on Honours

For You who give me the chance to learn more.


الحمد لله

the strange Wee Quacker

Have you ever heard of dolphins that can turn their head 180 degrees? Ni bukan by swinging the whole body but just neck-head toleh?
Haaaa how cool kan.


Because they're unfused, the neck vertebrae is flexible so they get to toleh2.

Oh, and people say good things come in a package kan.
Beat this; they have a brain capacity 40% larger than that of humans, andddddd they're pink in colour too!

http://www.bigtravelweb.com/images/amazon-river-dolphin-l.jpg


http://www.sea-way.org/blog/AmazonDolphin2.JPG


Meet the Amazon River Dolphin Inia geoffrensis :)
also known as the Bufeo, Boto, Boutu, Tonina, Nay, Pink River Dolphin, Wee Quacker, Encantado, Boto Vermelho and byk lagi malas nk type dah.

the humble roamers of the sea

look, and appreciate.

click http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/5/59/20070810162038!Cetaceans.svg for a bigger picture

how diverse is this Order of animal kannn.

one of the courses I take this semester covers topics relating the marine mammals, reptiles and birds. 2/3 of the lecture contents dealt with cetaceans only, and really, we barely even scratched the surface.


my favourite is those Narwhals, always have been.

picture by Paul Nicklen (duhhh who else captures better in the Arctic than him?)

These Arctic whales Monodon monoceros pretty much own the ocean floor of the Arctic. Such stunners with the male donning a beautiful spirally twisted ivory tusk (macam those you see on Unicorn, only that now it's real) on its head. If you watch The Arctic Tale, look out for them.


And now that I have 32 lecture notes on them to read before I kick ass in my exam on the 9th, please excuse me for now :)

bleurgh

Did I hear you asking how my last day of lecture went?

Not good.
Lecture ended with an inspiring talk by our Craig Franklin 'the North/South Pole guy' at 12pm. Went to the city with Kathy and tried to cheer the sad soul with EasyWay and Krispy Kreme but nahh. Not working.

us and our temporary happiness


I tried to extend the day by working in my glowworm lab until 7pm before Dave gave me that 'grab-something-to-eat-and-get-some-rest-already' look and shuuhhh-ed me out of his precious glowing lab.

After that hati bertambah gloomy....

and gloomy...





and gloomy.





ahaha HAPPY je lah
You have no idea how excited I am for Honours and all the possibilities ahead :)




we're not done learning about the animals yet!

what a beauty

This picture may appear to you as a cluster of 12 random plots that makes absolutely no sense.



To me, it screams satisfaction :)

A to L are individual records of my baby glowworms' glow intensity over 20 days.
Yes, when I say baby, I mean baby. I'm talking makan bersuap, tidur berteman and panas ber-hydrated here. Hehe.

There are lots of good memories along with it too.
As much as I hate labworks, these cute lil buggers never fail to get me smiling everytime they glow at night.
One word there is to describe;
Subhanallah.

I may not work with them anymore next year coz I've got the koala conservation project on the table.
Then again, I MIGHT. We'll see.

Good thing about them is money flows in for research as their popularity amongst tourist is pretty intense.

roasted zoology 14 (updated)

Let's talk about dung beetles for once and shovel aside all the other vertebrates I've been mentioning all these while. These amazing, often forgotten creatures deserve as much attention I must say. Dung beetles are decomposers; and what that means is that they are recyclers. One of the very few in the animal community that care enough to recycle the dung every other animals (including us) produce everyday. Without these little fella, the world would be... trust me, you don't wanna know :P


They can be rollers, diggers, burrowers; all in which the dung is effectively recycled and nutrients are made available once again to the soil. Some eat and breed in them, while other acquaintance may just roll them to ball-shaped for breeding purpose.

Point is, without them, the ecosystem would be grilled.

We often talk so highly on the animals that look far more appealing that we forget these mini soldiers. Hence for this month and all the other months in fact, I announce my blog to be dung beetle friendly!
LOL.
What the hell, Ami?

*Second picture is a set up of our pitfall trap, designed to collect dung beetle samples. Data obtained educate us with their species diversity and distribution across different habitat types.

my October 30th

Today is a beauty.
Instead of driving back home from the glowworm lab at 1230am as I did last night, I found myself showered and fully lying on the bed at 6pm, looking at the ceiling trying to crawl myself into a nap. Failed so screw that. Had my nice dinner still, chatted with my fellow housemates and back here.

Right now I'm feeling nervous. I feel excited yet nervous.

Tomorrow is gonna be important.
Attending the last lecture of my life as an undergrad. I know I'm still gonna be at uni most of the time next year for Honours still but that is a different chapter. I'm thrilled to graduating soon, at the same time hating the fact that I'm not ready to leave this phase of my life just yet.

You must know thou, my lectures are unlike yours. The way I see them is different. As everyone else growl to the thoughts of 50minutes intelligence crap session, mine is equivalent to those story telling bit you thirst for more as it ended.

We study whales and how their muscles dance to them diving for krill.
We look at cheetah and its thousand different gait postures.
We learn how taking one species out of the ecosystem, be it its the smallest learn concerned species of all, can cause a major drama to the system as equally as all the other more prominent creatures.

Point is, I look forward to hearing them, which i see as a bliss when you learn the things you're passionate about. And the fact that I love to ask questions and argue about it makes for a good laughable tormenting lecturers sessions.

So can I afford to have this thing I classify as privilege taken away from me after 3 years of fun exploration?
NO :(

I guess I have to prepare myself mentally.
At least for tomorrow. Everyone turned so emotional and gloomy whenever someone (dumb enough) pointed out 'Guys, this is our freaking last week of lectures!'. What? Can you make our life any more miserable now? Hish.

Or maybe, just maybe.
Skip all those 'preparing myself mentally' crap and crash undergrad's zoology lectures next year every now and then to get my dosage of drug *light bulb blink blink*

So yea, we'll see how my 30th October 2009 goes.

I'll make a scene and cry like hell if I need to. Or channel the sadness to camwhoring with fellow coursemates I know I'll be missing like hell.

I'll make it special anyhow coz that date is gonna stick in my memory case forever :)