Friday, November 2, 2007

First Post


Hello all! The zoology nerd has joined blogland. This blog was created in anticipation of my time in South Africa, which will presumably be more exciting than my life now, but I created it now so that I could look back on Santa Barbara and the U.S. while I'm there missing everything. It's mostly for me, so if you'd like to skip these first few months and come back in January, that's fine with me. My arrival date is January 28-30. In the meantime enjoy sporadic posts about college life on the southwestern edge of the continent.

Today I had to get three shots in preparation to go abroad, so if they don't let me go now, I will be quite mad.

The inspiration for my URL (which I thought long and hard about, let me tell you) is the velvet worm, in the small phylum, Onychophora. It's not actually a worm, but it looks kind of like a caterpillar, and its papillae and scales give it a velvety sheen. About 100 or so species have been described, and at least one of them is endemic to a part of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, very close to where I'll be living. So it's possible I'll actually get to see one if I'm lucky! There's a picture on the left. They vary in color (there are pictures of orange and green ones in one of my textbooks) but that's the best picture I could find that would indicate its size.

Edit: When I first wrote this post, I had a different picture up, and I changed my mind at the last minute. Now I realize that the picture I put up makes it look pretty big. So here's the first picture I put up, which shows how small it is:
Cute, eh?

5 comments:

Devin said...

Welcome to the society of archeogoopyzoophiliacs (lovers of ancient slimy animals).

My favorite is the tadpole shrimp,
http://www.arkive.org/species/ARK/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Triops_cancriformis/,
which is considered to be the oldest living species, dating back in fossils to the Triassic.

I'll be the Onychophorans are really ancient, too.

Damian said...

Great blog! Love the title - we'll be checking back often.

eva said...

I'm honored to be a member of the archeogoopyzoophiliacs. That tadpole shrimp is cool. I'm impressed with whoever managed to take that video of it. According to my textbook, the first onychophorans were from the early Cambrian, and they were marine, later becoming terrestrial in the Ordovician period. They've changed very little over the last 530 million years.

Thanks Damian!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Eva! I'm anonymous because I'm not sure I have a Google identity. The blog looks great so far. Do I have to be a lover of ancient slimy animals to join? What if I don't even love contemporary slimy animals?

xxoo mom

Lexi said...

Hey Eva--its me Lexi. I look forward to reading your adventures in South Africa!! :D