NEW DELHI, May 21 (Reuters) - Police in the Indian capital said on Monday the marauding "monkey man" which terrorised the city over the past week was neither man nor monkey but a result of public hysteria.

what the...??
Avy? shanks?

...since you brought up Reuters, this little story weaves in nicely with the tux thread: (hi, max!)

http://DELETED

At the risk of perpetuating this unfortunately wide thread, I was stunned to read in the page you linked to that, " The pattern is based on one used for penguins in the northern hemisphere, only smaller. "It was re-designed for the little penguins in the southern hemisphere," said Castle."

What penguins in the Northern Hemisphere? A quick search at Britannica.com yielded this excellent page
http://home.capu.net/~kwelch/pp/species/

The comment seems particularly odd given that the two largest types of penguin are both exclusively Antarctic and sub-antarctic dwellers. I read once that all but one of the 16 species of penguin can be found in NZ waters, so I was surprised to read the statement about "larger penguins from the North."

Aaw - You got me!

tsuwm....
NEW DELHI, May 21 (Reuters) - Police in the Indian capital said on Monday the marauding "monkey man" which terrorised the city over the past week was neither man nor monkey but a result of public hysteria


I'm neither Avy nor Shanks but let me just butt in for a second then I will go away.

I, too, heard that news but from the radio (NPR) and I couldn't believe that it was not an April Fool's joke. The NPR point man in India, I thought, had eaten too much spicy food and was not in proper form to do a strenous reporting and opted for this light news. If you listened to all the people that he interviewed for the story, not one could cite any credible evidence. I guess that this is another case of "you had to be there" in order to feel the public hysteria.

Avy, Shanks come in....

chronist

Bridget96 ...tried the link and got note "this story cannot be displayed." ????

Re penguins, North Pole and South Pole for penguins and a few zoos. I heard of one type penguin on Discovery TV that does not mind the warm weather but those were in a zoo, too!

hmm, i guess reuters stories can only be accessed on the day they break. sorry 'bout that.

i 'spect that's also why things went W-I-D-E

bridget performs three hail marys and an our father

The Pooh-Bahvitch remarks that he was surprised to read the statement about "larger penguins from the North."

Maybe they're talking about nuns.

Maybe they're talking about nuns.

Young man with spiked hair, jeans, leather jacket, at busy downtown crossing. He sees a nun having trouble negotiating the street. He stops the traffic and leads her across the street safely.
"Thank you, young man," the nun says.
He replies, "No problem! Any friend of Zorro's is a friend of mine!"
~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Young couple with 3-year-old child, in airport. Child wanders away. Parents frantic. Search starts. Child found safe with a group of nuns. As parents approach, child cries out delightedly "
"Look Mommy! Penguins!"

The Pittsburg Penguins-- a Hockey team?

actually -- Max-- everything i knew about penguins agreed with your statement-- (but to be sure -- I googled
and got
http://www.seaworld.org/Penguins/distribution.html It doesn't say anything about 16 out of 17 being common in NZ-- but other wise...

Re penguins, North Pole and South Pole for penguins


Really, wow? I did not know that there were penguins living at the North Pole. As a child, there was riddle doing the rounds here that went something like, "what is wrong with this story. A polar bear was chasing a penguin, and ..." The answer was that the two animals live at opposite ends of the earth. I would be genuinely interested to learn which species of penguin makes its home so far from every other penguin.

It doesn't say anything about 16 out of 17 being common in NZ--


Well, I wouldn't say "common." We were taught that those species could all be found in NZ territorial waters This includes several remote sub-antartctic islands, like the Auckland & Campbell islands, where no one in their right mind ever goes. By including those places the only species that does not spend at least some time in NZ waters is the Emperor, I think. The easiest place to see penguins in mainland NZ is in Milford Sound, on the Mainland. [Making Zild in-jokes while CepK's still here e]

Well-- actually, for me, the easist/best place to see penguins is in the penguin house in the Bronx Zoo! (which is curiously-- right next to the Flamingo lagoon) It also has puffins and auk(s) (an auk? one one species left?)

the easist/best place to see penguins is in the penguin house in the Bronx Zoo!


D'Oh! Once again, I missed the obvious. Here, also, the easiest place to see penguins is at zoo, or one of the special Antarctic centres in Christchurch or Auckland. Milford Sound sprang to mind due to memories of childhood wonder at seeing dolphins, seals, and penguins in the wild all in a short cruise.

Really, wow? I did not know that there were penguins living at the North Pole.

Ooooops .... caught out by Max! I seem to be in time flux of some sort. You understand, Max, what that does to one!

I am chastised and stand repentant.

What penguins in the Northern Hemisphere?

quote: Galapagos penguin: Since they can range to the northernmost reaches of the chain, above the equator, they are the only penguins whose natural habitat is in the Northern Hemisphere.

Coincidence: I had to leave work early yesterday to rescue my sister-in-law whose car broke down while visting my wife. My wife then drove her back home (35 miles) to take her 8 yr old daughter to BirdWorld where it had been arranged for her to feed the penguins. The daughter thanked me by phone for making it possible and I asked her about the Northen Hemisphere penguins, and she came up with the Galapogos, though she did point out it was a technicality. I googled and found it at http://www.junkscience.com/news2/penguins.htm

But trying to claim we topsiders have penguins because of that is like Britain trying to claim mineral and fishing rights in the Atlantic because of sticking a flag on Rockall (named because there is Rock all there).

Rod

quote: Galapagos penguin: Since they can range to the northernmost reaches of the chain, above the equator, they are the only penguins whose natural habitat is in the Northern Hemisphere.

Thanks for that, I should have checked out the link I posted in more detail. It has quite a bit on the "peri-equatorial" (my approved new word for the day) Galapagos penguins
http://home.capu.net/~kwelch/pp/species/galapagos.html

The Hoiho or yellow-eyed penguin is actually quite common on the Otago Peninsula, where I was living for a number of years. They're not actually endangered (although you would think they were from the noise that the press makes about them), but the rookery on the peninsula is one of the few mainland ones and certainly one of the closest to a reasonably large city. Otago Peninsula is also home to three or four different kinds of seal at one time or another during the year, and it also hosts the only known mainland nesting place of the royal albatross.

Couple of stories - they're true.

First, when I was much younger, I went to school with the son of the Conservation Department ranger who looked after the albatross colony. In those days there was no tourist centre and no eight foot high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire to protect them - but on the other hand, hardly anyone knew they were there, either.

The Conservation Department was trying to build up the numbers nesting at Taiaroa Head by making the area as attractive for them as possible. They're very large birds with a wingspan of over two metres. Ugly as sin close up, and very awkward on the ground, but very, very graceful in flight. It's said that when they're flying, which is most of the year, they may only have to flap their wings once or twice a day. They're masters of riding thermals and other air currents, effectively large gliders. But they DO have trouble landing and taking off. Landings are more often crash-landings than not, with the birds completely misjudging where their feet are in relation to the ground. Mostly, an albatross landing is more like a trainwreck than a touchdown.

Takeoffs are similar, but in reverse. They are relatively heavy birds, and they need a fair amount of airspeed to get off the ground. They have two methods of takeoff. One is to waddle to the nearest cliff and basically throw themselves over it, hoping to get up to flying speed before they hit the bottom. But the birds that nest further away from the cliffs can't do this; they would have to cross other birds' territory and this would invite warfare. So they have to do what planes do, they make a takeoff run. Even then, they need a reasonable headwind to get off the ground. I saw one bird make five abortive attempts to take off downwind one day. His mate, sitting on the egg, was giving him hell about it, too. (I'm assuming it was a "him", because a "her" would get it right, right?)

Which brings me back to what this story was about - encouraging the birds to use the Taiaroa Head nursery involved making things "comfortable" for the albatrosses (anyone remember the Monty Python albatross sketch?). This saw us kids dragooned at weekends into literally mowing the "runways" that the "inland" birds used for takeoffs. The noise of the mowers didn't seem to faze the sitting birds one little bit. And it must have succeeded, because it's become a very popular colony now. Complete with visitor centre and chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Ah, the price of fame!

The second story is about a picnic. At Bull Creek, a seaside spot south of Dunedin. It's a smallish beach, but quite popular on hot days in summer. With swimmers and with seals. The humans use the beach, the seals use the rocks. Sometimes, the swimmers and the seals meet in the water, and all is sweetness and light, with the seals swimming rings around the humans, the humans doing the "ooo, aaaah" thing, and the seals laughing at how ungainly humans are in the water.

Back to this particular picnic. We (my girlfriend-du-jour and I) had picnicked, swum and were wandering along the rocks in the sun. Some tidal pools looked as if they had mussels in them, so my fair lady decided to go down to have a look and maybe purloin a few. The rocks have sharp edges, and she picked her way cautiously down towards the water line, taking a couple of minutes to get there. She found a couple of mussels in one pool and began working her way along the line of pools, gathering mussels as she went. I rapidly lost interest. Mussel gathering is not a spectator sport, I find. So I found a tussock and sat down to stare out to sea. Imagine my surprise, then, when there's a yell from MFL, and she's suddenly coming back up from the tideline, flowing over those jagged rocks as if she did it every day ... with a rather angry bull seal humping inelegantly but very rapidly after her. She reached the spot where I was in no time flat, and kept right on going. I, on the other hand, noticed that the seal stopped fairly quickly and turned back towards the sea. Still complaining, but otherwise harmless. I found her panting, breathless and angry at me in the car parking area, about half a mile from the start line. It turned out she'd stood on the seal's flipper (she hadn't noticed him at all). This was, apparently, my fault. But, I have to admit, she hung on to those mussels!

[/stories from my misspent youth]