Quickie
Just a quick post, which will probably will turn to length by the end though...
I had a roll of film processed yesterday from our honeymoon and on it were these pics of this thing...
This is its belly/underneath
This is the topside
Apparently this is a lungfish, hope I got that right.
Any way when I first spotted it I wasn't sure what the heck it was. I was quite a distance away when I noticed this white thing flapping and floundering around in the shallows of the bay we were moored in.
I had taken the row boat to explore and came accross this thing about 100 meters away. The bay was very shallow so I didn't want to go too close as I might've beached myself on the sand/mud.
After watching it awhile I edged closer to get a better look and from where I was it looked like a bird stuck in the mud in the last thoes of its life. But it really didn't seem like a bird, I couldn't see a head.
Next I thought it was a white turtle, flapping around, stuck or something.
So I edged closer and closer until I could finally discern that it was like a giant poached egg and that it had flap-like things all the way around it. I decided that it kind of looked like a sting ray or similar, perhaps upside down. Well it was hard to tell and silly me didn't take my camera with me so after watching for quite a while and thinking that it was probably just playing or searching for food I rowed back to the boat.
D came back from fishing about an hour later and wanted to check for yabbies in the sand flats and I told him about this thing so we went for a row, I remembered to bring my camera and took these photos. We approached the big white poached egg thing and discovered that it was some type of ray without the long tail. It looked odd all white and puffy and there was a hole in it, I think some birds had had a go at it.
So D being a curious male prodded this thing with the yabbie pump and it gave him an electric shock! Quite a jolt too by all accounts. He certainly didn't want to venture any further than that. After I regained my composure from laughing at his folly I coerced him into using a stick to flip it over and after a few amusing attempts he succeeded and then I wanted him to wash it to which I was looked at rather strangely. It was really dirty and I wanted to get a good photo of it for record and identification later. I ended up using the bucket we had in the row boat (for the yabbies of which there weren't any) and standing a safe distance away doused it a couple of times with the little water we were able to scrounge from the shallows. It came to life again, flapped a bit and breathed a couple of times revealing its gills and eyes of which I'm sure the life was fading from. Poor thing. So after getting the best shot on the last frame of film we left the creature to its last breaths. RIP lungfish.
D's Lessons Learned:
1. Don't prod or poke unidentified creatures with metallic objects
2. Use a decent stick
3. Do explore and discover, safely, it can be interesting and rewarding.
I had a roll of film processed yesterday from our honeymoon and on it were these pics of this thing...
This is its belly/underneath
This is the topside
Apparently this is a lungfish, hope I got that right.
Any way when I first spotted it I wasn't sure what the heck it was. I was quite a distance away when I noticed this white thing flapping and floundering around in the shallows of the bay we were moored in.
I had taken the row boat to explore and came accross this thing about 100 meters away. The bay was very shallow so I didn't want to go too close as I might've beached myself on the sand/mud.
After watching it awhile I edged closer to get a better look and from where I was it looked like a bird stuck in the mud in the last thoes of its life. But it really didn't seem like a bird, I couldn't see a head.
Next I thought it was a white turtle, flapping around, stuck or something.
So I edged closer and closer until I could finally discern that it was like a giant poached egg and that it had flap-like things all the way around it. I decided that it kind of looked like a sting ray or similar, perhaps upside down. Well it was hard to tell and silly me didn't take my camera with me so after watching for quite a while and thinking that it was probably just playing or searching for food I rowed back to the boat.
D came back from fishing about an hour later and wanted to check for yabbies in the sand flats and I told him about this thing so we went for a row, I remembered to bring my camera and took these photos. We approached the big white poached egg thing and discovered that it was some type of ray without the long tail. It looked odd all white and puffy and there was a hole in it, I think some birds had had a go at it.
So D being a curious male prodded this thing with the yabbie pump and it gave him an electric shock! Quite a jolt too by all accounts. He certainly didn't want to venture any further than that. After I regained my composure from laughing at his folly I coerced him into using a stick to flip it over and after a few amusing attempts he succeeded and then I wanted him to wash it to which I was looked at rather strangely. It was really dirty and I wanted to get a good photo of it for record and identification later. I ended up using the bucket we had in the row boat (for the yabbies of which there weren't any) and standing a safe distance away doused it a couple of times with the little water we were able to scrounge from the shallows. It came to life again, flapped a bit and breathed a couple of times revealing its gills and eyes of which I'm sure the life was fading from. Poor thing. So after getting the best shot on the last frame of film we left the creature to its last breaths. RIP lungfish.
D's Lessons Learned:
1. Don't prod or poke unidentified creatures with metallic objects
2. Use a decent stick
3. Do explore and discover, safely, it can be interesting and rewarding.
posted by ness at Thursday, June 15, 2006
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