Sea-monster appeal & a worldwide holiday

It’s a monster, swimming right toward you!  It’s at least 50 feet long, with teeth that won’t quit, in a giant mouth you could stand upright in . . . briefly.  It’s “the biggest predator fish of all time”: a Megalodon!

But not to worry: this beastie has been extinct for 3.6 million years.  It lived ages before people, dinosaurs and even trees.  Its shark ancestors evolved 450 million years ago and survived four mass extinctions, including the one that killed most dinosaurs.

The question is, whether today’s sharks can survive the next mass extinction – the one caused by humans.

All of this is why New York’s American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) now features a shark exhibit, starring sharks prehistoric-to-present . . . with an uncertain future.  The Megalodon figured prominently in the long line of sharks (but, thank the power, not in our present-day waters).     

To simulate that frightful fish, the museum constructed a model of the first 30 feet of its length, with its giant head facing those entering the exhibit, which also includes more models, both moving and still images and text about sharks of all kinds in all history. 

(Reading about that “Meg model” in the works long ago fascinated me, prompting numerous references here to that fish, its kin and the museum’s shark exhibit.  In late July, I finally got there to see it all for myself: a thrill of a trip.) 

The exhibit’s interactive displays show (1) why sharks are such good swimmers (calling for equipment we don’t have: fins and a tail); (2) comparative danger to humans of sharks and other creatures (mosquitoes were clearly the most dangerous); (3) today’s three most dangerous-to-people sharks, who are behind most of the 10 or so annual deaths from shark bites; (4) what makes the great white shark so deadly; (5) how to fend off a shark. 

These days the shark to fend off would not be the whale shark, at 65 feet long, but the great white, now the biggest and most powerful predatory fish on earth.  Able to reach 21 feet in length, it comes with  about 300 huge serrated teeth and myriad killer skills.  

The saddest Q & A of the exhibit: why are sharks now endangered?  They’re killed as “bycatch” in nets and long lines; they’re killed for their fins that go into soup; and they’re killed through sport fishing, pollution and climate change.  A fate so horribly undeserved.  

(“Sharks” runs at the AMNH through Monday, Sept. 4, 2023 (Labor Day). Visit AMNH.org for details on the museum, its exhibitions and buying tickets.  Museum entrance requires a timed ticket, with an additional exhibit fee.)  

D.C. 'biter dog'

Poor Commander, the German shepherd who lives with the Bidens in the White House and the latest pet to have bitten people.  Was it his nature or his situation?  Will he be moved away for rehab and/or a calmer life?  Here’s what one columnist, cited here before, has to say about why dogs bite.   https://tinyurl.com/3au5strd

Arts & crafts 

I’ve seen art shows of objects made from trash or warfare memorabilia (“Trench Art”!).  Now how about a new and plentiful material for creative people to work with: 3-oz. metal cat food cans?  They clatter around in a recycle bag before pick-up day, then they’re gone.

Given a second life (after all, cats have nine of them), what could these cans become or be used for?  Could they somehow provide enjoyment -- beyond what their contents have already done?

If you can make it happen, please do.  Send me a photo of your creation made from cat food cans and I may show it here.  

Home boys

Two kids who know and love the sound of a cat-food can being opened are Billy and Jersey Summers.  And beyond that, they love the cans’ contents, both their own and each other’s. 

Jersey, for instance, seems to know from another floor when I’ve left the kitchen or even turned my back on the two bowls in different corners.  Suddenly, he’s working out on whatever Billy had left for a return visit.  

And Billy will casually saunter over to nose around in Jersey’s bowl, ostensibly on his way from the water bowl.   “So it goes”. . .    

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