From the Ohio DNR:

Two men convicted of the illegal taking of white-tailed deer have been ordered to pay restitution of $12,988 according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife.

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I’m generally pretty tolerant of indoor winter mosquitoes. I figure if they survived past summer, I should cut them a little slack. I don’t recall ever being bitten by a winter mosquito.

This morning there was one with me in the shower and I wasn’t quite as friendly. I kept directing water toward it, but to no avail. It always just flew through the spray as though the “rain” didn’t exist. Amazing. How do they do it?

It finally went out the top above the shower door and on its way. My wife probably swatted it later.

Question: “How do you tell farmed and wild fish apart?”

Answer: “The farmed fish is cross-eyed from staring up at the outhouse.”

That’s a joke from Vietnam. It’s part of a fascinating feature by Paul Greenberg in the New York Times. Much of the article is about farm-raised fish in southeast Asia and the problems it’s causing on this side of the Pacific.

American growers want to separate from the issue by giving a catfish cut a new name: Delacata:

The rollout of Delacata should have been the 40-year-old catfish industry’s transcendental moment, marking catfish’s transformation from a poor subsistence food to America’s most commercially successful farmed fish…

Brother Dan points out that a case of parthenogenesis has occurred in a shark - for the second time in two years:

The phenomenon of “virgin birth” occurs when a baby is conceived without male sperm having first fertilized the female’s eggs, and has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. In the type of parthenogenesis seen in these sharks, known as automictic parthenogenesis, the newly forming pup acquires one set of chromosomes when the mother’s chromosomes split during egg development.

But instead of uniting with similarly split chromosomes from sperm, as occurs in sexual reproduction, the mother’s set is paired with a copy of itself. This results in offspring of reduced genetic diversity who may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild.

In this case, the pregnant blacktip shark died.

The biggest problem that bats have with wind turbines apparently occurs on low-wind nights:

The group, called the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, is studying whether stopping wind turbines during low wind conditions will reduce bat deaths at U.S. wind farms. It is also evaluating how much electricity is lost by the shutdowns.

The effort to curb bat fatalities at U.S. wind farms comes as wind power is expanding and North American bat populations are in decline due to a mysterious illness known as White-nose Syndrome.

Earthly animals - including you and me - owe our necks to the fishapod.

The internal skull structure of a creature that bridges the gap between fishes and the first land-dwelling animals has been reconstructed.

The creature, dubbed Tiktaalik roseae — or, to be less formal, Fishapod — lived 375 million years ago 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle in a subtropical floodplain that eventually became Ellesmere Island, where it was discovered in 2004.

Nature (via Wired) reports on this interesting beast that a lot of fish parts along with a lot four-legged’s parts. It’s the oldest known neck.

Have you ever grunted a worm?

“Worm grunting” is a curious but popular practice for harvesting earthworms in Florida’s Apalachicola National Forest. To summon earthworms to the surface, worm grunters drive a wooden stake into the soil and vibrate it. Panicked worms pour out of the ground and thousands can be gathered in just a few hours.

You really should click the link to Zooillogix and look at the first photo. That’s one “mess of worms.” And there’s more here.

The Guardian has a slide show of marine life photos taken by Gary Cranitch of Queensland Museum. Really good stuff. You probably already recognize the guy above as a twisted nudibranch (Chromodoris elizabethina).

A falconer has been employed to fight against pigeon poo in Dubai:

Talking with the falconry expert David Stead, I try to address the purpose of his work delicately. But he is quick to tear away any pretences. His job is to use falcons to stop pigeons from splattering droppings on guests and property at Dubai’s most expensive hotels.

The falcon is rewarded with quail breast.

Here’s an interesting instructional video about preparing a squirrel sandwich:

“I promised him a squirrel sandwich and that is what he’s gonna get after school. You’ve heard of tuna melts or patty melts, well why not squirrel melts.”

A surfer in England was chased by a harbor seal. A really large one. Go here for a photo, then look around the newspaper’s website for a while. It’s always interesting to see what’s going on.

The outdoors is so loud with crickets these days. They aren’t that loud all summer, are they?

Scientists and average citizens are both reporting on the decline of the lightning bug. I remember seeing them this summer, but I don’t remember much about quantity. It does seems as though there were a lot more to be seen when my kids were young.

Any unscientific reports to be made?

Evidence of fireflies’ demise remains anecdotal. Evidence has been difficult to gather, because there are few monitoring programmes. Counting the tiny, nocturnal creatures is a challenge, since the firefly’s adult lifespan is one to three weeks and some females spend most of it on the ground, or do not flash.

NYC had its cows on parade and other cities have had similar projects. Morenci did paramecium on parade but it didn’t go over all that big.

Take this link to see an Elephants on Parade project in London. The slide show tool is at the top left.

Good news for the boy; bad news for gator.

An alligator bit a boy’s arm off in an Louisiana lake, but the gator was killed the arm was retrieved.