Summer Fauna It's been a good summer for animal pictures.
Let's start off with a few lizards: a common outdoor one caught at Max's school, and a prehensile tailed skink at the zoo.

Here's a couple from home: two very small juveniles from the living room and two medium-sized kitchen lizards (that's PBJ it's licking off the knife).

	While we were hanging out on Coconut Island waiting for a sailing ship to come in, I spotted this sea turtle next to the island. I've seen them there before, but this time the light was right, there was no crowd nor anyplace we needed to go, so I photostalked the turtle.

Mammals Great and Small.

	The mongoose was annoying the nene flock I posted pictures of earlier: nene, like most Hawaiian birds, never got in the habit of building nests in trees, so when rats and mongoose were introduced to the islands, their eggs became favorite snack foods. The nene were not happy to see this fellow, but he hung out in the open for an unusually long time.
	Panaewa Zoo's big pig, in an usually wakeful moment. Below, of course, is the pacing white tiger, Namaste. (Whose name, I recently learned, means "I salute you" in Sanskrit, and was popularized as a secular alternative to religious greetings in India.)

Other Orders of Fauna

	Monarch Butterfly cocoon, from the zoo butterfly house. I couldn't seem to get the focus to fix on the cocoon instead of the cage, though.
	This was the largest crab I think I've seen in the wild, at least in a very long time. Small versions of this variety are very common along every coast of this island, but I didn't know they got this big. This one's a good four or five inches across the shell.
	A very small fish feeding frenzy. We were tossing bread bits to the koi and their friends in Kalakaua Park.

	Some fish we spotted in a particularly clear section of Hilo Bay during a nice low tide. I just love the distortion of the ripples.

  ¶ Monday, August 06, 2007