Attack of the Twitter Trucks!

I'm not usually one to care about the latest food trend, or the latest trend in general. And I'm certainly not usually the first in line to for the Proud to be an Angeleno Parade. But I have to admit that there is one thing that we are doing well here in the City of Angeles. And that thing is Twitter Trucks.

I don't know if this idea is nation-wide yet, but it should be! If you are unfamiliar with the concept, here's the low down: these are trucks, much like the old fashioned and unappetizingly monikered "roach coaches", which drive around the city and sell food to anyone who walks up with cash in hand. And here's the twist: these trucks are gourmet. You might actually want to eat something from one of them! And since this means that you might actually want to find one, you need a way to figure out where they are. So they use Twitter. Perfect!

Gabriel and I tracked down the Grilled Cheese Truck tonight where it was parked outside of Amoeba Records. It was just like being back in high school. Except that then a night out might mean a greasy grilled cheese at Denny's, followed by a trip to the mall where I would probably end up with a Cure album on cassette. Tonight's outing resulted in gruyere and apple slices on French bread, followed by the purchase of a couple of jazz albums on vinyl. To be fair, the albums were Gabriel's purchase (and so is the photo), so I guess I'm not as grown up as I think I am.

If only we could have figured out where the cupcake truck was for dessert.

Wordless Wednesday featuring Lady Macbeth (2nd Edition)

April is Frog Month!

Here at The Frog Bag Blog we love frogs. How much? So much that the whole darn blog is named after them! Not only the blog, but the etsy shop too! Sadly, I can't take credit for the month of April being "Frog Month" though. I'm not sure who did the leg work on that one, but I'm glad they did, since it gives me a chance to talk about these magnificent amphibians.

Believe it or not, frogs are among the most endangered animals

on the planet. They have made it through many previous extinction events (including the one that wiped out all of the non-avian dinosaurs) but will they survive humans? That remains to be seen.

So, in honor of Frog Month and our dampish frog friends, I thought I would highlight a couple of things we can do to help them out. First on the list?

Drink more tap water!

How does this help? Well, Americans alone drink somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 BILLION bottles of water a year. Most of these bottles are not even recycled. All that plastic requires a lot of oil to produce: enough to fuel a million cars for a year! And oil isn't the only thing wasted... three times more water is used in the production of each bottle than ends up inside. Most of what's inside is just processed tap water anyway, which you could do much more cheaply at home with a filter. Some "big box" brands even have higher levels of contaminates than are allowed in tap water!

So, where does this leave frogs? Well, processing oil into bottles and then transporting the bottles to shops around the country contributes tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere which in turns contributes to climate change. And we all know how much frogs hate climate change! Most are adapted to only live in very narrow ranges of temperature, so even a small shift can have dire consequences. In addition, using all that extra water depletes rivers, streams, lakes, and reservoirs. In other words, the very places that frogs call home.

You may be wondering "why care about frogs?" Aside from the fact that frogs are unique and beautiful, they are also the muppet-like face of many important ecosystems. Save the frogs, save the planet, save ourselves. Easy as 1-2-3! Well, maybe not that easy. But at least it's a place to start...

Special thanks to Save the Frogs! for use of their photos and some of the information contained above.

Wordless Wednesday featuring Camila and Corinna (Easter Bonnet Edition)

Ice Age-O-Rama!

Once, long ago, I studied anthropology. But even then I secretly wished it was paleontology. Eventually I ended up with a degree in zoology. I want there to be some way to make "zoo keeper" rhyme with all of that, but alas. I guess I'll have to just get to my point instead...

Which is just that I am still very much interested in paleontology. Almost as interested as I am in living tapirs. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that there is going to be a talk about ice age tapirs at a museum (sort of) within driving distance of my home!

Hopefully I can get the day off work and actually attend. If not, I'll have to content myself with factoids from the internet. For instance, did you know that the skull of a 1.8 million year old giant sloth was just unearthed in Palm Springs? Just picture it: a 12 foot tall sloth roaming the desert, maybe pausing poolside for a cool beverage... Too bad I never got that paleontology degree. If I had, I would know that the California landscape looked very different during the Pleistocene. Maybe I should just content myself with one of these 3-D ground sloth puzzles from the Tapir and Friends Animal Store instead.

Or I could buy myself some jewelry, like this tiny bronze Smilodon skull. Forget diamonds. Real women prefer tiny reproductions of fossils. At least, that's what this woman prefers. Hey, maybe I could wear it to the tapir talk!

Meet the Bar-pouched Hornbill

Is that a dinosaur? What is that thing? Does it bite?

These are the three questions I hear most often about our bar-pouches (Rhyticeros undulatus). Well, to be fair, that last question is the most frequently asked question about any zoo animal anywhere. The answers?

1.) No

2.) A hornbill

3.) Yes, but not often. Which is a good thing, because it would really hurt.

Guests are understandably curious about these big birds. After all, there are only something like six of them in the US, so most folks have never seen one before. And they really are remarkable. The males may weigh up to eight pounds, which is quite large for a bird! They are LOUD too, vocalizing with a sort of rough whining laugh, knocking and thumping with their beaks on wood or metal, and flying with an audible rush of wind through their giant wings.

In the wild they can be found in forests from north-eastern India through south-east Asia. They are omnivores, eating mostly fruit, but occasionally consuming some small animal-based protein. Their bills aren't quite as solid as they look, but are still quite a lot to carry on the end of their faces. For this reason all hornbills have their first two vertebrae fused, providing a more stable platform for their tremendous beaks.

Another odd thing about hornbills in general is the way in which they raise their young. The female enters a cavity in a cliff or a tree, prepares the area inside, and then begins to "mud up" the entry. When she's done there is only a narrow slit left, just big enough to for the male to pass food through. And that's just what he does, sometimes for months on end. It's quite a burden on him, since he has to feed his mate not only while she sits on the eggs, but also while the baby matures after hatching. And of course, he has to bring enough food to feed the new kid too! If you look closely at the photo at the left, you can just barely make out our female's beak poking out of the tiny slit near the top. Hopefully they'll have a baby this year. That would bring the total up to seven bar-pouched hornbills in the US!

Wordless Wednesday featuring Cleo