Odd things in the world I found over the weekend....

The Corpse flower. Sounds good, doesn't it and apparently it smells even better! Having never smelt a corpse, maybe I should put that on my List Of Things To Do...I can only presume it's ghastly. It doesn't look particularly appetizing either. It blooms after a period of 13 years in all its smelly glory and people come from all over the world to visit Indonesia, whence it comes. One has even been called TED, and grew in the University of California - Botanical Conservatory. They were very happy because it lasted the longest flowering. I am sure this is appealing to the university and carrion eaters which would go into raptures at the smell, however I rather prefer smells as in perfume. I have not yet found a friend of mine who would like to join me in seeing this flower, so will have to go alone, and then cross it off my list, hoping that I live that long after having smelt it.

We come now to the Hagfish. Just look at what I found: Hagfishes, The adjective which best describes the Myxini is "Lovecraftian" I didn't know there was an adjective called Lovecraftian!! What a wonderful word! Can we use it in Scrabble? I certainly wouldn't use the word "Love" in anything to with this fish. Yuk would be more likely. This poor fish is pale pink, and is well known for the large quantities of sticky slime they produce. How appealing. Can you imagine going into a delicatessen and asking for: 400 millilitres of slime? Tasty!! They also have three accessory hearts, (quite cool) no cerebrum or cerebellum, (lots of people like this too, see People from Walmart..) no jaws or stomach, and will "sneeze" when their nostrils clog with their own slime. A very pleasant thought, no? They are found in cold ocean waters of both hemispheres, scavenging dead and dying fish but also preying on small invertebrates. I am positively delighted for them. I shall never go swimming in the sea again. They have, and do all sorts of other delightful things, which I will not mention, because you will also never go swimming again. They look positively revolting skinned, you find it on the web and see for yourself. However, the poor old Blobfish, still wins hands down in the ugliest fish ever. I am starting to feel very sorry for them and will probably adopt one out of pity. On second thought, I would have to be very drunk to do that.

The Star -nosed Mole. I like moles, they are rather pretty in a mole-ish sort of way. Blind as a bat, or Harry Potter, whichever your preference. This one though, has at the end of his nose, pink waving about tentacles. Quote" The star-nosed mole is covered in thick blackish brown water-repellent fur and has large scaled feet and a long thick tail, which appears to function as a fat storage reserve for the spring breeding season. The mole's most distinctive feature is a circle of 22 mobile, pink, fleshy tentacles at the end of the snout, from which they derive their name. These are used to identify food by touch, such as worms, insects and crustaceans" unquote. Have you seen them? They are not really a thing one could fall in love with immediately as say a Newfoundland or a French Bulldog, and want to take home with you. Their tentacles are covered with what is called: Eimers Organs. Aren't you learning a lot reading my blogs!! What I find absolutely fascinating is the fact that they can decipher what is prey, have the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in the ultra short time of 8 ms if a prey is comestible or not. This speed is at the limit of the speed of neurons. Absolutely incredible. They also possess the ability to smell underwater. All actually fantastic because they are not one of nature's loveliest animals. I am sure another Star-nosed mole would love them and do, producing more Star-nosed Moles, as they are not on a danger list anywhere.

The Proboscis monkey! Now there's an animal with a whopper of a nose, and we all know the old adage about length of something on a man is relative to the size of his nose! WELLLLL. The lady monkeys must all be in 7th heaven! They are facing extinction though, which is very sad as they surely have produced many studies with nerdy students all making improbable guesses as to what exactly could be the length of a John Thomas as compared with its hooter! I'd like to know how they got their data.....

While I am over in this part of the world, namely Indonesia, Borneo etc. let's finish up with the Komodo dragon. The worlds largest, it is also disgusting. It has one of the worst cases of halitosis, barring the Hippo, which is even worse, that you can find. Their eating habits leave a lot to be desired too. Komodo dragons eat by tearing large chunks of flesh and swallowing them whole while holding the carcass down with their forelegs. For smaller prey up to the size of a goat, their loosely articulated jaws, flexible skull, and expandable stomach allow it to swallow its prey whole, juicy!! I'd open a school of manners over there. Copious amounts of red saliva (ugh) that the Komodo dragons produce, help to lubricate the food, but swallowing is still a long process (15–20 minutes to swallow a goat). Komodo dragons may attempt to speed up the process by ramming the carcass against a tree to force it down its throat, sometimes ramming so forcefully that the tree is knocked down. After eating up to 80 percent of its body weight in one meal, it drags itself to a sunny location to speed digestion, as the food could rot and poison the dragon if left undigested for too long. Sounds positively divine, doesn't it! I cannot imagine what their mating habits are like, and maybe it's just as well that I, and you, don't know.

Good, isn't it............