A special thanks to BP on this fine Earth Day. Modifications made to the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico have had several important improvements. Much of the pesky coral living at the bottom of the gulf seems to have been doused with deadly doses of BP oil, some species have been provided with hip new color schemes (mainly black and blackish), some shrimp are now eyeless, which will surely make them easier to catch and, according to BP, does not affect their edibility, the killifish are being killed, which is presumably what they want (given their name and all) and those snippy crabs that we all love to make into crabcakes and such are now frequently claw-less, and thus less likely to pinch us!
Here’s a short video clip outlining the many improvements to the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem that BP has given us:
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Killifish comes from the Dutch word kill, meaning a small body of water, the sort of place they often live. It is an unfortunate name, but we are stuck with it. There are various national killifish associations, including the American Killifish Association. Memberships include both specialist aquarists and interested ichthyologists.
Killifish are amazing. Do you have them?
I was almost a member of one of those associations at one point but it didn’t work out! Also,I grew up a few blocks from the Normanskill. Which was not Normanskill Creek, though some people called it that.
(Like “Broadway Street” … wrong!)
With certain killifish, if you need to go away for vacation, you just let the bowl dry up and when you come back add water and you get new killifish. Or at least, that’s the theory.
One must be careful in mixing killifish with other fish in the home aquarium, depending on the species.
http://www.itrainsfishes.net/content/
This link is to a very good site with pictures and descriptions of many of the New World, particularly South and Central American species. When I was planning my PhD dissertation work, I thought I would study madtom catfish life histories. But, at lunch one day, my major professor remarked, “You seem to know a lot about killifish. How about studying them instead.” and the rest is history. In the link above, note Llanolebias stellifer, the second species I described. It is now in its fourth genus and I hope it has found a happy home.
Cool! Why did it keep changing genera?
“NJ” aka Rob Hood the undertreated mentally ill denizen of SB @ 6:
Still can’t resist those obvious clues to your true identity can you Rob? Feel free to copy/paste my post with a few edits as a response, as if that will prove anything except that your family needs to stage an intervention.
Janine@6:
Excellent point. There really isn’t going to be a way outside of meeting F2F to demonstrate it for most people here.
The behind the scenes folk at SB could compare us by IP addresses – mine should be in a very geographically restricted pool extending back close to the start of SB, whereas Rob’s will be in a different pool, or all over the place if he is using technological tricks to try to hide his tracks.
Or you could compare as a function of sanity, as he has used any number of sockpuppets at several blogs (Doctor I.M. Smart and Medicien Man over at Orac’s for example). In fact, I recall the self-appointed “Guardian of the Poll” over at PZ’s and his antics were sufficiently similar that it may be the same guy. As for changing my ‘nym, sure I could do that. But then what is to stop Rob from trying to hijack that one?
Ultimately, you will need to determine this to your own satisfaction. If you are curious/have the time, I encourage you to search on posts using my ‘nym, particularly before 2010.
Let’s be fair, I want to know the pre spill rate of eyeless shrimp and fish with sores. The gulf was no Eden before BP.
And how much of the gulf was already covered by leaking or seeping oil?
What gets me angry is those ads BP runs on tv and YouTube saying everything is back to normal when it’s clearly not. How about using that ad money to clean up instead!
Phil, that is correct, of course. Keep an eye on a reliable news source for US based environmental information. Al Jazeera is good.
I agree with Phil. BP is running these ads all day on tv and youtube about how they fixed everything. I hate how so many people are probably only hearing one side of the story. I have been there recently, it is not all fixed trust me!
I’d wondered if the commenter here ‘Jim Thomerson’ was *that* ‘Jim Thomerson’. Now I know. Even as a New Zealander, resident in NZ, I’ve been a member of the AKA (and BKA and NAKA and NZKA).