THEME

If you've read the previous posts, you may have the impression that this blog does not have a theme. You would be wrong. In this blog I plan to write about any topic I please from AA batteries to Zygoptera, as long as I find it interesting, informative or entertaining. Naturally, I'll be posting about my beautiful dog, Terri. Expect to read about animals, logic, the pitiful lack of knowledge about English grammar in the North American population, technology, science, and science fiction.

Don't expect to read about sports -- I wasn't athletic during my school days so I didn't cultivate an interest in sports except for a small fondness for baseball. At school I had often wished we could spend more time playing softball -- it was the only sport I enjoyed. All other sports felt like work but softball was fun; I wonder why?

I suppose you would like me to satisfy your sudden interest in Zygoptera right now? Very well. I used to think that damselflies were the females of dragonflies but that the "male" word dragonfly was simply used more often (similar to dog-bitch male-female terms). It turns out that my thinking was wrong. They are different suborders: Odonata is an order* of insects containing dragonflies (suborder Epiprocta) and damselflies (suborder Zygoptera).

* If you studied biology, you know that living organisms are ranked by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species**. Dragon/damsel-flies aren't just different species but different suborders; meaning they have many distinct characteristics. See a stunning photo of a damselfly here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ischnura_heterosticta02.jpg

** An aside: There is no mention of "suborder" in the main list of divisions. Various sub-this and sub-that's are devised when taxonomists realize that they need to split animal (or plant) classifications again and seven divisions just aren't enough.

I'll leave you in suspense about the other topics for now.


You found your toy?
Oh! Frabjous joy!