Poll #1504883 Muddy River 2010?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33

On a scale of one to ten, with one being "Worst Idea Ever" and ten being "Best Idea Ever," how good an idea is it for me to extend the Muddy River project through all of 2010?

Rat Information Portal.

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Disgusting substance of the day:
Iodine solution, Muddy River muck. (TIE!)

You would think that Muddy River muck, a virulent brew of organic decay laced with pollution, would win hands down. But the iodine splashed into MY EYE. When I broke through the ice into ankle-deep muck, it quickly and harmlessly froze on my pants and boots rather than soaking through.

I made my carbon footprint a little smaller today. (Newer, smaller car.)

Tupelo Tapir's first walk out onto her exhibit.

Once Alexis got back from Vermont we played as much Rock Band as possible.

This is the view from my porch this afternoon. That little river should look familiar to you, even though the banks are no longer blanketed in white.

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Yesterday, Alexis dispenses out the roast potatoes I cooked. Yum! We each ate a whole bowl!

It just came to me: 50 more urban species. An average of about one a week (maybe no fewer than one a week, with no penalty for going over 50?) seems like a workable project for a part-time blogger, full time zookeeper. You may have noticed I've continued doing 3:00 snapshots, too. I've always liked that project. I can see doing it long term. Anyway, just needed to write this down.

By now you should be a big fan of the Giant Elephant Shrew. If not, please look at this video from the Yale Peabody museum which includes horribly adorable footage of one drinking water.

The same website has a good page of information about the species and its close relatives. They have a very small home range in Africa, which is threatened by development etc. North American zoos have had some success in keeping and breeding these weird and wonderful creatures.

While looking around on that site I found this amazing and hypnotic page animating the evolution of different arachnid groups. Most of the intermediate stages are guesses, but the idea is great. I'd love to see it done with other taxa.

And finally, another conservation issue that my zoo is actively involved in is our threatened population of Blanding's turtles. This video explains what the project involves, and shows what goes into conservation biology (mucking about in cold swamp water early in the spring). They finish by describing the invasive process of determining the turtles' sex, which is done by my boss at the zoo, and by a vet at the New England Aquarium. (Then my job is to take care of the turtles as they recover from the laparoscopy.)

A package, for me?
(Thanks, g_weir!)

A cute video starring the president of Zoo New England and many of the zoos' animals. Beau the giraffe gets a bonus for producing a baby!