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#173911 02/22/08 10:39 PM
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Last week I saw a program about the strangest animal..

The olm, (Proteus anguinus), is a blind amphibian endemic to the subterranean waters of caves of the Dinaric karst of southern Europe. It lives in the waters that flow underground through this extensive limestone region including waters of the Soca river basin near Trieste in Italy,through to southern Slovenia, southwestern Croatia, and Herzegovina.
The olm is the only species in its genus Proteus, only European species of the family Proteidae, only European exclusively cave-dwelling Troglobite chordate.
>*Olm
The olm always lives in absolute darkness and is blind.
The camara man who took the movie camped alone in total darkness with only a flashlight and his camera.

More: Protea.

Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of flowering plants, also called sugarbushes.The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus:
>*Proteus - god who could change his form at will, because the proteas have such different forms.
>* Protea, flower

Proteabacteria
>* Proteobacteria The Proteobacteria are a major group of bacteria. They include a wide variety of pathogens, such as Escherichia, Salmonella, and many other notable genera. Others are free-living, and include many of the bacteria responsible for nitrogen fixation. The group is named for the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape, because of the great diversity of forms found in this group.

Proteus(disambiguation) Proteus has given his name to many things:
>* disambiguation
Strange: while all this name giving takes back to the fact that Proteus could change his form at will,
the olm does not undergo a metamorphoses but keeps his larval state.

(thanks to wiki pages)


Last edited by BranShea; 02/22/08 10:51 PM.
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olm - is that an English or Nederlandisch word? Would be a great Scrabble word.

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Cool, truth being stranger than fiction.

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Olm is English, so scrabble at ease.
It's also a Dutch word olm (the tree) = elm.

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Olm is English

No etymologies that I could find online, but one dictionary suggested it was a borrowing from German. German Ulme, English elm, Latin ulmus (> Spanish alamo, alameda) are cognate with Dutch olm, but I don't think there's a connection between those tree words and the blind slamander word. The Slovenian word, človeška ribica, translates as 'human fish'.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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No , I can't imagine there'd be any connection between Proteus and Ulmus.

Here another image where the human-like arms and the fishy gills are clearly visible. Yet I read that the 'human fish'- name was mainly given because of the animal's skin.
BBC. olm : > Click through to number 5 for 'olm'.

Last edited by BranShea; 02/23/08 06:32 PM.
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It was. And when they were first found about five hundred years ago they were thought to be baby dragons.
After the white olms also the black kind was found in Slovenia, called simply črna človeška ribica or Black human fish (Proteus Anguinus Parkelj). Parkelj is an old Slovenian word for the devil.
Damn, I'm good. And my being Slovenian has absolutely nothing to do with it.

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simply črna človeška ribica \:\) . Simple to you maybe, those to me really exotic Slovenian words. How nice to read your post as you live in the region where those mysterious creatures exist. It wil be hard to get to really see them in their habitat?
I was very much impressed seeing that program. Seeing that humanlike form almost transparant in the flashight.

Welcome, though I'm not belonging to the official welcoming
commitee.


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Originally Posted By: BranShea
Last week I saw a program about the strangest animal..

The olm, (Proteus anguinus), is a blind amphibian endemic to the subterranean waters of caves of the Dinaric karst of southern Europe. It lives in the waters that flow underground through this extensive limestone region including waters of the Soca river basin near Trieste in Italy,through to southern Slovenia, southwestern Croatia, and Herzegovina.
The olm is the only species in its genus Proteus, only European species of the family Proteidae, only European exclusively cave-dwelling Troglobite chordate.
>*Olm
The olm always lives in absolute darkness and is blind.
The camara man who took the movie camped alone in total darkness with only a flashlight and his camera.

More: Protea.

Protea is both the botanical name and the English common name of a genus of flowering plants, also called sugarbushes.The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus:
>*Proteus - god who could change his form at will, because the proteas have such different forms.
>* Protea, flower

Proteabacteria
>* Proteobacteria The Proteobacteria are a major group of bacteria. They include a wide variety of pathogens, such as Escherichia, Salmonella, and many other notable genera. Others are free-living, and include many of the bacteria responsible for nitrogen fixation. The group is named for the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape, because of the great diversity of forms found in this group.

Proteus(disambiguation) Proteus has given his name to many things:
>* disambiguation
Strange: while all this name giving takes back to the fact that Proteus could change his form at will,
the olm does not undergo a metamorphoses but keeps his larval state.

(thanks to wiki pages)



How nice to find this posting Bran. I look thru the old ones just for fun, wondering
why they died. I am glad at this point. I find your posting fascinating. I love
this 'stuff'. I devote lots of time to TV and magazine geologic and biologic info.
Contribut more, please.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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Quote:
Contribut more, please.
It all depends on what crosses the road.

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First thing I do each morning is go to National Geographic
network for the fascinating things they have there. Today
photos of Saturn are scintillating and magnificent. Then
I go to emails. I have subscribed to the magazine since
1959: and read it cover to cover. So I love the topic
you brought up, as well as that fascinating video from
a few days back on the DominicanREpublic critter that looks
like an opossum.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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Originally Posted By: parkelj
It was. And when they were first found about five hundred years ago they were thought to be baby dragons.

I can see it now. Shonky olm salesmen running around Europe flogging off baby dragons for buckets of ducats and hightailing it before they fail to grow up... laugh

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Originally Posted By: The Pook
Originally Posted By: parkelj
It was. And when they were first found about five hundred years ago they were thought to be baby dragons.

I can see it now. Shonky olm salesmen running around Europe flogging off baby dragons for buckets of ducats and hightailing it before they fail to grow up... laugh


That's quite a sentence there, I would not want to have to parse it, but I'd love to
be on that safari.


----please, draw me a sheep----
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