Category Archives: nature

Hellbender

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Roger Gosden

Sounds like a rock group, but hellbenders are mute, cryptic, and uglier than any band! I imagine some American pioneer naming them after turning over a rock in a mountain stream and recoiling in horror at the sight of something … Continue reading →

Posted in Animalia, nature | Tagged blastema, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, Elk River, Greenbrier River, Hellbender, regenerative medicine, salamander | 1 Comment

Look like a Wild Turkey

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Roger Gosden

I want to look like a turkey. Don’t misread me. I want to look like one, not look like a turkey. The eyesight of wild turkeys is superior to every other inhabitant of eastern forests with the exception of raptors … Continue reading →

Posted in Animalia, Environment, nature | Tagged artists and painters, Boy Scouts, cross eyes, First Avenue, Look Wide, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, naturalist, optical brighteners, Rembrandt, strabismus, Wild turkey | Comments Off

A Root to Cure Evils (Ginseng)

Posted on September 25, 2016 by Roger Gosden

A police informant reported a horde of vegetable roots drying in the sun outside a home in Randolph County, WV. This is not the kind of news that makes headlines or pricks up ears, but to our friend, a law … Continue reading →

Posted in Health, nature | Tagged Appalachian Outlaws, Doctrine of Signatures, Panax quinquefolius, Paracelsus, Randolph County, saponins, Schinseng, WV, WV DNR | Comments Off

Who’s seen a Thylacine?

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Roger Gosden

Only Aussies born more than 90 years ago can make a plausible claim to have seen a living thylacine: according to official records, the last of them died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. And, yet, thylacines still live! Few “extinct” … Continue reading →

Posted in Animalia, Environment, nature | Tagged Bigfoot, Irian Jaya, Loch Ness Monster, Merauke, Tasmanian tiger, thylacine, West Papua | Comments Off

National Dog Day

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Roger Gosden

“Every dog has its day” was coined before Shakespeare, but centuries passed until dogs were given their Day. Not until 2004, and a dozen years after National Corndog Day, were they given a deserved honor, and National Dog Day came … Continue reading →