aggienaut | More Australian Beasts (Reply)

THIS my fine friends is a picture that shows ... my complete and utter inability to make a posed smile. I really can't do it. It ends up looking like I'm trying to show you something stuck in my teeth. Hence why I wasn't smiling in two of the three potential profile pictures from my recent entry, and was making a ridiculous sort of "smile" in the third.

So the picture came out looking like I'm freaked out or something, but, you know, its hard to get a good picture from that angle and its the only one that came out with my friend here Winston St Andrews properly in focus. Winston is a "St Andrews Cross" spider and has been riding around with me for four days now, hanging out right there in the passenger seat at head height.

Interesting fact I learned, "Charlotte" of "Charlotte's Web" fame is actually a closely related species (same genus), that looks about the same and is called a "Writing Spider" in the US. So there's a literary tradition of these guys having a personality!

Also I learned that no one knows the purpose of the "decorations" they make in their web. How interesting!

As part of my slow descent into insanity I often find myself saying things like "Hey Winston why don't you roll down the window over there?" or "Hey Winston can you pass me that notebook?" Yes, out loud even.

Also yesterday while I was working I kept hearing branches break above me. I looked around hoping to see a koala or something but couldn't see anything, had to conclude maybe the strong winds we'd been having had just broken a bunch of branches ... and then I finally spied THIS guy:

I believe that's a lace monitor, Australia's second largest goanna. It looked to be about four feet long, with the body mass of a small child. And it was clambering around just over my head -- the lizard of Damocles!