Gordon Grice's Blog, page 60

Great White Shark Misses Seal

Perched on the jaws of death: Moment a seal dodges great white shark... | Mail Online: 


"The shark slightly misjudged its attack which resulted in the poor seal being finely balanced on the nose of the predator.


The amazing scene was captured by South African wildlife photographer Chris Fallows near Seal Island, which is home to an estimated 64,000 seals and a group of great white sharks which hunt them."

Thanks to Croconut for the tip. 

Assassin Bug versus Spider

The assassin bug, itself a formidable predator, usually succeeds in defending itself with its repugnant scent. Here, it falls victim to an orb-weaving Argiope spider.


Photography by D'Arcy Allison-Teasley

Tiger Mauls Wildlife Filmmaker

Controversial naturalist and filmmaker John Varty has been mauled by a tiger in the unlikely location of South Africa. Varty keeps tigers there as part of a bizarre conservation effort. 


The clip above, from a Varty film, shows some fascinating behavior, as a rock python eats a leopard cub--and then has to deal with its mother. 

Tiger Mauls Wildlife Filmmaker John Varty - Yahoo! News: 


"A South African conservationist and filmmaker known for daring photography of wild animals is in intensive care after he was attacked by a tiger on his private game reserve.


John Varty, 61, is on a ventilator recovering from surgery for his injuries, including several puncture wounds and two broken ribs.  A spokesperson at his Tiger Canyons reserve described it as a "bad attack," but was hopeful he would be able to make a full recovery."


Thanks to Jim Twiggs for the news tip. 

Polar Bear Breaks into Houses

No humans hurt in this incident from Newfoundland, but there were some duck-related tragedies. 


Newfoundland Polar Bear Attack: Animal Shot Dead After Attacking Homes, Livestock: "He said the bear beat in doors and broke windows at three other homes, and killed some sheep and ducks at a nearby stable without stopping to eat.


At one home, the bear "just broke the windows out of each side of the house and went on," he said. "It seemed like he was in a bad mood.""

Grice's Cougars on The Book Depository

We're just days away from the launch of Deadly Animals in the UK, and The Book Depository was kind enough to let me write about the book's beginnings. I'll paste on extract below, but follow the link for the whole article. 


Rooooooaaaaaarrrrrrr: 


"Victorian writers had no doubt that cougars were dangerous to humans. Some of their accounts, like an 1860 bit of fiction by Harriet Prescott Spofford, reek of melodrama. Spofford's "Indian devil," as the animal was often called at the time,has "breath like a vapor from some hell-pit." It stands in for Satan himself, causing the heroine trapped in its claws to engage in all manner of theology before escaping. (If you ever find yourself trapped in the claws of a cougar, a better strategy is to gouge the eyes. Eye-gouging beats theology every time.) Nonetheless, Spofford's story reveals some understanding of real cougars. She knew, for example, that a cougar can lick the skin from its prey with its "rasping tongue." And there are true accounts from that era, including one from the meticulous Charles Darwin, attesting that cougars occasionally ate people."

More Hand-Wringing from Florida: Gambian Pouched Rats

The latest animal invasion reported from Florida has been launched by the dreaded Gambian pouched rat. Surely a big rodent is no problem if you have plenty of pythons on hand?


Giant, nine-pound Gambian rats invading Florida Keys | The Sideshow - Yahoo! News:


"Gambian pouched rats are the largest known breed of rats in the world. They can grow up to three feet in length and weigh as much as nine pounds. Wildlife officials fear that if the large-sized rodents make it to the Florida mainland, they could devastate local crops if they reach the Florida mainland.


The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been working with Florida officials to wipe out the rodents, and there are only an estimate few dozen at large, but they can reproduce quickly and do so only five months after being born. "

Black Rat Snake

Another sign of spring: first rat snake sighting. 




Photography by Dee Puett.

Chinese Animal Attacks: Wolf or Feral Dog?

Wolf or Husky?
Wolves or feral dogs have apparently attacked at least seven people in China's Shandong Province. Two people are dead. Wolves are common in the province, though attacks on humans aren't. Police killed one wolf, but no one seems to believe it was responsible for any of the attacks. Another animal, pictured above, has been captured; police believe it is a wolf, but a man has come forward to claim it's his pet husky. Experts will test it to be sure. While all this has gone on, however, people continue to suffer attacks. 

Shandong sees another wild animal attack - China.org.cn: "Of the seven attacks in Zaozhuang city, 2 people have died with another 5 injured. In nearby Linyi City, a one-year old boy was hospitalized after being bitten by an animal that has been described as wolf-like."


A five-year-old victim of the mystery animal

Death Stories: Fossils

Ah, Lightning! How many times the shoals of terrified dolphins and the huge tuna were seen to flee before your cruel fury, to escape; while your fulminations raised in the sea a sudden tempest with buffeting and submersion of ships in the great waves; and filling the uncovered shores with the terrified and desperate fishes which fled from you, and stranded, remained to become the abundant prey of the people in the neighbourhood. . . How many kings, how many nations have come undone since the wondrous forms of this fish perished here in this cavernous and winding recess. Now destroyed by time, it lies patiently in this confined space with bones stripped and bare, serving as a support and prop for the superimposed mountain.
 -- Leonardo a Vinci

I made an appointment with a man who was said to know about the archaeology of the region. He had been there when the mummies came out of the caves some sixty years before. He had dug for some of them himself. It was said he had written on the subject, though he had never found a publisher. He was said to have a collection of artifacts.
Local people told me I should interview the man before it was too late. His only pleasures in life, they said, were ringing the church bell Sunday mornings and showing off his fossils. It was five in the evening when I reached his driveway, and the man's wife rushed out the door to remonstrate with me for my tardiness, though in fact I was on time. She was a second wife, a seventy-year-old bride a generation younger than her husband.
She brought me inside, her talk all hurry and worry. She wore a cardigan and a long skirt that whipped in the wind until she wrestled the screen door shut. Barrettes ordered her gray hair. She brought me into the living room and hurried the old man in to meet me. His eyes were rimmed with a boiling pink, his skin spotted. He wore an oxygen tube, itself yellowed with age; his wife pushed the cylinder beside him on wheels as she urged him on. His shirt was buttoned off-kilter. The woman arranged us on a love seat so that I was on his right, next to his good ear. His memory was uncertain, but I gleaned a few of the details I wanted. Dusk came on as we talked; the single floor lamp lit only the far side of the man's face, so that he faded out of my sight and became merely a silhouette and a smell of age.

The Crossing (from Gilgamesh)

In the Boatman's barge repose
living things of stone.
I seize the barge,
I fight the writhing things I find within,
I feel their venomous saliva on my hands
as they turn and turn within my grip,
as they try to strike. I bend them to my will.
I pin their wings behind their backs.
I kneel and trap a writhing heart
beneath my knee. The Boatman
surrenders to my will.
He takes me across wide waters;
we move the barge with shafts
I've cut from the ancient cedars,
the wood white within the bark
and red within the white.
The splinters scratch my hands.
We cross the waters
no one can cross.

"Show him your collection before he goes," the woman said.
The man rose, supporting himself on a cane and my arm; his wife hovered with advice. They led me to an alcove, separated from their living room by a curtain.
"These are fossils he's dug up over the years," she said.
I cast my eye over the collection, which occupied a whatnot shelf and a dresser and a few adjacent bits of furniture. There were trilobites in shale; a geode sawn in half to show its crystals; a huge water beetle, obviously contemporary, pressed into tar. I had seen these tarred beetles sold as fossils at roadside stands; the seller could manufacture more when his inventory ran low.
"I found this one last week," he said. I fingered the scrap of bone he handed me. It was, I thought, a beef-bone; my fingernail detected the scorings left by a sloppy butcher. "It was in our driveway," he added. He rotated his entire body ten degrees to his left, a laborious movement that seemed to have no immediate purpose.
"What's this one?" I asked.
"Which one?" he said.
"That's an Indian's foot," the woman said, handing me the oblong stone. "He was going along, probably running away from a dinosaur, when he stepped in some lava. The dinosaur probably ate the rest of him, but his foot was preserved in the lava."
"I got six of these," he said. "Where are those other feet?" His eyes tried to scan the shelves, but only twitched ineffectually. The woman's veined hands flittered over the shelves like moths and came to rest on another vague lump of stone.
"That must have happened pretty often, then?" I said.
"Yeah," he said. "That's why the good Lord killed off the dinosaurs before the white man got here. To make it safe for us."
"Praise the Lord," she said.

Mary Magdalena and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought aromatic spices to embalm the body of Jesus. Early in the morning the day after the Sabbath, they came to the sepulchre at sunrise. And they said among themselves, who shall roll away the stone that seals the sepulchre? For it was a heavy stone. But when they looked, they saw the stone already aside.

They entered the sepulchre and saw a young man sitting to the right. He wore a long white robe. They were afraid. He said to them, "Don't be afraid. You're looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was killed on the cross. Look where they laid him out: He's not there. He has risen.

"Now go and tell his disciples and Peter that he's gone before you into Galilee. There you'll see him, as he promised."

They rushed out; they fled from the sepulchre, trembling and amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Mark 16:1-8

Yellowstone: Report on Man Eaten by Grizzlies

Site of last year's fatal attack
Michigan Man Fatally Mauled By Grizzly In Yellowstone National Park Tried To Defend Himself | National Parks Traveler:


"A father and daughter out hiking the trail the following day found his body, which had been cached under duff and debris, a common practice of bears intent on returning to a kill.


"I was hiking a little in front of my dad," the young woman wrote in a statement she provided rangers. "The trail started to go into some timber and there were five or six birds circling above the area. I climbed over a log that was across the trail and that is when I saw a plastic clear drink container with some pink liquid in it and what I thought was a backpack.


"As I got closer I realized there were boots sticking out, legs, and the upper part of the body was covered with dirt," the unidentified woman continued."


Thanks to Croconut for the news tip.