Despite all the thrift/antique stores, miles of pristine coastline, and widow's walks that Maine has to offer, the stars of the show last weekend were the roadside lupins, which kept us ooooohin' and ahhhhhin' for hours. If you're going to be on up in Deer Isle, ME in a few weeks, check out the 9th Annual Lupine Festival from June 18-20th. You can stay with Dennis at the Deer Isle Hostel. More to come on that magical place in the next few days..
Cattails
It's spring y'all, and that means lots of edible things along the trail. One of the more common (aka easy to identify) is the cattail. Peal back a few layers of the shoot, cut em up and you'll have yourself a damn fine addition to your pasta/instant mashed potatoes/rice/etc etc. Watch an "expert" show you how here.
Devils Hole Pupfish
The Devils Hole Pupfish's only natural habitat is in the 93 degree waters of Devils Hole, located within the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nye County, Nevada, a detached unit of Death Valley National Park. Although the cavern is over 400 feet deep, the pupfish, a 22-thousand-year-old species, is believed to spawn exclusively on a shallow rock shelf just under the waters surface. By the fall of 2006, an estimated 38 fish remained in the wild. Since 2007, the population estimates have started to swing upward. The fall 2008 count was estimated at 127 fish; the first time triple digits have been estimated since 2004, and the first three year upward trend since 1996.Watch: PBS' Life In Death Valley
Ghost Deer
The albino deer, or "ghost deer," of northern Wisconsin are documented on a Wisconsin Public Television episode that you can watch in full here. The deer are protected from hunting by Wisconsin law and are somewhat of a mythical creature around those parts. Rightfully so.Thank you Mr. Alvarez of Backpacker's Daily Dirt.
The Color Of Dinosaurs
Until last week, paleontologists could offer no clear-cut evidence for the color of dinosaurs. Thanks to melanosomes, researchers have provided evidence that a dinosaur called Sinosauropteryx had a white-and-ginger striped tail. Melanosomes are pigment -loaded sacs that survive for millions of years in fossil bird feathers. The shape and arrangement of melanosomes help produce the color of feathers, so scientists are now able to get clues about the color of fossil feathers from their melanosomes alone. The discovery, which the researchers reported last week in Nature, supports research showing that birds are dinosaurs, having descended from a group of bipedal dinosaurs called theropods. More at the NYT.