Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two. This is the world's #1 archaeology blog according to Technorati.
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Category: Biology
Posted on: July 29, 2007 8:50 AM, by Martin R
From Pär Svensson of Kurtz, this fine portrait of a red river hog, Potamochoerus porcus, in Berlin's zoo. These cool-looking omnivores make their home in sub-Saharan Africa.
From the same recent zoo visit, our cerebal rock guitarist provides us with a peek at the nocturnal fellows who give this blog part of its name.
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Comments
RRHs are indeed really cool, as are aardvarks, but the king of them all has to be the Honey Badger (or Ratel). This fearsome beast can take on pretty much anything - snakes, hyenas, bees - you name it. Its most eye-wateringly crazy mode of attack is to go straight for the scrotum, and castrate its victim.
It would make a remarkably good theriomorphic deity; the Church of the Honey Badger (no website yet) seeks to follow the ways of the HB in all things (particularly theological argument with other faiths). Ratelian philosophy suggests that attack is the best form of defence, and ripping your opponent's scrotum off (metaphorically, of course) is the best form of attack. If they have a scrotum. Otherwise it's not.
Posted by: Amenhotep | July 29, 2007 5:25 PM
Great! When I move to a remote island and seed it with genetically enhanced, intelligent animals, I'll have a Honey Badger as bodyguard and a posse of RRHs as my excavation crew.
Posted by: Martin R | July 30, 2007 2:46 AM
Arty, smarty name, I first thought when I saw your blog:
'Aardvark' is probably the first word in all dictionaries, so you've made sure to be on top of most link lists.
But after some consideration one realizes, that 'a ' (a + space) comes before 'aa'....
('A Blog' comes before 'Aardvarchaeology')
So you're only topping 95% of the blogrolls ;)
Posted by: Eminenta Z | July 31, 2007 9:46 AM
Well, you know, ABATC isn't on all the blog rolls I'm on, and unlike that name mine gives an immediate idea of what the blog's about. Still, ABATC is highly recommended if you're into chronobiology and science democratisation.
Posted by: Martin R | July 31, 2007 9:51 AM