FEELING BLUE ABOUT SHUKERNATURE! REVIEWING THE TOP TEN POSTS

Trunko in blue (Lance Bradshaw)

Let me confirm immediately that my blog is NOT making me feel depressed! On the contrary, thanks to the interest and comments that my posts here continue to generate from their readers, and the prospect of compiling an entire book based upon them, I have never felt more buoyant about ShukerNature since its inception just over two years ago. No, the reason for this post's blue-headed title stems from a quite remarkable, wholly unexpected, and (at least to me) truly inexplicable discovery that I have just made after reviewing the statistics for ShukerNature.

Several sets of stats concerning a person's blog are available for inspection by him/her on Blogger, and perhaps the most interesting set is the Top 10 posts of all time for that blog. In the case of ShukerNature (on which I have uploaded well over 100 posts of mine so far), I was extremely intrigued by the result - so much so, in fact, that I felt it warranted a blog post of its own!

So here is the Top Ten ShukerNature posts of all time - be prepared for some surprises!


#1: The mystery blue spider of Yorkshire (25 August 2010)

#2: Behold, Trunko!! (Trunko exclusive #1) (6 September 2010)

#3: Trunko, two more photographs (Trunko exclusive #2) (9 September 2010)

#4: South Africa's hairless blue horse (24 March 2010)

#5: Dragons of Babylon and dinosaurs of the Bible (18 January 2011)

#6: Smethwick devil (4 September 2010)

#7: Orang pendek (24 November 2010)

#8: Blue tigers (17 May 2009)

#9: The last Harpagornis (14 July 2010)

#10: A diversity of devil-fishes (6 March 2009)


And as if this listing were not already surreal enough, the post at #1 has been viewed more times than all of the next nine posts combined - but why?!

As far as I can see, the evident (and only?) moral that can be drawn from this entertaining little exercise in blog analysis is that from now on I should clearly concentrate all of my efforts on writing about blue animals!

And if I really want to maximise my readership, the ideal subject to write about would be a blue-furred devilish version of Trunko! So if anyone ever happens to encounter such an entity out there, please do let me know!

THE LAST HARPAGORNIS?

Reconstruction of Harpagornis moorei (Markus Bühler)

Weighing 22-33 lb in adult female specimens, Haast’s eagle Harpagornis moorei, formerly native to New Zealand’s South Island, was the largest eagle of all time, and is widely accepted as the origin of traditional Maori legends referring to a monstrous human-killing raptorial bird known variously as the pouakai or hokioi. As it is believed to have preyed upon the very large flightless moas that also once inhabited South Island, it should come as no surprise to learn that this colossal bird of prey’s disappearance seemingly coincided with the demise of the moas (caused in turn by hunting and habitat destruction by humans), with its official extinction date estimated at approximately 1400 AD. Very recently, however, while browsing the Wikipedia entry for this species, I discovered a remarkable snippet of information suggesting that either Harpagornis itself or else another now-extinct but very sizeable bird of prey endemic to New Zealand may have lingered into much more recent times, only to be extinguished in the most demeaning manner:

"A noted explorer, Charles Douglas, claims in his journals that he had an encounter with two raptors of immense size in Landsborough River valley (probably during the 1870s), and that he shot and ate them. These birds might have been a last remnant of the species, but some might argue that there had not been suitable prey for a population of Haast's eagle to maintain itself for about five hundred years before that date, and nineteenth century Maori lore was adamant that the pouakai was a bird not seen in living memory. Still, Douglas'[s] observations on wildlife generally are trustworthy; a more probable explanation, given that the alleged three-metre wingspan described by Douglas is likely to have been a rough estimate, is that the birds were Eyles'[s] harriers [Circus eylesi]. This was the largest known harrier (the size of a small eagle) — and a generalist predator — and although it is also assumed to have become extinct in prehistoric times, its dietary habits alone make it a more likely candidate for late survival."

If, however, these were the last Haast’s eagles, what an ignominious finale for such a spectacular species – slaughtered and served up as dinner by a hungry Westerner, for whom the chilling age-old Maori legends of murderous winged marauders from the ancient skies were nothing more than quaint fables, despite the very substantial evidence to the contrary that his twin kills had presented not only to his eyes but also to his stomach!