Santo Dogmingo

Check out pictures of joey and katie's pup. I have been spending time with them in Carrboro, NC--eating, walking, and talking mostly.

Hope for Alaska

Looks like Alaskans are realizing that Fran would have been a better choice for governor. Frank's approval rate is the 2nd lowest in the union with 27%. 66% of Alaskans say they disapprove of how he is running the state. 2006 will be interesting.

Belize photos

Check out most of my Belize photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/73275024@N00/. Or click on the photostream on the right side of this website.

Also, check out the visiting professor that came with us's photos. He has some great shots of flowers and insects especially.

Bats

Vampire bats running at Jeff's blog. I'd add to his comments that bats wings are another great example of convergent evolution. Bat's wings are mostly highly developed and specialized webbed hands which evolved independently of bird wings. Hence, the name of the bat order Chiroptera (Hand wing).

Vampire bats are in the suborder Microchiroptera which means, among other things, that they use echolocation (megabats do not). There are only three species of sanguivorous (vampire) bats, each in different genuses in the leaf-nosed bat family (Phyllostomidae). All three species of vampire bats are limited to the new world south of Mexico. In Belize, there is the
Greater False Vampire Bat (Vampyrum spectrum) which I hope to see sometime. It is unclear if Riskin, the author of the study that has us buzzing, has tested this species for the ability to run.

Lastly, let us remember that the bible specifically says that bats are unclean animals which we should not eat since they cheweth not the cud nor divideth the hoof (Leviticus 11:19).