Tuesday 8 April 2014

Variety

is the spice of life, so they say.

It's fun to pick up an organism from whichever kingdom and try to put a name to it. If it's unfamiliar you soon find yourself in territory where a glossary and diagrams are required to understand the first sentences. Spiders have different bits to beetles have different bits to mosses and so on.

Recent mothing experience has turned out to be a bit of a breather as it mostly involves (for me) scanning through pretty pictures until you find Wally. Keys are great - like potholing occasionally, with intricate twists and turns and decisions based on things you never knew existed. Who knew there was so much spider porn on the internet?! Genitalia abound.

It might seem rude to have to base so much identification on the sexual organs, until you consider wildflowers! Whole books dedicated to the sexual organs of plants. It reminds me of a conversation I had once with a primatologist in which I discovered that some monkeys have bones in their peni. But that's another story entirely ...

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