Thanks to all of you who have weighed in with prayers for my health. I believe in the power of prayer and the sovereignty of God.
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll be delighted with this brief video of an even briefer animal, the pygmy jerboa. It’s a sort of jumping mouse. The more closely you look at it, the more you’ll wonder if it’s really real.
Another one of those cool animals God created,,,
For a moment there, I thought this was a video of our 2016 presidential campaign–scavengers fighting over a carcass.
Then I remembered that the carcass of America is still a little bit alive, whereas the one in the video is entirely dead.
Hi, Mr. Nature here! No more politics for a while, eh? Let’s look at lizards instead.
Here is an adult male bearded dragon–they’re from Australia, and have become very popular as pets–getting upset with his reflection in the mirror because it doesn’t seem to know the rules that govern lizard interaction. It just copies whatever gesture the real lizard makes. Anyone who has had a kid brother or sister knows how irritating that can be.
A lot of unrelated kinds of lizards use head-bobbing as a means of communication. The polite response, among bearded lizards, is to answer the head-bob with a submissive gesture, which keeps everything nice and peaceful. If you bob back, as the reflection does, you’re looking for a fight.
Note the lizard running around, trying to see if he can get behind the mirror to take a bite out of the supposed newcomer. Like most animals, lizards can’t recognize a reflection for what it is. Unlike some people, they won’t fall in love with it.
When I was a kid, I had a dime-store “chameleon” (not a real chameleon, but a Carolina anole) who went absolutely postal whenever he saw his reflection. You wouldn’t believe how mad he got.
In real lizard life, though, head-bobbing, arm-waving, stomping, push-ups, and other gestures often preserve the peace and keep lizards from getting injured in fights. Once they get to know each other better, and decide they can get along, they stop the head-bobbing.
My iguana never head-bobbed because he got along with everybody–except for a certain cat who would come into the room for no good purpose, and the iguana knew it. Her he would attack on sight, never mind the head-bobbing. With the other cat and the schnauzer he was the best of friends.
Hi! Mr. Nature here, with a comforting thought.
Don’t be entirely down on winter: because, if you’ve got cold days and colder nights, snow on the ground, ice hanging from your gutters, and teeth chattering, there’s one thing you absolutely, positively, don’t ever have to worry about. Not ever.
Army ants.
Watch these bugs devour everything in their path, and reflect on the fact that a nice big snowman would stop them in their tracks.
So much for life in the tropics!
Hi! Mr. Nature here.
Right now it’s snowing sideways and we’ve already got almost two feet of it on the ground, with more to come. Dig that Global Warming.
But here’s an animal that normally inhabits the northern coast of Greenland and some of the really, really cold parts of Canada–the musk ox.
The babies are cute as buttons. They will grow up to weigh 800 pounds with very sharp horns, and for big animals, they’re very light on their feet. In modern times they’ve been introduced to places where they lived during prehistoric times, such as Siberia, where they seem to be doing well.
North coast of Greenland–wow. Who would expect anything to be able to live there–let alone a large herbivorous mammal?
There’s no quibbling with God’s stuff, though. It always works.
Hi, Mr. Nature here, with our first video of 2016.
Here is an animal which most people, looking at it, would think was a plant. Scientists call it a crinoid. Some people call it a sea lily. These are very commonly found as fossils, but as you can see, they’re still around today.
This footage was taken by a camera on the deep bottom of the sea. Hey, is that the flower’s stalk dragging after it? Yes, that’s what it is. Imagine seeing that in your garden: a tulip crawling along, dragging its stalk behind it. Except, of course, the crinoid is an animal, related to the starfish. And it can detach its stalk from whatever it’s clinging to.
Doesn’t God make cool stuff? I mean, really, if you were creating the world, would you have ever thought of crinoids?
Hi! Mr. Nature here, on a cold, rainy, miserable day in New Jersey, our second in a row–and tomorrow isn’t predicted to be any nicer.
If your weather is behaving as badly as mine, I thought you might enjoy this little video of butterflies enjoying a butterfly bush in someone’s garden. Several different kinds of swallowtails show up.
My grandpa always had a butterfly bush in his garden. How I miss it!
Thankfully, there’s always youtube. So let’s flutter back, in our imaginations, to the early summer…
Just to enjoy and relax with something that the bad guys haven’t yet managed to corrupt and destroy… Here’s a cardinal trying to enjoy his lunch at a bird feeder; but sparrows keep trying to horn in on it. The cardinal has some patience with them, but they quickly use it up.
No one gets hurt, though.
Cardinals are not uncommon in my neighborhood. I love their glorious redness and their wide repertory of calls and songs. If you hear it and you don’t know what it is, it’s probably a cardinal.
Howdy, Mr. Nature here, with a video treat–a chameleon having his lunch.
For those gardeners out there who have been plagued by tomato hornworms, those big green caterpillars, it may be pleasant to contemplate what a squad of chameleons could do in your garden.
The individually turreted eyes zero in on the target, the prehensile tail and mitten-like paws get a firm grip on the branch, and zap! The chameleon’s amazing tongue bags another bug.
And in addition to all that, they can change color. Very cool animals indeed.
I wonder what it’d be like, if a bunch of chameleons gathered around a table for Thanksgiving dinner.