Tag: Tiger

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Tiger Salamander Show Down

Tiger Salamander Show Down
Tiger Salamander Show Down

Tiger Salamander Show Down

This is not a crop so it’s a BIG image for a salamander lol. This guy was a good 8 inches long and more or less happy in the water it was in. The hard part was getting him to stay still long enough to focus/click. He was hunting.

Brightly colored says “Stay away” as mouthing these guys will get your pets or kids sick. Even touching and then transferring it to your mouth can be detrimental to some individuals. Pretty much nobody bothers them but BIG one eyed (Cyclops to his perspective) photographers. IT had just rained probably wetting the crack he was in enough to entice him out to hunt. They are voracious eaters. I’ve found them along with toads by yard lights at night. The insects that are attracted to the light attract the Salamanders to the area.

Taken during the day is a rare thing for me to find them out. Usually not enough bugs out for them to attack. They go deep in the white season going torpid from the cold. Suspended animation.

An ancient heritage: Their development in the Late Carboniferous Period. An “Ancestor” started gulping shallow breaths of air with primitive lungs somewhere along the line. Eogyrinus (dawn tadpole) was a thin Crocodile (ish) critter that was fairly big at 15 feet in length. Modern Amphibians are distantly related to those early forms. The early paleontological developmental history is the topic of some debate not for this forum.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

TItle: Tiger Salamander Show Down

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Black Widow on Tiger Chert

Black Widow on Tiger Chert
Black Widow Hunting on Tiger Chert

Black Widow for Halloween

I had turned over this big boulder of Tiger Chert (kinda rare) out by a building leading to this little Black Widow Hunting (me about then) . The boulder of Tiger Chert about 90 pounds (I carried it down a pretty good mountain in a frame pack…. I know lol). So you reach under it to tip it over right?…… Up here you reach under it with gloves on and here is one (just one) of the reason why. Working bare handed turning anything over in Wyoming/Montana is not necessarily the right thing to do lolol.

This Black Widow hunting on Tiger Chert had another agenda than I did. I wonder if it’s like the ground hog and we’re in for an early winter if it see’s it’s shadow? I’m pretty sure it saw that shadow…. Well I know for a fact this gal now resides in an escape proof glass terrarium down in my green house now where she is going to be in a few photosessions I hope. She gets fed a cricket or so a week from the green houses endless supply of crickets lolol. Ultra macro work on her might just be an interesting time spent with a camera dead winter .

Tiger Chert for Rockhounders

As you might expect, the rock is exotic. Oil Chert or Tiger Chert is a fairly rare variety of Silicate mineral.. Named for the alternating bands of light and darker browns or tans, the banding reflects the yearly deposition of sediment into the bottom of prehistoric Lake Gosiute. Outcrops of the material usually occur south and west of Rock Springs as well as a few other places in the Green River Basin. I found this WAY north and east of Dubois Wyoming so this one is an outlier. It was up high when I found it too. Big effort to retrieve it and it still follows me around.

The concoidal fracture and homogenous nature of Tiger Chert made it a favorite of flint nappers throughout the period of human habitation in North America. It occurs in archaeological sites of all ages. It’s beautifully banded, reminds me of tree rings but those were yearly mudstone lake sediments that were literally “replaced” by silicious chert in the diagenetic history of the rock deep in the Wind River Ranges. Many mis-identify it as petrified wood. It’s very similar in composition with most petrified wood but it didn’t used to be wood 🤔

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

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Halloween Sky: Who Do you See?

Halloween Sky: Who Do you See?
Halloween Sky: Who Do you See?

“Halloween Sky: Who Do You See” …… was done off a pretty impressive sky to start with (still have the original still in the raw timeline somewhere. But I instantly saw the possibilities in the image. Lore from our Pagan (pre-christian) past works it’s way into the present with this holiday mixing with christian practice in the middle ages through out Europe. Much of Halloween Lore is handed down over countless generations from parents to their children along with the handed down/cut out witches on brooms and cardboard pumpkins from many childhoods ago 😀🎃🎃

So in the pursuit of this image result…. all attempts at being photorealistic went out the window and this turned very quickly into an ART/Photo Hybrid project lolol… . Did I mention this is ART for Halloween?? (Pssst, Don’t tell the kids”. ) I will always tell you when I totally mess with an image lol.

Personally I imagine the Cartoon Character “Tiggerâ„¢” in this capture (its about 95 percent real and 5 percent art, just a tweek here and there really ….a little mirroring selectively. Certainly not the whole image). I would bet some dragons and devils come out of this “Rorschach Test”.

Geeky Musings:
So what is the tendency to see faces in clouds (random data) called? Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, which is a more generalized term for seeing patterns in random data. I am horribly Apophenic and anthropomorphize virtually every scene I see more or less automatically.

This tendency to “see things in clouds” was once considered a symptom of psychosis…. (Let that sink in for a second and go figure lololol) but now is considered absolutely normal. (probably not by some 😜). Humans have even taught computers how to see faces from random data. (Facial recognition and all that). There are also those poor folks that have no ability or interest in such folly but I consider it a sign of artistic talent perhaps hidden away in the rooms of your mind just looking for the door. :).

At any rate: HAPPY HALLOWEEN !
Share freely to a few special ones that just don’t look but actually see. 🙂

Location, overhead plus in my workstation, Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands