clear.

Song of the Dodo page 276.

The vividness of the Iversen1 episode is somewhat misleading. The crux of the matter of extinction — the extinction of Raphus cucullatus or any species — is not who or what kills the last individual. That final death reflects only a proximate cause. The ultimate cause, or causes, may be quite different. By the time the death of its last individual becomes imminent, a species has already lost too many battles in the war for survival. It has been swept into a vortex of compounded woes. Its evolutionary adaptability is largely gone. Ecologically, it has become moribund. Sheer chance, among other factors, is working against it. The toilet of its destiny has been flushed.

Song of the Dodo page 274.

Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one flesh-and-blood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirty-five, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a large-bodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky. In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn’t know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction.

Song of the Dodo page 275.

The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event is perhaps the most famous in the mind of the public. It wiped out the dinosaurs. The evidence points to a giant asteroid, with the famous impact crator found at Chicxulub (pronounced Cheek-sue-loob). Part of the impact crater lies on the Yucatan peninsula Mexico, and part of it lies underneath the Gulf of Mexico. In terms of biodiversity, it killed approximately 50% of the Earth’s families.

This pales in comparison to the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, which wiped out over 90% of life in the oceans and 70% on land. It’s cause has been a great mystery.

In an article surfacing recently, scientists may have discovered the asteroid responsible. The results are preliminary, and only time will tell how this progresses, but the finding is quite interesting.

An apparent crater as big as Ohio has been found in Antarctica. Scientists think it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth, 250 million years ago.

The crater, buried beneath a half-mile (1 kilometer) of ice and discovered by some serious airborne and satellite sleuthing, is more than twice as big as the one involved in the demise of the dinosaurs.

This would have been at the time Antarctica was still a part of the southern super continent, Gondwanaland.

Personally, if an impact this size was responsible for the biggest extinction event in earth’s history, it’s likely to have been the first in a series of events that ultimately led to the demise of most of Earth’s life. The precise progression and details of this series may not be knowable, but the impact that started it all may have just been found.