Speaking of which, how did you like that New Yorker article?

I still haven't read it. Study still has first claim on my free time. I'll probably get to it this weekend.

The zoo guy thought the giant octopus was dead. Evidentally they had another octopus that laid eggs and then was dying so he just assumed the shy octopus was dead. Until the zoo chick that was feeding the natiluis told him that no that the octopus wasn't dead.

That's just odd. Yes, octopi die shortly after their eggs hatch. This isn't really transferable to an obviously young specimen with nary an egg in sight.

Seeing the natiluis (which I can't spell and am too lazy to look up) being fed was really really neat. Plus they move really cool.

This is true. The chambered nautilus' shell basically grows with the nautilus, and as it grows, it seals off previous chambers and only lives in the outermost bit. But there are small holes in the centres of the internal walls, allowing the critter to pump water in and out of the chambers and thus control their buoyancy. Neat trick.

Why don't I remember you in the invertebrate house? Well I did get kind of seperated from the group when I went in one direction and found the poems to Hissing Cockroaches written by kids.

Hee. I saw the hissing roaches (kind of a staple of invertebrate houses), but didn't notice the poems. I can get a bit tunnel visioned around zoos. I did, however, see the bird-eating spider, who was indeed a big bugger.

In one aquarium they had sea urchins -- okay in more than one aquarium they had sea urchins-- but in this particular one there was an urchin on the side of the glass with his tentacles out feeding.

Oh yeah, that was cool. I got a photo of it, though I'm not sure how it turned out.

Nautilus, I think.

They were wicked cool.

The spiders (not behind glass!) squicked. me. out.

The great apes were, IMO, less interesting, overall

KristinT "F2F 2: Is there anybody here that hasn't slept together?" May 26, 2004 7:31:57 pm PDT

is the post, billytea. We're floating dates and I'm going to try to get a bullshit consensus on the best one. The gathering is at my house in East Lyme, CT. If anyone flies, they should fly into Hartford (airport code BDL), which is a 45 minute drive. I can certainly pick people up, since I'm sure there will be extra cars about for any little field trips we can take.

The aquarium isn't huge, but it's very nice. There's also a beluga whale encounter as well as a penguin encounter. There's also the Mystic Seaport, a living history museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, Foxwoods and Mohegon Sun (big casinos), many small museums such as Lyman Allen and the Florence Griswold Museum (which is considered, btw, the birthplace of American impressionistic painting), Six Flags (about an hour away by car), many beaches and beautiful state parks, and tons of live theater, including at least one Shakespeare in the Park performance. And? Lots more that I'm too tired to find links for. In other words, tons to do.

We can also sit on our butts, play bocci ball, frisbee, volleyball, or go to the movies.

I'm going to wait a few days to get more feedback on which days might work (again, please email me if you're interested), but right now July 31-Aug. 1 looks like it's leading.

Whee! Buffista party!

Six Flags (about an hour away by car)

Gee, and look at this, me with a annual pass that works at any Six Flags park.

The late August date is the only one I absolutely could not make.

I did not see the bird eating Spider. I did see an exhibit with lots of spider webs, but I think that was when I wasn't feeling well.

Tomorrow I'm taking my cameras to get developed and the pictures on disc and I'll put them up on my yahoo photo page as soon as I can.

I can't make any of them, if I want to go to Maine, and have Nilly visit time, since I will be out of vacation time.

This makes me sad.

What other amusement parks are in that area? By area I mean I'll drive up to 4 or 5 hours to get to one. I'm thinking if the dates work out right I might need to take a week off and hit a few and then hit the Par-Tay in the midst of all that.

The spiders (not behind glass!) squicked. me. out.

They're actually pretty cool. Orb spiders rebuild their web every single day, and eat the old one to recycle it. IMagine having to reconstruct that every morning.

BTW, someone asked about how spiders evolved the ability to spin webs. I found out some more info; from the fossil record, it seems that spiders first developed silk to make egg sacs. At this time, no insects flew, so they didn't need webs to catch prey, they just ran it down or ambushed it. The ability to produce silk then evolved to allow a spider to anchor itself to a given point; so when it jumped after prey, it could return to its hideout by climbing the silk instead of having to take a potentially longer route. As more and more insects developed flight, leaving the lines strung up between landing points meant spiders could occasionally catch a few insects wihtout even trying. From there, developing the webs we know today is just a matter of refinement.

One of my favourites is the bolas spider, which doesnt' spin a web. Instead, it produces just a single line, with a sticky blob at the end. Then it swing it about its head and tries to whack passing insects with it. (To make sure it has insects to whack, it emits a pheromone mimicking the smell of a female moth.) I like to imagine them wearing jaunty caps, and possibly speaking with a French accent.

(would it be appropriate to post a quick note in Beep Me or Press to alert people who might be interested in this gathering but who aren't following this thread?)