So is there an alternative newspaper?

[Igneouss]

As a noob I was jazzed at the prospect of helping out with Piss Clear only to discover it does not exist...

As anything else filled that particular void?

tia,
Ig

[jkisha]

It doesn't exist? I've read it on the playa. I think they also just published a book with the back issues. Was I hallucinating?

JK

[Igneouss]

I thought I read that they stopped publishing last year for good. ???

[Bounce530]

'07 was the last year of 'Piss Clear'

[Igneouss]

Any 'new' news rags sprung up recently?

[SnowBlind]

Any 'new' news rags sprung up recently?

Not exactly recently, but after the demise of the Black Rock Gazette some of the people that worked on that started the Black Rock Beacon. I think they've been doing it since 05, or so?

The have a website at http://bitethe.com/brb/

[theCryptofishist]

YEah, I think the Bacon gets to be both the newspaper and the alternate news paper.

You could always start your own. You might need to send someone out to Kinko's every day, but you could always start your own.

[jkisha]

I've never seen a copy of the BR Beacon. I'll look for it this year.

didn't hear about piss clear's demise either.

Thanks for the info.

JK

[sattelite5812]

I think the Beacon usually sets up around the 9:00 keyhole. Somehow I always end up with excess copies of the paper. One year, there was a guy actually doing a "paper route" and delivering copies to camps on his bike!

[Igneouss]

THey have a website. It sounds like they try/want to deliver the paper 5 or 6 mornings during BM. They also put other stories on the website once ina while off season. Looks like the site is about a year out of date.

[Ugly Dougly]

THey have a website. It sounds like they try/want to deliver the paper 5 or 6 mornings during BM. They also put other stories on the website once ina while off season. Looks like the site is about a year out of date.

Thanks for volunteering, IG!

Try to keep the Moop down to a minimum - burn after reading!

[Igneouss]

Yepper,
I sent 'em an email from the web site volunteering. No response yet, but it's early...

Cheers

[Ugly Dougly]

Not too much igneous on the playa, mostly sedimentary, by the way.

[Igneouss]

I actually prefer sed rocks. 'Sedimentary' just didn't have the right ring to it for a name

[gyre]

I think you mean sedentary.

What about Spock?

[Igneouss]

Sedentary does describe me at times... but I'll stick with igneouss.

[Igneouss]

Since I specialized in Paleontology I considered 'paleo', but, even though I am really old it just didn't seem accurate.

And anyway, I have used 'Igneouss' on line almost as long as 'on line' has existed.

[gyre]

They just found a 635 million year old animal in Oman.
That seems pretty old for an animal.
And they found big snakes in canada recently.
I knew canada had issues.

Modern anaconda and BIG Snake

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090204/ ... 09.80.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7871099.stm

[Igneouss]

The big snake is very cool
It's from S. America. It was chunky like an anaconda but scaled up to about 45 feet long. hssssssss

635M is around the time lots of really cool stuff evolved. My favorite period. Look up Halucinagea or Anomalacaris. Mother nature had all kinds of strange false starts back in the Cambrian (both are tattoos of mine as well)

Just got my tickies and still doing the happy dance.

[ygmir]

I've dug some nice fossils in the general vicinity of BRC, east and southeast.....
Ichthyosaur, ammonites, camels (no toes), some I don't know what they are........fossil wood, even a standing forest ......all at ground level now, though.....

[Igneouss]

Very cool. I have done 0 geology in NV. Doing a bit this summer in Southern UT. Previous stuff in NM and CO. Otherwise mostly Appalachian stuff. Looking forward to playing out West more...

Cheers

[AntiM]

Utah has some nifty fossils, but you're only allowed to collect invertebrates on public land as I recall. Larry used to pick up fossil rocks on railroad land, mostly shells embedded in soft sandstone leftover on blast sites.

[ygmir]

Utah has some nifty fossils, but you're only allowed to collect invertebrates on public land as I recall. Larry used to pick up fossil rocks on railroad land, mostly shells embedded in soft sandstone leftover on blast sites.

I believe you're correct about the invertebrates......unless you've had them from before the ban, not sure when, but, ALL mine are from when it was still ok.........

in the ammonite/ichthyosaur deposit, we encountered a paleo grad student, that, told us one species of ammonite there was only found in a certain zone, called it "Nevaditese" or something like that.......

[gyre]

Yes, the snake was found in Colombia.
I misread something.

I have personally seen a snake bigger than the one the Smithsonian says doesn't exist.
They say if it existed, why wouldn't someone claim the prize money for it?
Well, why would they, when it's so little money?

The one I saw was being exhibited in a traveling trailer.
It was black, 8-10 inches diameter and the pen had that reptile smell Howard always talks about.
Since it was coiled in the pen, it is very easy to misjudge length, but the trailer would have to have been at least twenty feet long and you could see that much in one stretch and there was much more snake.
While it's true that these creatures tend to get thicker more than longer, I think this snake was 40 to 50 feet long at least.

Ever see the guy looking around in a cave for a 35 foot long python?
It almost got him, even with a crowd to help pull it off him.
And that was a very slim snake.

Some say sharks don't get as large as these jaws would indicate.

I remain very curious about giant squid.
Deep sea sucker marks found on whales indicate some very large ones.

[ygmir]

it's nice to think there are still some things undiscovered..........

[Igneouss]

Gyre,
Here's what I know (right or wrong)

Snakes:
Largest by lenght is reticulated python. Largest with reasonable documentation is 30-ish feet (histoic). Largest in captivity is 25-ish feet (named Fluffy - look it up on internet for pics. Fluffy is occasionally loaned to zoos for display). Must read is the book 'Big Snake'. Both funny and insightful. Snake length is very hard to measure. Live snakes are flexible and do not hold still for the tape measure LOL. Tanned skins are stretched in the tanning process. Etc. Rumors swirl but when you look for decent documentation you discover the longest modern snakes are maybe 28-ish feet. FYI- Fluffy weighs about 250 lbs and is fed live pigs...

Largest by weight is clearly the anaconda. They tend to be shorter but much thicker than retics. I am not up on weight numbers but 400 lbs would be easy. Maybe 18-ish feet long.

The prize: Teddy Roosevelt established a prize for adequately documented live snake in excess of 30 feet. The prize has never been claimed and continues to grow due to earned interest. I believe it is well in to 6 figures now days. Anybody who had a qualifying snake in captivity would be there.

Fluffy is growing so unless you start with a 25+ foot snake you have no hope of beating Fluffy to the prize. Fluffy was hand reared and is privately owned. I am sure they have spent way more than 6 figures over the years on caring for Fluffy.

Sharks. Modern great white sharks get big. Not sure of confirmed numbers but maybe approaching 20 feet. Now lets talk Miocene age sharks

A big great white could have swam into, turned around and swam out of the mouth of Charcdon Charcharis or Charcadon Megladon. I've collected fossil parts of both those critters. They were built like great whites but the size of basking sharks. I've found individual teeth approaching 6 inches in length.

Squid are very cool. I love chephalopods. Giant squid certainly exist. Mangled bodies of them are discovered every now and then indicating tentacle 30 feet long and bodies more than 10 feet long. There is no reason to doubt that they get bigger than that. Unfortunately, they live at depths and in areas that make observation very difficult. There are reports from the age of whaling that sperm whales hunted giant squid. The reports are due to finding partially digested remains inside butchered whales.

Good fun.
Thanks for causing me to think about this stuff today

Cheers

[gyre]

I know the accepted data.
But the video of the australian hunting a large python is recent and that one measured 35 feet.
It was during the measuring process that the snake got hold of the guy and nearly toasted him.
Without a large group there, he would have been done.
Close enough as it was.
The cave was full of 20-25 foot snakes.
They were following tales of large snakes.
This one was a very thin snake.
This was in asia, malaysia, somewhere like that.
The video is still being shown.

I think people that run across these snakes don't know about any prize or don't care.
These large snakes are probably rarer now with population increases and they don't cooperate much.
The carnival snake I saw was bringing in huge money.
The last I heard, the prize was $50,000.
Is it really more?
That wouldn't cover an expedition.

I think animals in zoos are not nearly as well fed as one might be in the wild.
They usually aren't going for the largest animals.

I saw the snake from less than a foot away that I described.
I don't think it was a green anaconda, but I don't know what it was.
Maybe it was dirty and that concealed the patterning?
They were cleaning the cage while I was there.
If it was a fake, I am still fooled.
Everyone in our town went to see it.
Many said it was fake, but didn't bother to ask for their money back.

There have been many recent expeditions looking for anomalous animals, large crocodiles and so on.
They are good history on the difficulties of such things with timing and visas and cost issues.
There is good evidence of some really big crocodiles now.

I have even heard tales of big local snakes in the delta areas here.
Common snakes that get missed by predators or flukes?
I heard one firsthand and people just avoided the area once they had seen it.

Even as the rare oddity, these are very interesting.

An excessively large boar was documented recently.
They literally dug up the carcass.

I have to say, if I was exhibiting such an animal, I wouldn't let the government near it.
They don't have a record of respecting ownership.

Tourism boards actively discourage talk of large animals.
In australia, if they don't find your body when a shark gets you, you drowned.
Same for crocs.
The rate is up sharply lately with joggers.
They leave the feet because they don't like the shoes.
No feet, you drowned.
They guy with the museum the photo is from, has found more human remains than officially exist in NZ/Australia with sharks.

There is only one witness to an attack of this type.
The shark comes straight up, crushes, and sinks back.
Even up close, there was little sound, so such attacks in a crowded area are very possible.
Science still says such attacks don't occur.
He thinks they are only studying little sharks, which are only interested in proportional prey.


But I think it is mostly a matter of difficulty.
And reptiles seem to trigger some primal anxiety in humans.

[Igneouss]

Yep,
There is plenty of circumstancial evidence for large critters. Salt water crocs for sure.

I tend to keep a open mind on the subject but I temper it with a bit of psychology. Humans tend to be obsessed with 'biggest' things. Big fish stories for example. Stories tend to 'grow' with time.

I am not saying that big critters are not out there. Don't get me wrong. Just that for every big critter there are 100 people that will happily claim knowledge of a bigger critter.

Cheers

[gyre]

When I saw the snake, I had no idea that was unusually large for a snake.
It was just something to see at the time in a small town.

In the case of the last croc video I saw, it's a little frustrating for everyone.
There have been multiple sightings and measured and photographed tracks.
But the one they are targeting seems very cautious about the trap.
And it takes a big trap for something that size.
Having trapped a lot of raccoons, I can verify how easily spooked by traps animals are.
And raccoons are as brazen as they come.

I think caution probably comes with the territory, with anything that lives that long as a predator.

Even more intriguing are sightings by scientists of spiders or spider-like creatures that don't fit any known species.
The natives of the area think it's a large spider, but it is far larger than anything recorded.
Stories of this spider? go back in local history.

Ignoring anecdotal history may be unwise after earthquakes, eruptions and tidal waves have been matched to american ancient history.

Like everyone else, I want to know for certain.

[gyre]

On the reward and some sightings
http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encnet/Featur ... encesnakes

Found some commercial offerings
http://www.reptile-gardens.com/rewards/

The 35 foot python measured in the video was re-released and cheerfully too, after it tried to kill everyone.
The current resistance to capturing animals for science makes it even less likely anyone will accept evidence obtained.
A far cry from shooting on sight and stuffing.