Photo: Plains zebra   (Wikipedia common license) 

Today is International Zebra Day which is to bring awareness and raise conservation efforts on the zebra and its vanishing habitats. 

The Zebra shares its genus with horses and asses.

There are 3 species of zebra alive today and they are the plains zebra, the Grevy's zebra and the mountain zebra. The plains zebra is the most common and perhaps the most well known.

All zebras alive today are found only in the southern half of the African continent.

Zebra stripes are unique to each zebra with no two being the same, rather like human fingerprints. No one can really say why they have stripes, some say for camouflage from lions others think it's to repel biting horse flies but no one knows for sure. 

A newly born foal can stand within six minutes of being born and can run within an hour of being born.

See below for more information on these amazing animals of the plains and mountains of Africa.

www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/zebra



KIDS CORNER

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWxnadQI5Qw


By Brendon Crook.

Photo by Brendon Crook. Bentson State Park, Mission TX


Peccaries, also know as Javelina are a pig like animal found throughout the Caribbean, Central America, large areas of South America and the south western parts of North America. 

Peccaries are distant relatives of the pig but are not of the same family and have very distinct differences. Even so they are referred to as New World pigs.

​There are 3 species of Peccary. The white-lipped peccary, the Chacoan peccary and the collared peccary. 

Peccaries mostly eat cactus, roots and seeds but will eat grubs and insects if they are available. They have adapted to being around humans and can be found in cities and agricultural areas. Living mostly in groups of 6-9 individuals a group of peccaries is called a Squadron. 

An interesting little animal that seem quite at peace with their surroundings.

If you would like to know more about peccaries I have included some links below:


​www.southwestwildlife.org/resident-animals/javelina/javelina.html

​rainforests.mongabay.com/kids/animal-profiles/peccaries_extended.html
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=HodNVdJDntg

​KID'S CORNER
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS2uhBzigz0
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kids.kiddle.co/Peccary



By Brendon Crook

Photo: Lichen on trees, Bentson State Park, Mission, TX.



Something that people see a lot of but perhaps don't give it much thought is lichen. 
Lichen is a composition of fungi and algae. They are not considered plants even though many resemble them with leaves and even branches. 

Lichen can grow on almost any surface and at nearly any elevation from sea level to mountain alpine regions and can even grow on other lichen. 

There are around 20000 known species that cover 6-8% of the Earth's land area.

Lichens are very long lived with an Arctic species dated at 8600 years old. 
Like the Tardigrades covered in a previous blog here they can also live in extreme conditions of heat and cold and have even been subjected to conditions in space with no ill effects. 

Although able to cope with such extreme conditions some lichen are sensitive to pollution as they have no roots and no way to filter what they absorb so if there are pollutants in the air it can accumulate in the lichen which can become toxic although not all lichen are sensitive to air pollution.

More information on lichen can be found on the links below. 

www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/beauty/lichens/about.shtml

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ_ZY57MY64

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​By Brendon Crook

January 6 is Alan Watts Day!

6 January 1915 - 16 November 1973

Alan Watts was a philosopher and popularizer of Eastern religions like Buddhism and Taoism, who wrote throughout the Fifties and Xixties. He wanted to bring Eastern ideas to the West, and perhaps did so more than anyone else prior to his time, and perhaps since. Most people associate him with Zen buddhism and other eastern religions, but in his later years he described himself as a Pantheist.
Watts described himself as "an unabashed pantheist" in his autobiography, In My Own Way. He wrote: “We are all unconscious pantheists, trying to grasp the moment, the Eternal Now, in its various forms, trying to identify God with something in the moment.” According to a recent collection of surveys at online pantheism discussion groups, Watts has been considered the favorite communicator and advocate of pantheism, followed closely by Carl Sagan and Eckhart Tolle. Although best known as a Zen Buddhist, his efforts to blend Christianity, mysticism, Taoism, and other Eastern philosophies is actually a form of modern Pantheism.

He said, “The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.... The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.”

His views led to a profound ecological awareness. He complained that “Civilized human beings are alarmingly ignorant of the fact that they are continuous with their natural surroundings.” He saw that in the same way that brains, hearts, lungs, and stomachs are our internal organs, the air, water, plants, insects, birds, fish, and mammals are our external organs."

He said, “The sun, the earth, and the forests are just as much features of your own body as your brain.”

Despite his association with Eastern religions, he centered his religious relationships directly in Nature, not with the writings of men. 

He often warned against what he considered spiritual charlatans. 

He said: “I wish that there was a way of putting a time-bomb into scriptures and records — not a time-bomb, but some kind of invisible ink, so that all scriptures would un-print themselves about fifty years after the master's death. And just dissolve.”

 Watts said “if you want to find out what is the spiritual, what is Buddha-nature, what is Brahman, what is Tao, the best way is to go directly to the physical world and find out: the physical world as you are it, and as everything around you is it; the immediate experience.”
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Read more about Alan Watts in this presentation:

http://www.pantheist.net/uploads/1/8/9/8/18984797/alan_watts_as_pantheist_-_a_presentation_by_harold_wood.pdf