At this recent post, I shared a picture of an albino alligator. (Or perhaps it was a colorless crocodile-- I can't keep them straight.) Anyway, I just found a photo of what might be its natural prey:

Cute and creepy at the same time, hunh? (Coincidentally, that's how my wife describes me.)

I sort of like how the reflected light in its left gives a zombie look. Bambi, by way of George Romero!

Natural horror

Just over a week ago, I heard the horrible news of the flooding of the Meramec River in Missouri and the White River in Arkansas, The news brought back a lot of painful memories. In '93, I lived in St. Louis, and the Mississippi flooded much of the metro area. Friends and neighbors lost property, businesses shut down, and transportation was difficult. The Meramec flooded nearby communities west of St. Louis at that time. Here's a typical photo of much of the metro area:


The recent flooding news in Arkansas had a personal connection. My father grew up on a bluff overlooking the White River, in a town called Calico Rock. Many relatives and friends of the family grew up in the area. Many are still there. So the news saddens and horrifies me.

I grew up in a town about 30 miles away, called Mountain Home. They recently got a foot of rain in 24 hours, and more rain the next day; my brother's house suffered damage.

In my e-mail I got some photos and video showing how powerful and destructive a force water can be. Here's two, showing a small shack or large appliance floating downstream, (hard to tell, the perspective is from a low bluff), a reminder that someone was experiencing loss and misery:



This business was ruined:


Here is the video of the house that was carried away and demolished by a collision into a bridge:



I like this blog to be fun, and this is definitely waaay into no-fun territory. But sometimes, pain and trouble just pushes into life, and you might as well acknowledge what parts are fascinating, if sad. And the mystery of water, and how powerful it can be, fascinates me.

Seeing those photos and video brought back every anxious and scary memory that's associated with water that I have from childhood: my father telling of going "canoodling", when he was a boy, along the river bank (that's reaching into an underwater hole to grab a fish)-- and how a friend of his lost a finger to a snapping turtle that way. Seeing images of a corpse in water in the films "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and "The Tingler" (the former in a late-night viewing at age 4 with my mother, and the latter in "Famous Monsters" magazine.)


And seeing in "My Weekly Reader" this famous image and wondering what might lurk in our local lake, Lake Norfork:

To tell the truth, despite being a nervous and anxious little kid, I didn't let my imagination keep me from swimming in the lake! Just not by myself.

As a kid, I thought we were protected from floods, because I heard adults mention that we lived in a "dry county"!

That reminds me-- I think I need a drink.

One more thing...

...the "thing" being another cool (and ghostly-looking) reptile!

I forgot that I had in my files a picture of an albino alligator. I had found it somewhere on the 'net; I forget where. But there it is.

I hope that the thing winds up taxidermied when it passes away (if it's still alive). I have fond memories of seeing "Big Arkie," a 13 foot, 500 pound alligator that was big attraction at the Little Rock Zoo when I was a child; I remember seeing him both alive and when he was dead, because when Big Arkie died in 1970 he was stuffed and put back on display at the zoo for another few years.

At the time of his death, he was thought to be the largest alligator in captivity in the western hemisphere. He'd been caught in 1952 in a flooded pasture near Hope, Arkansas.

His body, seen below, is now in a university reference collection in Arkansas and is no longer on display to the public. But a lot of Arkansans, and former Arkansans like me, sure have vivid memories of the big hulk.

Photo by Dr. Stanley E. Trauth

Now THIS would make a great pet!

This very large cane toad was found a few years ago in Australia, one of the biggest ever seen. About as big as a small chihuahua, it was dubbed "Toadzilla". I think it would make a great pet!

I've always been fascinated with weird beasties. The denizens of the amphibian, reptile, and insect worlds, being cold-blooded and hairless, are so fundamentally alien. I kept pet turtles as a kid, my older brother had snakes.

As a horror movie-loving kid, I was fascinated by the poster below when it was put in the COMING SOON window of the local theater:

When I was a small child, my grandparent's house had some concrete steps in back, and the bottom step had a hole in it. A toad lived in that hole for some time and as a kid I wondered if that toad would ever lunge out at me if I got too close to the hole.

The little guy seen in the photo below looks like he would. This toad was seen at the American Dime Museum in Baltimore. When the ADM closed last year, it sold off most of its collection of oddities. I could not afford to buy anything in their online auction, but I sure found a wealth of images. Alas, my computer crashed later and all my ADM images but one-- this one below-- were lost.


The stuffed-and-embellished toad above would truly be a cherished pet in my home. It's perfect: nice to look at, easy to care for, and makes no noise. No muss, no fuss!

An account of visiting the American Dime Museum, complete with another picture of the terrible-toothed horny toad, can be found here.

And a recent news about the discovery of the fossilized remains of a giant "devil toad" (complete with artist's rendering) can be found by clicking here.









While you're wearing out your finger checking out links , go here and here to see some photos of some dazzlingly odd, cannibalistic, real horned frogs!

My kinda Easter egg

Found this image at another blog, and traced it to the Flickr photos of "bcompetent". It delighted me-- I like the artistic talent and whimsy seen in the photo!

Holiday wishes

Hope your basket of gaily-colored caviar lacked toxins! My sympathies if it didn't!