Swimming with Jellyfish

Photographer Nana Trongratanawong shot an amazing video of the Jellyfish Lake in Palau.



Swimming in this lake was definitely the most memorable experience I had during my diving trip in Palau back in 2003. The jellies were firmer than what I expected: plumper than a jello shot, but not as firm as a rubber ball. The feeling of them bouncing off my body underwater registered a new somatosensory sensation in the parietal lobe of my brain. So strange yet addictive.

One warning about visiting the Jellyfish lake: wash off the sunscreen in the ocean before hiking up to the lake. The lake is completely isolated, and the jellies and other organisms in the lake are sensitive to sunscreens and other chemicals. The amount of chemicals off one person may not be much, but it can accumulate as hundreds of people visit the lake each year. This is one of the most unique places on the planet, and we need to be responsible tourists in order to enjoy these wonderful places for decades and centuries.

Squirrel!

This is a video of a squirrel trying a nut in a dog's fur coat.

Platypus Videos

English is my second language, and I am still learning something new about the language everyday. One of the significant differences between Japanese and English is that Japanese does not have plural form of words; Japanese speakers use exact numbers of objects or use adjectives (such as words for several, many, a few, and some) to express the approximate quantity. Basically, in Japanese, people mention 'how many' only when it matters. English has a lot more rules for plural nouns. It would have been quite simple if all we had to was to affix 's' or 'es' to the end of the word. Some words do not have distinction between singular and plural while other words have odd plural forms.

Some, but not all, words with 'us' on the end gets 'i' for plural. Plural for platypus was amongst such strange and confusing plural forms. Is it platypuses or platypi? Dictionary.com shows both of them as plural for platypus but lists 'platypuses' first. Same for octopus. A version with 'i' is more widely accepted for cactus, fungus, and radius. Plural for goose is geese, but plural for mongoose is mongooses. This is nerve-racking.

For platypuses, or platypi (by the way, spell check on blogger does not like platypi), this odd rule suite well to the strange creatures. They are egg-laying mammals with venom. They are like the biggest rule breakers in animal kingdom. The rebels.

The word platypus comes from Greek word meaning "flat-footed." This is actually the most puzzling part; out of all the strange features this mammal has, why did anyone focus on their feet? How about their duck bills? The scientific name Ornithorhynchus anatinus comes from "bird-spout" and "duck-like."

Act Wild for Platypus


Platypus Parts

Kangaroo Video: How to Catch a Baby Kangaroo

The first time I saw the following video, I laughed harder than I should have. I wonder if this technique would work on other marsupials.

How to catch a kangaroo



I will be carrying a pillow case when I travel across Australia. Just in case.

Tree Kangaroo Videos

Lately, most of the animal videos I have been watching are from Australia. Here are tree kangaroo videos:

Tree Kangaroo Joeys


Tree Kangaroo Rescue

Magic for Dogs

The way dogs react to magic, disappearing treats, in the following video reminded me of my little niece when my husband tricked her to pull his finger for the first time.

Magic for Dogs

Wombat Videos

Sometimes I feel like I made a mistake moving to the United States and not to Australia. That thought is almost always triggered by watching cute Australian animals such as wombats.

Baby Wombat Running


Wild Animal Encounters - Ben Britton - Wombat


Playing with Baby Wombats


Man Cuddles with a Cute Wombat

Sloth Videos

How would it feel to eat only 6 grams of food a day and poop once a week? Sloths are programmed to naturally sustain slow life style which I sometimes envy. It is simply incredible that these creatures are not extinct following the path of ground sloths, their distant cousins. Being smaller and living in trees did the trick.

Videos de Perezosos
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Sloth and Cat
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