Tag: God’s stuff

The Littlest Mammoth

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Mr. Nature here–with a prehistoric animal that lasted into historic times: the pygmy mammoth of Wrangel Island. It was still alive when the Egyptians were building the pyramids.

In all respects except size it was a regular woolly mammoth. Wrangel Island is in the Arctic Ocean, just off Siberia. Today it’s frozen. But a few thousand years ago, mammoths lived there. The ground today is littered with tusks and bones.

Islands are funny. Some animals that are small on the mainland grow very large if they’re on an island for many generations. And some that are large on the mainland grow small if they’re confined to an island. Hence the pygmy elephants and hippos, and giant dormice, of various Mediterranean islands.

Think of a mammoth the size of a pony. And marvel at the work of God’s hands.

Cardinals in the Snow

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Mr. Nature here. Somehow the combination of bright red cardinals, pure white snow, and green pine boughs strikes me as irresistibly Christmasy. I’ll bet I’m not the only one, either.

God’s handiwork is all around us, all the time, sometimes whispering, sometimes singing, sometimes shouting, “God is nigh! God is nigh.”

Screaming Fish–Really?

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Mr. Nature here–and today our safari takes us to tropical shores around the world.

These small fish, mudskippers, have intrigued me ever since I first encountered them, as a little boy, in Bertha Morris Parker’s Natural History–and in the Sunday color comics, Mark Trail.

But I never knew, until I found this video today, that they could, well, scream.

Mudskippers live in intertidal zones and when the tide goes out, they emerge from their burrows and wander around on the mud, feed, mate, court, and fight over territory. They can breathe air through their skin, like frogs: which means they don’t dare dry out or they can’t breathe; but as long as they can stay moist, they can live out of water. And roll their eyes independently of one another. Like chameleons.

As for the screaming, suffice it to say I have doubts as to the reliability of this assertion. But even without the screaming–they can make other sounds as well–it makes for pretty cool video.

God’s stuff–just when you think you’ve figured it out, you run into mudskippers.

‘A Bird with Claws’ (2015)

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One of these days I’m gonna have to have Jandra’s pet bird–with teeth, claws, and a somewhat nasty temper–featured on the cover of one of my books. Meanwhile, here’s a bird in our own world that has claws on its wings.

https://leeduigon.com/2015/08/02/a-bird-with-claws/

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

The Biggest Predatory Mammal Ever

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I didn’t mean to hit you with a prehistoric critter today, but this video caught my eye and I just can’t help sharing it with you.

Andrewsarchus, from Mongolia, is kind of hard to study because there’s only its yard-long skull that’s been preserved–and only one of those. But if you’ve ever stood in front of that skull, on display at the American Museum of Natural History, as I have, you will stand in awe. I mean, this beast had jaw-muscles as thick as a strong man’s upper arms. It could probably eat your car. In fact, that’s what I think it did eat–cars. With the people still in them.

God’s creative energy–there’s just no reining it in!

‘The Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Video’ (2015)

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This Thanksgiving Day–Global Warming Alert!!!–is shaping up to be the coldest ever, with temperatures only in the 20s. Up in New York City, they’re saying it might be hard to carry out the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on account of high winds that might play havoc with the big balloons.

All in all, an ideal time for a little peek back into summer.

https://leeduigon.com/2015/09/04/the-tiger-swallowtail-butterfly-video/

These last two summers, by the way, were very gentle–none of those dreadful heat waves, ten days in a row with temperatures in the 90s or worse.

“Climate science” is our stuff, and it’s crap.

The tiger swallowtail is God’s stuff, and it’s wonderful.

The Biggest Bear

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Jambo, Mr. Nature here, with a brief safari into the past.

Today we’re looking for the largest bear ever, which is not the Alaskan brown bear or even the polar bear. They’re big: but the short-faced bear of North America, ranging from California to New Jersey, was bigger. Based on fossils, an adult short-faced bear weighed around a ton and stood 12 feet high when it stood on its hind legs. On all fours, it could look a six-foot man right in the eye.

Scientists estimate that these bruisers went extinct ten or eleven thousand years ago, along with a lot of other awesome mammal megafauna in North America. No one knows why. All we can say for certain is that they were here once, but not any more. Maybe the bears ran out of big stuff to eat–although we really don’t know why any of those beasts died out. Theories abound.

I try to imagine what it would be like to see one of these. Okay–but it might be the last thing you ever see.

God created these animals and pronounced them good. We don’t know why He removed them from the scene, although it might have been a good thing for us that He did.

We can only wonder.

Mr. Nature: Wolf Spider and Her Babies

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Kreeg-ah, mangani, Mr. Nature here! We usually think of parental care as something mammals and birds do: but there are bugs and fish that provide it, too.

The mother wolf spider first carries her egg-case with her wherever she goes, and then the babies–dozens of them. The babies in this video look like they’re just about ready to head out on their own. But until they are, the mother will carry them: and if one happens to fall off, she will find it and retrieve it. You would have seen her do that in this video, if only the human would get out of the way.

God’s stuff–He has thought of everything.

Mr. Nature: Is This Really a Rodent?

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Not that these animals are very often kept as pets, but I couldn’t resist this video.

God seems to enjoy improvising on a basic theme, like a jazz musician. These South America maras–members of the cavy family, which includes guinea pigs–have long legs and bunny-ears. But they’re not rabbits; they’re rodents. They live in semiarid grasslands in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia and grow up to weigh from 20 to 35 pounds. We don’t have rodents that big in North America. But South America also has the capybara, the world’s biggest rodent–even bigger than the mara.

God’s stuff–cool!

By Request, ‘Creation Song’

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God’s handiwork reveals its maker. Fernando Ortega celebrates God’s handiwork in Creation Song, requested by Joshua.

I love being able to look out my window and see the golden leaves on all the trees, and the bright red head of the woodpecker as he hops up and down the trunk. It tells me, “God is nigh.”

I am sure there will be no leaf-blowers in Heaven.