Don's View

Tulips were growing in Turkey around AD 1000, nearly 600 years before they appeared in the Netherlands where they became so popular that a tulip "futures" market developed as money was exchanged on the outcome of planted bulbs developing into blossoms. One transaction included cattle and several tons of commodity plus cash for a single blossom.

If you enjoy tulips and are very fortunate, you can visit the Keukenhof Gardens near Amsterdam in April when millions and millions of tulip and crocus bulbs are in bloom.

Labels: flowers, tulips

The Komodo dragon is native to the Komodo Island of Indonesia where about 1,500 specimen are believed to live. Another 3,000 to 4,000 live on other islands or in zoos. These giant lizards which reach the length of 10 feet and weigh as much as 365 pounds are large and fast enough to capture, kill, and eat deer, wild buffalo, and occasionally humans.

Komodo don't have to overpower their prey. Their saliva is so rich in bacteria they only have to bite then wait until their victims die of sepsis before dining.

This Komodo lives at the Sedgewick County Zoo and will not be chasing deer or even people for the foreseeable future.

Labels: komodo dragons, reptiles

It seems the original ED drug may have a favorable impact on tigers' survival... not by helping them make more baby tigers but by reduced poaching of tigers for body parts. Some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners believe tiger penis to be a potent aphrodisiac. Sea horses and rhinoceros are also poached to obtain substances used for sexual enhancement. Viagra, even at $8 to $10 a pill is less expensive than some endangered species parts. And Viagra is effective, at least two-thirds of the time, in relieving the symptoms of erectile dysfunction.

Unfortunately, animal parts are used by Chinese traditionalists to treat conditions other than sexual impotence. So the example of Viagra and its cousin pills may more usefully reflect the impact of traditional medicine use on endangered species survival than offer a targeted solution.

The tiger seen here was photographed at the Henry Dooley Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, and as far as I know is not subject to the threat of poachers.

Labels: conservation, tigers, wildlife