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A Basic Bit of Glow Worm Biology

Sep 7th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
1 comment

This is pretty funny … someone came to my blog today to find out whether the poop of glow worms glows.
The answer is no – that’s because glow worms don’t poop. The glow that they make is their form of excretion. But rather than just launching solid or liquid waste, it converts the leftover matter into light that’s used to attract its prey. The glow worms dangle silky threads from their spots in their home caves. Insects see this and thinks they’re seeing stars, and fly toward the light. They get caught in the threads. Then the glow worms  eat them, absorb the nutrients, turn the excess matter into light and begin the cycle again.
Really, that’s pretty fabulous. It takes stuff in, but leaves nothing but heat and light behind. That’s an incredible bit of evolution. And certainly, it has to be the envy of every mechanical engineer.
If you’re interested in seeing glow worms, there are a number of places in the world to do so. Of course, I’m pretty partial to Waitomo, New Zealand. Here are a few related posts:
Rappelling into the Dark
7 Hotels in New Zealand
Rap, Raft & Rock

Help Animals While on Vacation – Utah’s Best Friends Sanctuary

Jul 30th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
2 comments

Few things get me down more than a sick or hurt animal. But few things get me cheering quicker than people who help animals in need. Travelers who help animals, then, really rank high up there for me.
Recently, a friend of mine got married at an amazing no-kill animal sanctuary in southern Utah. Best Friends Animal Society is home to about 2,000 animals – mostly cats and dogs, but some others, too: horses, birds (including wild raptors like the one to the right), livestock and more. My friend and her new husband made some time to volunteer after exchanging vows. Brilliant!
Best Friends animals come from all sorts of situations. Some are abandoned. Some are displaced by events like Hurricane Katrina. However they wind up there, the Best Friends staff and volunteers do their best to rehabilitate the animals and get them ready to be adopted. Others might be too sick or too old to be adopted – or may have physical or behavioral problems. In those cases, they stay at Best Friends, living among people who can care for them properly.
The sanctuary seems to thrive on visitors. There are four tours per day, seven days a week. And if you have a few spare hours on your vacation, the staff can find some way for you to help. The Web site says a lot of the animals have special needs, so any hand you can lend is sure to make a few creatures’ lives a bit better. You can contact the staff ahead of time to [...]

Possums and Parks – A Quick Visit to St. Louis

Jul 28th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
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 Back in the old days before I began keeping my blog, I had to visit St. Louis. My sister-in-law was graduating from Washington University (a beautiful campus – the sort that would feature in a Revenge of the Nerds-style movie) and the wife and I were off to see her into the professional world.
I should preface the rest by saying my brother J.D. also live near St. Louis. He says Missouri’s state motto is “Missouri: Love it or Leave It … hey, come back here!”
Well, our Southwest Airlines flight landed well into the nighttime hours. And I was famished since peanuts just don’t satisfy for that long. Once we got a cab from the airport to our near the university, our main objective was to find somewhere decent to eat in the Italian-flavored area known as “The Hill.”
So Sarah and I began walking. As we were walking past some homes, I saw the eyes of a little creature poking out from a hedge. I guessed it was a cat from its somewhat furtive movement.
Being a cat-friendly guy, I immediately “kittykittykitty”d in hopes of making a new furry friend. The creature advanced slightly, giving me a better look.
And let me tell you, this was the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen. “This poor thing needs a lot of petting to help its self-esteem,” I thought, running my gaze over its unusually beady eyes, it’s somewhat pointy snout and its disheveled, matted fur.
I heard Sarah yell at me “Justin, get away from that! [...]

Creature Feature – Coatis in Costa Rica

Jun 21st, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
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If you like things furry and four-legged, there’s a good chance you’ll run into a coati during your visit to Costa Rica. I didn’t know this until I arrived in Monteverde, a laid-back town in the mountains north of San Jose.
We showed up in Monteverde after the bruising ride from La Fortuna – the boat portion of the trip across Lake Arenal was fun, but after that? Forget about it. An exercise in brutality, it was – but that’s for another post.
After stashing our bags at La Colina, I was eager to walk around and get my equilibrium back. I filled up some water bottles and we began meandering about. Off in the distance near a trailhead, I saw a bunch of small creatures with their tails proudly thrust into the air. We were far away, and I assumed this was just some massive collection of house cats.
Being the cat-friendly guy that I am, I wanted to pet them. So I made the universal “kittykittykitty” noise. And the group turned to face me as one.
These were no cats! They had longer snouts and huge claws. But they trotted gamely up to us – clearly, visitors had not been heeding the signs that we began reading: DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. They quickly surrounded us, hoping for food. When they realized we were going to obey the signs, they wandered off.
Interestingly enough, coatis live far north, all the way into Arizona. They’ve been known to hang out east of Phoenix. I [...]

Move Over, Sheep: Rabbits Star at New Zealand’s Shearing Shed

Jun 15th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
3 comments

Really, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen someone shear a rabbit the size of a Shetland Sheepdog.
Okay, so that’s a slight exaggeration. But let’s see you visit The Shearing Shed in Waitomo, NZ, and be able to look away. All over New Zealand, locals will try enticing you into watching a sheep get shorn. I’m from the Old West, and this is Old Hat.
Shearing a huge bunny, though, is another bag of oats entirely.
We did this after a pretty full morning including caving. We were pretty hungry for something weird to do, and Waitomo isn’t exactly Wellington. Heck, it’s not even Nelson! The Shearing Shed was right near the road to Woodlyn Park, so we said “why not?”
The schedule seems sporadic, and we were just lucky to be there moments before a friendly woman clutching a white Andora rabbit seemed ready to get the party started. This is also when a busload of German uni students showed up.
That day’s shearer drew the drama out, explaining about the care and feeding and growth of the rabbits. Let me say, I am still amazed at the size of an Angora rabbit, and I’m certain the Kiwis are happy to read this. Anyway, these little creatures are pretty handy. They’re small for “livestock” but they grow enough fur to be utilitarian. The folks at the Shed sell their wool for other people to turn into useful items, and I believe they may produce a little of their own, too.
You can pick up all sorts [...]

Watch Wallabies and other Wildlife in Australia’s Top End

Jun 11th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
3 comments

Everyone has a reason for traveling – shopping, lying by the beach, sightseeing, sampling cuisine.
It seeing wildlife is the reason you book long-haul flights, put Australia high on your list. The entire continent is too much for most people to explore in a single trip – especially us Americans who struggle to get two weeks away from the cubicle. If you want to maximize the number of creatures you’ll see, there’s one place you need to visit: The Northern Territory, or Top End as it’s often known in Australia. It’s a real Australian travel experience you’ll always remember.
If you’ve seen Crocodile Dundee, you’ve caught a glimpse of the Northern Territory. It’s littered with towns bearing lyrical names like Humpty Doo and Jabiru, most derived from Aboriginal languages. Among its centerpieces is the Kakadu National Park,  measuring nearly 60 by 120
And each square mile of both the Top End and the Kakadu is overflowing with creatures of every size, shape and classification. The roads are rough. The distances are formidable. The routes are varying. And many of the creatures are fierece. That makes a guide a good idea. I highly recommend Wilderness Adventures.
During my time bouncing around the NT, here are some spots that yielded the best creature sightings (WARNING – mind your guides and everything they say about staying safe. Your life is on the line out there):

Corroboree Billabong

This place is absolutely crawling with crocs. You know you’re starting to get assimilated when you point one out to your travel buddies and [...]

Monkeys on the Prowl in Costa Rica

Jun 4th, 2009
by WanderingJustin.
4 comments

So picture sitting down to breakfast. You’re having a nice plate of eggs and some fresh fruit when a monkey comes bursting in through a window.
The sharp-eyed little guy, who might weigh about 10 pounds, surveys the situation. His finely tuned senses spot a bunch of bananas hanging from some sort of rack. Before you can even think to reach for your digital camera -and before anyone else can- he seizes a banana and slips back out the window.
Meanwhile, everyone else in the room, all 20 of you, abandons breakfast to see more of this brash little primate. He shimmies up a telephone pole, banana in hand, and crosses over the street via a telephone wire. There, he shares his banana bounty with the rest of his troupe while everyone snaps photos.
That’s Manuel San Antonio, Costa Rica, in a nutshell. Monkeys add even more flavor to a vacation than a bottle of Salsa Lizano.

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