Tag Archives: ticks

The Last Giant

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As you all know if you’ve watched the Animal Channel at all, is that big things once roamed this land we live on. Really big things, like totally humongous things that were Elephant shaped. Only our modern elephants would look like these guys calves if they stood next to them. Mini-mammoths if you will. Then they died and turned into fossils that we go out and dig up if we can get the proper funding.

The largest that we currently know about is the Mammoth Columbi (Mammuthus primigenius). Even its name is big. It was like several of those double-decker busses that they have in London put together. Mammoths lived in the Pleistocene epoch, or about 400,000 years ago which as you also know, is about 382,000 years before the Earth was formed. Our scientists, which are pretty smart guys, are still trying to figure that one out.

However regardless of niggly little facts like that it cannot be disputed that they were here. We got their bones. You can go to any Mammoth Bones display place and for a small fee walk right in and see them. Some places even let you touch them if you’re careful. Can’t hardly argue with that even if you are really bull-headed. So far with the limited funding we’ve been able to scrape up we have only been able to unearth the skull and part of its trunk and the shoulders. We hope to work on getting the tusks revealed soon. Perhaps with a new administration our funding will be restored.

But what a lot of people do not know, even if they are avid watchers of mammoth based shows on the tube, is that there were once even larger mammoth kind of things walking the earth, way earlier than when the regular run-of-the-mill mammoth columbi were out and about. I’m not even sure how that fits in with the time line of when the Earth was formed. I know it sure throws a monkey wrench into the logic, but then that stuffs hard to figure out when you’re limited by really dumb facts.

What we do know however is that back when these really big guys were walking around, give or take several hundred thousand years, they were the biggest animals to live on the earth whether it was here or not. (We try not to take sides when we’re having a serious scientific discussion about this stuff.) How do we know that? Why are we so sure? Because we found one. Not a live one mind you, but a dead one that had the good graces to stay out in the open where you can see it, touch it, walk around it if you have the time, stick your tongue on it and taste it ( it tastes like chicken) and generally be amazed and in awe of its overall size. That’s what you are viewing in the excavation photo above.

The size of this unnamed beast, we are proposing mammoth dwighticus horribilis hoping the fossil naming society will accept it, is close to unbelievable. That trunk sticking up out of the ground could very likely pick up your average sized office building. The tusks are buried in the ground but you can still get some idea of their size as several hundred feet away there is one point sticking up out of the ground. It is taller than your average basketball player and you can’t even chunk a rock from the base of its skull and hit the tip of it.

There is a lot that is unknown about these big mammoth animals but we can surmise a few things. They ate grass. One of the reasons there is very little vegetation left in the areas where these remains are often found is that these guys ate it all. We know that the smaller, more dainty Mammoth Columbi ate up to 400 lbs. of grass and vegetation a day so you can imagine what these big fellas ate. We figure each molar alone was the size of Volkswagen Jetta, the diesel one not the gas model.

Also many of the small pockets of water, little ponds, small lakes and such were likely caused by water filling in their hoof prints or their dust wallows. Like modern buffalo or elephants these mammoths had to roll around in the dirt to remove parasites and sand burs. Just thinking about how big the ticks must have been to fasten on to one of these guys is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. We also think that they were Vegan, prone to bump into things, but social if clumsy animals. We don’t think astrology played an important part in their lives. They may have used the Julian calendar but our guess is that they figured time by how long it took to consume several cubic tons of fodder, then make it to the nearest water hole and drain it dry. That may be why this one became dead. He was late to the water hole. No water, no life.

If you’re still a skeptic and we know that there are some of you out there, just go to Arches National Park and Mammoth burial grounds and see for yourself. Sometimes fiction is stranger than life.

The Dangers Of Hiking Thru The Woods

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As many of you know *The Institute works closely with the Fish and Game departments of the various states here in America and elsewhere, as well as other Government agencies such as the Minerals Management services, the U.S. board of Geological Names, The Government Office of Procurements and Waste Disposal, the NSA, The Office in Charge of Telling People Important Stuff, The Department of Defense, The Office of Watching Movies to Find and Censor the Dirty Parts, The Office of Maritime Hijinks, The FBI, NCIS, The Mod Squad, The Government Office of Officially Forgiving People for Minor Offenses if They Weren’t Too Bad to Begin With, and the National Hikers Advisory Committee to name just a few.

It’s this last one, The National Hikers Advisory Committee, that we have been dealing with mostly these last few months. As you might have heard it can be very dangerous hiking in our National, State and International forests. So we are putting out our annual Hikers Advisory. The image above is a perfect example of some of the dangers the unwary hiker faces in the woods. As you can see there are fallen trees everywhere and they can pose a problem for those who aren’t smart or agile enough to pick up their feet when they’re hiking. Tripping hazards are rampant and there is always the risk of catching a sleeve on one of those sharp-tipped branches sticking out all over the place and ripping that new down jacket. Those puppies are expensive and you could be faced with huge repair bills or the humiliation of repairing them with duct tape which would indicate you can’t afford to get it repaired professionally. Either way it spells loser.

Also the forest is filled completely with trees and they all look alike. It is very easy to look around and get all over dizzy of a sudden and not know where you are. This leads to being lost and that leads to expensive search and rescue missions to find you and by then you are tired and thirsty and all out of sorts. You’ve had the same underwear on for eleven days and you’ve missed Jerry Springer. Todays show was on Lesbian Midgets Who Love Jane Fonda But Cheat with Male Strippers, Then Lie About It, (not that there is anything wrong with Lesbians, even really short ones) and you forgot to set your DVR.

There are birds that will sit and wait for you to enter the forest, then make alluring bird calls so you look up trying to find them and wrap your snoz around one of those trees the woods are full of that we mentioned earlier, and you’ll probably bust your Ray-Bans or get a nasty lump on your forehead. Our friend did that and got a lump on her forehead the size of a toaster. If that happens many times your baseball cap won’t fit anymore and that leaves your head and shoulders completely unprotected from the elements or worse.

There are plenty of dangers like this out in the woods and we have touched on just the most important ones. There’s more that you’ll probably find on your own or they’ll find you, so we won’t bother you with the minor stuff. We just wanted to cover the big ones. Our advice to you regarding hiking in the Woods is just don’t do it. Go to the mall instead, get a hamburger and a supersized jug of pop. Leave the hiking to those who are familiar with the woods and can recognize its dangers, or better yet to the people you don’t like. Send them out on a hiking trip. Tell them it’ll do them good and then make up some excuse why you can’t go along. That’s our advice and we hope you take it to heart. As always we here at The Institute want you to be safe, not sorry. Watch for further bulletins as we work diligently to protect you and yours from the ever-present dangers of the world. Remember, Be Careful out there.

P.S. We forgot ticks. There’s ticks out in those woods and if you think vampires are bad you haven’t been covered in hundreds of ticks just bloating up, sucking up your blood, giggling to each other as they drain you dry. They will get on you even if you haven’t done anything wrong and then bite you. The only way to get them off you is hold a lighted match up their rear ends until they fall off. Of course that is dangerous in this dry climate we’re experiencing. The Forestry department, a division of the USDA hates it when you drop burning ticks all over the forest floor and they will cite you if they find out about it. It’s better to avoid ticks whenever possible. OK then, Just saying.

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