Claspers

I've sat here for a while, blog screen blank and ready for filling. There is nothing in my head. Maybe not nothing, but very little, and it doesn't stretch very far, believe me. What's there is my sustained dislike for humid weather and still pesky mosquitoes. You don't want to hear about it, I don't want to write about, let's call the whole thing off. Brown dog just gave me kiss. His breath smells of freshly chewed wood. It's dark at eight. I'm annoyed at the two bugs that keep landing on the screen out here, but pleasantly surprised that every bug in the backyard isn't a moth to my Dell Inspiron 1520 flame.

CNN asks, "What is your favorite dinosaur?"
36% Tyrannosaurus rex
17% Brontosaurus
18% Triceratops
29% Barney

They're all pretty good - I don't think you can go wrong with any of them. Forced to choose I went with Triceratops. Ankylosaurus with his club tail and tough shell is pretty cool, I'm disappointed he wasn't an option. He's kind of the turtlesaurus of the Jurassic. I don't think he would have polled well.

You may remember my emotional crisis with turtles crossing NC highways a few months back, many of them not making it across. Right now the daredevils of the road are woolly mammoth caterpillars. After a quick google, it looks like I'm the only one that calls them woolly mammoths. The woolly bear, sometimes called woolly worm, is the caterpillar stage of the Isabella tiger moth, Pyrrharctia isabella. These fuzzy dudes are crisscrossing our roads with reckless and slow abandon. I wish they wouldn't. I say slow, but considering..., they move at a pretty good clip. It may be that they get a few feet out there and it is really hot, like walking on hot coals. They sprint with their many legs trying to find the cool grass on the other side. Poor little guys.

For our education (courtesy of something written by some Australian guy): All caterpillars have 3 pairs of true legs attached under the thorax. The true legs are segmented, with joints like our knees and ankles. They have a little claw on the end. Most caterpillars also have up to five pairs of prolegs. The prolegs are not segmented, but are cylindrical. They are used for walking and clinging, as they have a set of microscopic hooks on the base. The last pair of prolegs on the anal abdominal segment are usually called claspers. So in all, they have 16 legs: they are hexadecapodal.

Yeah, you heard me, hexadecapodal.