January 12, 2018. The Rare and Endangered Blowhole Shark.

January 12, 2018.  The Rare and Endangered Blowhole Shark.  Loyal readers will recall my friend, Bob.  Bob sometimes looks in on the blog because he is old and retired and has nothing else to do.

Bob has always admired Annie.  He has known Annie as long as he has known me, over 50 years.  He has always thought I dated, then married above my station.  It hurts me to admit that he is right.  Bob has always been keenly intelligent and articulate.  He was and is one of the smartest people I have known.  I really don't recall him ever being wrong, so when he comes to Annie's defense, I listen.

Bob says Annie was correct when she identified what I called dolphins as sharks.  You will remember that I distinguished the dolphin from the shark by telling you that the big fish we saw had a blow hole and that sharks breathe through gills.

He tells me that he researched my theory and found it failing.  He says the literature describes a rare and endangered "blowhole shark."  According to Bob, it is classified as a shark even though it breathes through a hole in the top of its head.  He says there have been sightings of the blowhole shark off the beaches of Sanibel.  He also says it is an extremely dangerous man-eater and has been known to walk onto a beach standing upright and bouncing on its flipper.  The blowhole shark grabs a victim by the head with its conical teeth, then bounces back to the ocean.  There, he devours his prey.  He says Annie was right to be alarmed about the creature with the holey head shown above.

Bob was a much better student than I - everyone was - so, I am inclined to take his word for it.  There you have it.  I claimed that I was right and Annie was wrong.  Actually the reverse was true.  The pattern continues.  When will I learn just to say, "Yes, Dear."

I have talked about brumating alligators in other editions of this blog.  Brumation is akin to hibernation in gators.  Mammals hibernate and reptiles brumate.  The second picture shows a brumating gator with his snout punched through the ice so he can breathe.  He is no threat to the man holding his mouth shut.  His entire body is running on low voltage and he is essentially in a deep sleep.  I had never seen that before.  One of the local news channels posted a clip on its web page and what you see is a screen shot taken from the video clip.  Odd, huh?

Finally, there is a picture of Publix, a regional supermarket.  I include it as the only non-wildlife photo and because we have been there four times in two weeks.  It's a nice store, but I don't go there because it's nice.  I go because I am in the preliminary stage of my famous disgust diet.  I've explained that to you before.  It is when I eat everything I can find until I get so disgusted with myself that I firmly resolve to lose weight.  The second phase will kick in when we get home . . . if I don't go into a diabetic coma first.

I hope you had a good day.  Goodnight.