Wednesday, February 5, 2014

A mid-week flashback - Quickly! To the Mammaljet!

I've been a bit busier than usual the last couple of days*, but did not want to go another day without a Vizsla post, because it sends a bad message and is bad for America.  I'm thinking of the children here people.

*No, not just listening to the Lana Del Rey cover of Once Upon a Dream, even if it is eerie, aetherial, and haunting and worth the hours of time listening and who are you to judge me.

In any case.  Because I didn't want to go another day without checking in, here's a peek back at a post from Last August, aka before the sun died and left us to slowly sublime* back into vapor form.

*That's proper science there.  You're welcome, universe.

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Quickly! To the MammalJet!

If you're like me, and I know I am, then you'll have had your attention focused today on an announcement out of Washington D.C.

The zoological world is abuzz today (More than usual!*) over the discovery of a hitherto unknown mammal.

World, meet the Olinguito!**

*See what I did there?  Because of bees... and you know... other buzzing animals... oh never mind.  Honestly people, I give and I give..

** No relation to Lena Olin.  Or Ken, as far as I know, although to be honest I haven't really done the research on that one.

A smallish raccoon sized mammal that lives in the Andes mountains in Ecuador, it has previously been mistaken for it's cousin, the slightly larger Olingo.  I know - we're all mortified at having made such an obvious blunder.  I know I personally pride myself on my finely honed Olingo-Identifying skills.

Apparently, it was discovered thusly - Kristofer Helgen, the Smithsonian's curator of mammals, was looking through some drawers of dead mammals that he had laying around, when he realized that one of them wasn't an Olingo, but was in fact an entirely new and distinct species.  So he popped down to Ecuador to do a little research, found some, and determined that - yup - they were just different enough to count as a new species.  BINGO - New Mammal.  (Must remember to patent Bingo variant called 'Olingo' where you can play O's on either side...)

Let's take just a moment to note the ways in which Kris' job is more awesome than yours:

1:  He spends his days poking through drawers of preserved animal carcasses just for funsies.  (a little creepy, I admit.  But I'd take this over finance reports any day)

2:  It's within his remit to pop off to Ecuador just to check out a hunch.  ECUADOR.  There are days when I can't justify the three minutes it would take to go to the bathroom.  Kris goes to South America.  Your argument is invalid.

3:  His title is CURATOR OF F*CKING MAMMALS.  I apologize for the salty language there, but I felt like the emphasis was necessary.  This is his business card-

Unless you are the Cophrages Commissioner or the King of the Reptile People, Kristopher owns you.  Just accept it.

As a side note - normally I would have included a picture of the l'il critter (who is, I might add, cute as a button) but it's been brought to my attention that you're actually only supposed to use images that are either out of copyright or that you've paid for and so I'm already in the process of overhauling a LOT of earlier posts and don't need to add to the problem, thank you very much.

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