Mortality

Some people will talk about 'what separates humans from animals'.

Some people will says it's grammar, but there are monkeys in the rainforest that make calls in different orders to apparently mean different things.

Some say it's lying, but again, the same set of monkeys will make a call at warn of a snake for example just so they can have the best bit of food.

Some say it is our ability to mourn the dead, but herds of elephants stop and mourn when a member of the group dies.

But if you ask me, it's our knowledge of out own mortality. yes animals have a sense of self preservation but they aren't aware that some day they will die. in this case i think the phrase 'ignorance is bliss applies'.

This is true, except in Terry Pratchit's 'Amazing Morris and his educated rodents', in the case of the rats that lived behind the unseen university, they are fully aware of their own mortality. Infact they even have their own grim reaper, or grim squeeker!

SO I MADE ONE!!!

Snake Jumper!

Since it has been particularly cold lately we've been worried about my pet snake Trixxy becoming cold. She is cold blooded so can't regulate her own body temperature. 

I combined my recently acquired interest in knitting with my long standing love of reptiles. 

So i knitted her a black and yellow stripy jumper!!!!!

Yes i am this weird!!

Mosquito repelling.

Well, my college study tour to borneo is fast approaching. It's now only 11 weeks and 6 days till we leave. Last week we were give some more information about the trip, we will be leaving at 3:30 am but our flight isn't until 9:40. the flight there is 24 hours long which is going to kill us but the flight back is only 20 hours. 

Anyway, at college the only thing everyone's talking is what we're doing, what we're packing, the animals out there, and most of all: how not to get mosquito bites.

So we've come up with several good ways to keep mosquitos away:

• Mosquito  repelling spray, should contain DEET (but not 100% because that just burns your skin off).
• Having a high level of vitamin B in me blood, so I'm taking vitamin B complexes before leaving.
• Eating marmite every day apparently keeps mosquitos away, unfortunately I hate marmite so I've been told to have a jar of marmite open in my room at night.
• Lavender scented things, so lavender body wash, lavender oil, lavender body spray. You name it!!

Anyone know anything else?

Rats in the snow

well it's done nothing but snow for the last 24 hours so i thought i'd take the rat girls out and see what they thought of it.

turns out that rats really don't like snow. but they looked so cute all huddled up, so here's a few pictures. 

here's a video of me and my brother making a snow helm's deep in the back garden. 

www.duncanmoran.me.uk/snowday.mov 

Snake Skins

this is my desert king snake, bellatrix (trixxy). i got her for christmas 2007 (i should note now that snakes are long living creatures and buying one should be carefully considered. snakes are for life not just for christmas)

 

well that's not what this post is about. i've had trixxy just over a year now and in the last year she has sluffed (shed her skin) a total of 10 times since i got her.  she was a very young snake when i got her, only a coupe of months old. 

her most recent sluff was about 3 days ago and her first sluff was about a month after i got her so these 2 skins are about 1 year apart in age. 

the first measures in at 1 foot 10 inches (57 cm)

the most recent measured in at about 2 feet 9 inches (85 cm)

so that's a total growth of just under a foot. 

it's interesting to see that only one of the the skins isn't totally complete. small snakes normally shed in a whole but bigger ones tend to shed off in lumps like lizards.

she's currently only about half as long as she can get. king snakes can get as long as about 6 feet but the average is about 4 feet.