Fanart Friday: Wall E
The last couple of Pixar movies haven't been my cup of tea but Wall E looks amazing, and it is getting some pretty great reviews too- the Edmonton Journal called it the movie of the decade. Since it just opened today there isn't a whole lot of fan art out there but here are a couple, from kisaru and bosstones22 respectively:



And in other news, they have discovered that some African frogs can extrude their toe bones as claws, Wolvie-style, when threatened. Crazy! Like the movie Logan, doing so causes pain and unlike X-Man, they don't have a healing factor so it is a last resort. I kind of wish poison dart frogs could do this, but I am also glad they can't. One of the challenges of writing Poison Dart is the bad guy I have is pretty crazy tough, and I'm not realy sure how Dart is going to prevail. Some adamantium claws would go a long way in badassing him up. But really, little Dart's appeal is he is not a badass superhero but just a little froglet. Albeit a poisonous one. Ribbit albeit!
Turns out Epantiras already imagined a frog with ninja claws:

From out of the University of Calgary comes an analysis of Gerobatrachus hottoni that strongly suggests it is ancestral to both frogs and salamanders. Cool hey? Mostly I like the painting that looks a little like both.

Look! A new species of frog has been discovered, the first known lungless frog. Cool eh?
And you've probably already heard of the newly discovered flat-faced walking fish, but just in case you haven't.
And though there are no brand new species of cephalopods to tell you about, Mutley James is drawing a ceph-a-day in April. Remember when he did a creature a day? Because he's really cool. I can't figure out livejournal's interface to link to the creatures directly but they're from December 2007.

So I decided to go see the froggies at the Valley Zoo today. In all honesty I was a little disappointed, because I had imagined a whole building, or at the very least, a wing, dedicated to the Anurans, with hundreds, nay thousands of specimens to admire. But it was not so. Just one wall, with about 7 species. Two of which were sleeping invisibly. No poison darts, though they had a few Mantellas, which are a Madagascarian pseudoequivalent. So tiny! But it was very cool of the curator to let me in for free, and I'm glad I went. Hard to get good pics through the layers of glass, but I got a bit of video. Here are some African Clawed frogs, who, through no fault of their own, seem to be the ones responsible for the devastating spread of the chytrid fungus:

Have you checked out the Encyclopedia of Life yet? The goal is that eventually it will catalog each of the 1.8 million known species of life. For now they mostly have a lot of fish. Not much on bears and hardly anything on frogs. Right now it's slow and crashy. Bear with them and I'm sure they'll work the bugs out and get her purring like a tiger. Okay enough with the bad puns.
Anyways I was hoping they would have the entry on Dendrobates azureus ready because 2008 is the Year of the Frog, and tomorrow is Leap Day, which has sort of become the unofficial day to celebrate all things frogular. Leap frog, leap year, see? Sadly I have to work tomorrow and all weekend so I will be unable to attend any of the events planned at the Valley Zoo. I'm sure your local zoo will have some goings on so if you love frogs make sure you jump at the opportunity to observe them and maybe contribute to the conservation efforts going on on their behalf. Darren Naish has some good links and info on his blog Tetrapod Zoology, specifically this post here.
In honor of Frog Year I started writing a children's novel about them and beginning tomorrow I will start serializing it here for your enjoyment. The star of the show, as you might have guessed, is Dendrobates azureus.
And I have no idea why my link text color changed color. There is no CSS explanation for it. It is a Mystery of the Unexplained.

Devil Frog Devil Frog!


The big news from the paleo world today is the giant predatory Mesozoic frog fossil discovered in Madagascar. They're calling it Beelzebufo, devil toad. Too bad I just returned my big froggy book to the library eariler today, I could look up the modern pac-man frogs they're related to. I do know "bufo" is a genus name for toads (all toads are frogs) and is derived from the same root as buffoon.
I think this deserves some paleoetry if anything does.

Beelzebufo, devil frog
You start out life as a pollywog
But then you grow to epic size
Truly you are the Lord of Flies
You're the top toad, the amphibial apex
But you're no match for Mr. T-Rex!

Yay for stuff!
I went to the library to pick up a Kenneth Oppel book- Airborn, and I also found a Beck CD, Guerolito, which is a remix album for Guero. Guero is one of my top ten all time CDs. Sweet! How I missed Guerolito when it first came out I don't know but whatever.
Also I had an Amazon order come in- Mouse Guard and Otis Frampton's Oddly Normal graphic novels. Sweeet!
And although I still haven't obtained any trilobite fossils I am just as happy with my new tree frog magnets. Sweeeet!



I just finished reading a book called The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor. The back cover reads "You think you know the true story of Alice in Wonderland? Well think again." It's one of those books that takes an established story and retells or reimagines it. The trouble is, rather than treating the source material with the respect it deserves, he poos all over it in the first few pages. Alice, or rather, Alyss, sees a copy of what Beddor calls 'Alice's Adventures Underground' and calls it a "stupid, nonsensical book". To me that's not cool. Why not just make up your own story in that case? He already changed Alice's name to Alyss. He made the Mad Hatter into a paramilitary Wolverine-type named Hatter Madigan whose top hat is actually a dervish of blades. The White Rabbit gets replaced by an albino tutor with extra sensitive Wolverinish ears named Bibwit Harte. The Cheshire Cat is now an assassin named The Cat who possesses the Woverine-like ability to regenerate- nine lives, of course. Anyways, the book wasn't terrible, though I've read better for sure, and it will appeal to boys- I think Michelle's grade 7s would like it. I just think if you're going to borrow from the classics you shouldn't show such contempt for them.
Oh well, here's another picture of my sweeeeet frog magnets:

Well, it's back to normal for me after a pretty slack summer. Including the next four days of work, I'll have worked only 17 of 62 days in July and August. But now I go back to my normal schedule.
So, pretty much randomly, here is a blogger from the NZ Herald (I loved that paper when i was there and Harvey linked to it today so I was browsing around) who talks about the etiquette of reading other peoples' emails. When I was in China I often found a crowd of curious onlookers brazenly reading my emails over my shoulder so I guess the issue doesn't bother me as much. Also, I am not secretly maintaining a mail-order bride on another continent.
I've been enjoying a Flickr renaissance with my new iMac, since I now have a monitor large enough to see whole photographs! Here are two of my recent favorites : a poison dart frog of the Dendrobates azureis variety (I typed that from memory so see if I was right!) and the arms of a giant pacific octopus.
Did you hear that pod of blue whales was recently spotted near the Queen Charlotte Islands? We only saw orcas when we were there a few weeks ago but maybe some day we can go back to see the world's largest animal, possibly ever. I did have the privilege of seeing the largest toothed whale, the sperm whale off Kaikoura in New Zealand:

The proprietor of the frog store seemed innocent enough. Maybe even TOO innocent- he was only four years old after all. But the deals he was offering were too good to refuse.
"How much for a frog?" I asked.
"Ten for five cents," he said.
"Well then I'll take ten." I handed him a shiny nickel.
"Thanks!" he said, and pocketed the five cents.
"Where's my frogs?"
"Ummmm, I'm just getting them ready."
Just then a beautiful blonde entered the establishment. "I want a frog, too, please."
"Okay here's a pink one!"
"Thanks!" she said.
"Hey!" I said, "Why does she get her frog for free and I don't even have any frogs?"
"Because her frog is pink."
I wasn't really satisfied with his logic, but at the same time, I couldn't help but notice that the so-called "pink frog" was actually invisible. The woman sat down, and I decided to get acquainted. I sat down next to her, nice and close.
A loud and piercing wail ruined the moment.
"You just sat on her pink frog!!!!!!!" said the proprietor.
"Sorry sorry sorry!" I said, wiping off invisible pink frog goo from my pants.
I beat a hasty retreat.
But I didn't get any frogs, and I didn't get my money back. Never trust a four-year-old shopkeep.

Some of the things that are exciting to me this week:
-new White Stripes! Too bad I couldn't get tickets to the show, but if you have some you don't want just let me know. I'm even willing to go to the Whitehorse, Yellowknife or Iqaluit shows.
-new purple froggy! Well, they call it a toad but it looks like a species of poison dart frog to me. Too bad Michelle won't let me get one, but if you have one you need to get rid of, just let me know.
-new black running hat. So I don't overheat while running. My wife didn't just let me get it, she bought it for me! yay! On Canada Day I will be running my first race, just a little 5 k one. But I'm excited.
How about you- what are you excited about these days?
PS- turns out Ashley MacIsaac and Jack White are distantly related so Ashley will open for the White Stripes for at least the Eastern leg of their Canadian tour (Which I will also accept tickets for).

Here is the first part of that dualism mythology story I promised the other day. I'll keep the "episodes" short and readable, to hopefully keep your interest. It's a little darker than, say, Homie Bear vs the Killer Whale, just so you know.

Uuuw’erruu awoke with nightmarish images fading from her consciousness. She had fleeting impressions of a dried and desiccated Wuurr, cast off by a gloating Krurk. Still groggy she shuddered and looked around. Dark, silent. As it should be, except . . . where was Rweruree? Alarmed now she grabbed her spear and jumped from the branch into the pond below. Her young scattered at her intrusion, then regrouped behind her. They seemed to be unmolested. Though, there was a faint trace of . . . she cursed. Goblin piss. Goblins always defiled birthing ponds. And if there were goblins around, then Rweruree’s absence was all the more ominous.
She followed the scent trail to land, where it was easy to pick up several sets of goblin footprints. She ran her spearhead over her venom glands, and took a deep breath to calm herself. Then she plunged into the jungle.
Before long she came upon a goblin corpse. Maybe Rweruree was alright. She kept going, and came to a clearing, all dark shadows and gloom. Scattered around were a few more goblin corpses, and Uuuw'erruu saw one living goblin bent over something she couldn't quite make out, though she knew what it was without seeing. She drove her powerful hind legs towards the goblin, letting out a furious wartrill as she propelled herself up over the startled goblin's head. The goblin swatted at her, but she twisted and released her spear just before she was sent sprawling. She landed softly, at the same time as the goblin thudded to the ground, her spear embedded in its eye.
Rweruree lay on his back, his throat sack inflating and deflating slowly. His breathing made a gurgling sound, and as Uuuw'erruu came closer she saw that his belly was open, his insides spilled on the ground. "Uuuw'. . . ," he rasped, but there was really nothing to say. Uuuw'erruu sat with her mate, crying, as his brilliant blue and yellow skin slowly faded, and he died.

Wuurr and Krurk Part 2 of 2

Uuuw'erruu took Rweruree's body up into a tree, where it would be absorbed back into the jungle away from the putrid goblin corpses. She strongly considered pissing on those, but didn't want to stoop to their level. Once Rweruree's body was as safely hidden as she could make it, she climbed up to a higher branch to mourn, and to sing, and to pray.
The sun started its ascent, a slim sliver tinting the green canopy with a pinkish hue. Uuuw'erruu was deep in the Frogsong, transforming the notes of the melody Rweruree first sang to her as a mating call into a funeral dirge. She slowed the tempo, changed major keys to minor. Where Rweruree's song was bright, playful, and enticing, Uuuw'erruu's was dark, mournful,and aching.
She began to weave prayers into the song. Prayers to Wuurr, to lend Him strength and offer Him protection against Krurk's vile followers. She affirmed her dedication to serving Wuurr's cause, as the great bullfrog god continued his eternal struggle to swallow Krurk into Himself. The goblin god could claim a victory tonight, perhaps wresting his head a tiny bit out of Wuurr's relentless maw, but it would carry a heavy price, as Uuuw'erruu promised Wuurr to exact a fierce and bloody revenge.
The sun was no longer a sliver, but a sphere, and Uuuw'erruu arose. She inflated her throat sack to its fullest, blasting a terrible trumpet call of defiance, and went to serve her god.


(There! A dualist mythology. I had a dream the other night where I was fighting all these goblins, and for no reason at all there was this big frog thing swallowing a goblin. The goblin's head was in the frog's mouth, but the goblin was still struggling, trying to get free. The image stayed with me, I worked it a bit, and came up with this. PS- this is the kind of frog Uuuw'erruu is. A poison dart frog. Pretty.)