Damn, I’m stupid. I meant to include this handy video in the above post.
Most of that was filmed in parts which are not publicly accessible (an unused lift shaft), or even visible (the tunnels) on the tour, but it’s an interesting companion piece. From the guide’s description, the tunnels are the second emergency exit from the tour - ie, you walk along a disused tunnel to the nearest active station.
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I didn’t need to, that was an hypothesis I could do without!
But I am being wooshed, am I not?
It was just a silly reference to your username, which I have never been able to figure out.
Einstein was just messing with you.
And the CMB defines a reference frame that’s better than all the other reference frames…
Oh, my username! Makes sense. It is a Pig-Latin variant of Pardelluchs (which is pronounced exactly the same way), which is the German name for the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), an animal I like very much. It was on the brink of extinction about 20 years ago, when I took the name and the avatar, thinking I would outlast it. The situation has improved after a massive program to save them, but they are still very much endangered. Wikipedia can tell you more.
That’s an interesting fact. I didn’t know there was an extant European species of Lynx in western Europe.
Thanks. It was well chosen for uniqueness - almost all the google hits come back to you, except there’s a Polish photographer with surname Pardel who has a light meter app!
As a matter of fact, there are two. Ladies and Gentlemen: the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) for you! It is a bit bigger, and although there are few left in Central Europe, there are still many in Scandinavia and a lot in Asia, mostly in Russia.
A bright spot is that (as I’m sure you know) the closely related North American species - Canadian lynx and bobcat - are still very successful. It’s quite common to see bobcats on the outskirts of town where I live in Santa Fe.
They are everywhere in the U.S. - they even get down into the Grand Canyon.
Yes, that is a bright spot. Aren’t they all just beautiful?
I think you might mean “Dog Latin”. If it were Pig Latin it would have to end in “-ay” and have its initial letter shifted to the back — Ardel-Lux-Pay
Yay, you’re right. I meant to say it was completely made up.
Around 1980 I spotted a bobcat in Westchester county in New York about 4AM off to the side of the Taconic Pkwy. Of course no one believed me, none had been seen in the area for many years but over the next several weeks reporteds showed up in the local papers.
But this is what I really want to see…
A wild jaguar has been photographed by federally run trail cameras in southern Arizona’s Huachuca Mountains at least twice this year. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service database that tracks jaguar detections lists two photos in March and May 2023…
Jaguars continue to move into Arizona from Mexico. Seven jaguars have been confirmed by photographs in the United States in the past 20 years.
In December 2022 the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce jaguars in New Mexico and designate much more critical habitat in both New Mexico and Arizona.
Jaguar Caught on Camera in Southern Arizona’s Huachuca Mountains - Center for Biological Diversity
The great thing about New Mexico is that we have so few people, and not even a lot of livestock. So reintroducing big cats could work, I think jaguars very rarely present any danger to humans.
( The next step is introducing African lions to Texas to solve their feral hog problem. )
[emphasis mine]
Is this what we’re calling MAGAts now?
Jaguars are fantastic too, but concerning the danger to humans, I would keep some distance. They are fast, stealthy, clever, and have a very powerful bite, some say the most powerful of extant land animals. They can crush an adult crocodile’s skull!
There is no question that they are physically capable of killing humans. But they are behaviorally unlikely to attack humans.
Jaguars did not evolve eating large primates, and do not normally see humans as food.[23] Experts have cited them as the least likely of all big cats to kill and eat humans, and the majority of attacks come when it has been cornered or wounded.
Jaguars and lynx are probably the most beautiful big cats. Leopards may compete.
I also wrote they are clever, let’s hope they don’t learn to see humans as prey, that would greatly reduce their acceptance and therefore their chances of survival in the USA.
To continue with the “pardel/pardus/pardinus” theme: that was more or less the ancient Greek name of the leopard, (Panthera pardus). As wikipedia explains:
The English name “leopard” comes from Old French leupart or Middle French liepart, that derives from Latin leopardus and ancient Greek λέοπάρδος (leopardos). Leopardos could be a compound of λέων (leōn), meaning ‘lion’, and πάρδος (pardos), meaning ‘spotted’. The word λέοπάρδος originally referred to a cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).
“Panther” is another common name, derived from Latin panther and ancient Greek πάνθηρ (pánthēr); The generic name Panthera originates in Latin panthera, a hunting net for catching wild beasts to be used by the Romans in combats. Pardus is the masculine singular form.
For some reason the Greeks thought that giraffes were a compound of camels and leopards, thus the scientific or Latin name of the giraffe was Giraffa camelopardis when it was believed that there was only one species with several sub-species. Today the nomenclature has become more complicated, as genetics has shown that there are more than one species of giraffe.
BTW: Having more species of giraffe makes their conservation status more precarious: more species → less animals and smaller habitat per species.
No, in the same way that cheetahs/leopards were “spotted lions”, giraffes were “spotted camels”.