And I took this photo of a BLM on the corner where McIntire intersects 250. I was driving at the time, and leaning out the window, and I can’t believe it worked, but you definitely can see the little BLM in the middle of the picture to the right. I often see a BLM at this location, I assume it’s the same one each time, and I am happy to see he/she made it through most of the summer without being run over. It seems like such a dangerous place to live. If I didn’t have to work for a living, and also had the ability to communicate with animals, I would like to have a job being a crossing guard for BLMs. There is so much I could teach them such as How To Cross A Road Safely and How To Live By A Major Road Without Losing Life and Limb. Those would be some of my course titles.
Archive for July, 2007
My friends Kate and Anoop are on vacation in India and Kate sent this submission of an adorable Indian BLM:
Here is either a chipmunk or an Indian squirrel that Anoop and I saw today in Bangalore, India, across the street from his grandmother’s house. It is hard to see but it has stripes on its back like an American chimpmunk though it is built more like an American squirrel. Actually, we saw four of them but this is the only one in a picture. They are surprisingly shy for living in the center of a city of 10 million people. Apparently sometimes they get all rabid and bite people, but I think this one is pretty safe.
This submision got me to thinking, what is the difference between a chipmunk and a squirrel? I know what a standard American chipmunk looks like, and I know what a common American squirrel looks like, but I have also seen something in America called a ground squirrel, which frankly looked rather like a chipmunk, and so now having thought about it I am all confused as to what is going on.
So, I headed over to Wikipedia, and since I want this site to be an educational one, I will now pass on what I learned:
According to Wikipedia, “Chipmunk is the common name for any small squirrel-like rodent species of the genus Tamias in the family Sciuridae” and “A squirrel is a small or medium-sized rodent of the family Sciuridae…The Sciuridae family also include flying squirrels, as well as ground squirrels such as the chipmunks, prairie dogs, and woodchucks.” So basically, chipmunks and squirrels are two BLMs in the same family. Also, chipmunks can evidently be referred to as “ground squirrels”, and so can prairie dogs and woodchucks, which makes no sense because neither of those animals is anything like a squirrel, as far as I am concerned.
As I mentioned previously, I have encountered an animal that I think is actually called a “ground squirrel” and out of curiosity, I looked it up as well: “The ground squirrels are all members of the Sciuridae most closely related to the genus Marmota and included in the tribe Marmotini. It includes six known genera. Although a type of ground squirrel, the chipmunks of the genus Tamias frequently spend time in trees.”
I found this entry to be rather uninformative, as well as rather lacking, gramatically.
In conclusion:
- Kate, in reference to your submission, it seems it would be correct for you to have said:
- “Here is a chipmunk…”
- “Here is an Indian squirrel…”
- “Here is a single entity which is a chipmunk AND an Indian squirrel…”
and PS, how do you know where the squirrel/chipmunk’s grandmother lives?
- The word squirrel comes from the Latin word sciurus which comes from the Greek word skiouros which is a compound of two words and can be loosely translated to mean “That which sits in the shadow of its tail”.
- And, finally, the submitted photos:
From an Apple press release:
CUPERTINO, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today announced that iPhone(TM) users will be able to enjoy YouTube’s originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. To achieve higher video quality and longer battery life on mobile devices, YouTube has begun encoding their videos in the advanced H.264 format, and iPhone will be the first mobile device to use the H.264-encoded videos. Over 10,000 videos will be available on June 29, and YouTube will be adding more each week until their full catalog of videos is available in the H.264 format this fall.
I couldn’t help but notice that beaverlikemammals.com’s stunning footage of a REAL beaver swimming around is not yet available on the iPhone. I guess the video was not deemed worthy of being included in the first round of H.264 conversions. Harumph! It will be interesting to see at what point it does get converted. I suppose it’s sort of an indirect way of measuring the importance of BLMs in our society.
I just got this fabulous submisison from my old friend Whitney Huston, who I went to college with, and have not talked to in ages. This submission is exciting for so many reasons. First, it was nice to hear from Whitney. Second, she lives out in California somewhere and I am happy to know that news of beaverlikemammals.com has traveled that far. Third, this qualifies as our second international sighting, and Peru is very exotic. Woo hoo!
Attached is a photo of Sam Douglas having a chat with a beaver-like mammal. The beaver-like mammal photograph was taken at Machu Picchu not so long ago. It was a very cute BLM, one was more chatty then the other (probably b/c the other was napping). They were friendly too - very unphased by all of the human attention they were getting.
PS the animal is actually a chinchilla, according to the guides there (overheard, since we didn’t hire any) and although they (the guides) are notorious for making shit up (or at least it seemed to us), they might be right. Which makes this not as much a BLM, and more like a chinchilla. Even if it’s not a chinchilla, it admittedly looks more like a rabbit than a beaver. But, I wanted to submit something and this was the only sighting I had on film. Being from Oregon though, which is, as I’m sure you know, the beaver state, I’ve seen my fair share of actual beavers. I just don’t have any caught on tape.
Thanks so much for the submission Whitney! And if you are ever home in Oregon, please keep an eye out for any beavers you might want to post about.
I have to give a major “shout out” to Liz for this submission. She saw a BLM in her neighbor’s yard and ran outside to snap a picture even though all she was wearing was a towel. Why she was hanging around her house in a towel I don’t know, but regardless, she is a dedicated BLM sighter.
Extra points to anyhone who can snap a photo of Liz in her towel photographing a BLM.
PS - I’m not sure where the BLM is in this photo, but I’ve been assured it *is* there.
[UPDATE - evidently, that little brown splotch on the left side of the photo, about half way up, is the BLM]