A site after my own heart...

Via Pharyngula, I found this site: the Schoepenhauer Awards. Man, I'm in love. Not only do they profile the intestinal roundworm, but they also discuss the Tasmanian tiger (one of my favorite extinct animals); the candiru, a parasitic catfish that enters body openings you'd rather not think about; the scabies mite; and liver fluke.

Finally, they even have an entry on one of my favorite organisms, the human botfly.

More like this

It's times like this that I really wish I were back in Chicago. Actually, it's times like any time that I wish I were back in Chicago, but this in particular brings out that feeling: The Health Freedom Expo is invading Chicago beginning today. Of course, whenever you hear someone advocating "health…
While I am on vacation, I'm reprinting a number of "Classic Insolence" posts to keep the blog active while I'm gone. (It also has the salutory effect of allowing me to move some of my favorite posts from the old blog over to the new blog, and I'm guessing that quite a few of my readers have…
Yesterday I mentioned Symbiotic Households, an art project imagining genetically engineered mosquitoes that provide mood stabilizing compounds to a population plagued by worries caused by climate change. Today on twitter I saw a link to a US patent application filed by Microsoft about engineering…
The Schoepenhauer awards are a delectable collection of interesting descriptions of parasites, such as the roundworm. Today we'll introduce you to the Intestinal Roundworm, a hideous parasite which infects one out of every four people in the world. That's not a misprint: one out of four. More than…

Yep....ain't natural selection just great?

By M. L. Green (not verified) on 11 Mar 2006 #permalink

In the 1890's a national park was created on Wilson's promontory on the north shore of Bass Straight which separates Tasmania from the mainland. There is a story that several scientists realised that the Tassie Tiger was on the skids and introduced a number of Tigers to the new park on the mainland.
There are numerous stories of a cryptozoological called the Wonthaggi monster which go back to at least the 50's. My brother has seen a scrapbook which was put together by a retired editor of the local newspaper. ( my brother lives and works in the area )
However most of the locals don't give much away nowadays, due to being talked down to by zoologists and they don't like people treking around causing havoc. But they do know the differeince between the way a fox eats a carcass and whatever else is eating things.