German Joys

Traumatic Insemination

No, it's not the latest bête noire of human-rights activists, it's how bed bugs mate. I ran across this description (pdf) while doing some entomological research for a friend, and I'm going to share it with you because . . . well, because I need help, that's why:

Bed bug mating is extremely peculiar. The female has a notch on the underside of her abdomen known as the Ribaga's organ--an invagination of the body wall. Males have a single laterally-placed dagger-like paramere (clasper)--a fearsome-looking organ. Bed bugs mate, unusually for bugs, with both individuals facing forwards. The male puts this paramere inside the entrance to the Ribaga's organ and literally pierces the body wall of the female. The spermatozoa migrate through the haemocoel (blood equivalent) to the genital tract. The terminology for this is apt--'traumatic insemination'.

Trailing Leaves of Glory Redux

How many times can you see a sweetgum tree or a Japanese maple in full, blazing-red fall regalia before you get jaded? For me, the answer is ∞.

So here is yet another slideshow, featuring beeches, japanese maples, chestnuts, swamp cypresses, sweetgum trees (Amberbaum), red oaks, swamps oaks, Caucasian wingnuts, and even a special guest appearance by the redoubtable dawn redwood (the fabulously-named metasequoia glyptostroboides), a rare prehistoric deciduous needle-tree thought to be extinct until living specimens were found in China in the 1940s. It's still considered critically endangered!

Epileptics be advised: This slideshow features some dramatic, mind-breakingly psychedelic 'action photos' taken while I was riding my bike really fast and not holding my camera very steady.   

Some Shit for the Kids!

I am occasionally accused of playing into lazy stereotypes of Germans and German society. Such as the admirable harrowing frankness about bodily functions displayed in Germany. Urination or menstruation (g), for instance, not to mention the #1 on the German hit parade, defecation. 

So I doubt anyone would believe me if I said there was a children's book in Germany which featured, on its front cover, a picture of the hero with a pile of fresh, steaming shit on his head.

Epileptic Tattoo Artist vs. River of Ectoplasm

The  offerings over at Astronomy Picture of the Day range reliably from fascinating to spectacular. I'd put today's somehow strangely erotic picture in the latter category (click for bigger pic):

Spanish Trees Oozing Goo

Since we're on a natural-history kick here, I thought I'd share a photograph of some Pinsapo fir trees (g) at the botanical garden (g) that is about a 5 minutes' walk from my office (the pleasures of academia). These trees are ordinarily found only in rocky coastal regions of Morocco and Spain, but seem to be doing OK in our decidedly non-Mediterranean climate, to judge by the sap-encrusted cones they're now extruding:

What are You Called, Beautiful Bastard?

So a few days ago I take a bike exursion to the Urdenbacher Kaempe (g), a large nature preserve just south of Duesseldorf. It's located in an area that was 'reclaimed' for dry land after the Rhine river changed direction in the 14th century. Because it's still close to river level, parts of it still flood every year. It has meadows, orchards, riverside forests, and swamp-like areas that stay moist all year. In the early 1990s, a quasi-public foundation bought the entire region and declared it a nature reserve. There's a 'biostation' (g) ('nature monitoring station', approximately) right in the middle of it, keepin' it real.

I could rhapsodize for pages about this enchanting place, but I have more pedestrian things to do. For now, I'd like to call upon the hive-mind to help me answer the question: what sort of bird is this?

It stood on the bought of a dead tree, much more upright than a bird should stand, looking distressingly aloof. It's wearing tapered trousers and a morning coat, for God's sake! I clambered noisily through the underbrush to get this picture (best I could do), but the bird completely ignored me, as if I were a sniveling peon begging for leftover dormouse intestines from its midday meal.

I've looked through all my nature guides, to no avail. Can any friend of nature help a budding ornithologist?

Reclamation of A Trade Park

Witzelstr. 55 is the address of a mixed commercial and industrial trade area in the middle of Duesseldorf that was entirely abandoned in mid-2002.

Since then, lots of interesting things have been going on there. I'm working on a more ambitious project, but until then, here is a slideshow of images taken in October 2007, April 2008, and August of 2009. However, I recommend that instead of watching this glorious decay through a little window, you follow the link below to my Picasa photo album, and run a full-screen slideshow.

Witzelstrasse

My Kind of Wingnut

On the way to the fitness studio, I pass by the Florapark, a pocket park in Bilk, right next to the Karl Arnold Haus der Wissenschaften (House of Sciences!). You can enjoy a coffee in the Florabar (g), located in a converted pumping station, or just sit on one of the many park benches, enjoy a cold one, and people-watch. There's a roster of chronic tipplers who stage impromptu grill parties and occasionally take a dip -- fully nude -- in the artificial pond. Then there are the Russlandsdeutsche (Russian Germans) who gather to play football on the central meadow. I once even saw a guy driving a remote-controlled miniature 4x4 around the park, which attracted plenty of attention. Middle-aged men with plastic sacks wander alone through the park collecting deposit bottles from the trash bins, often while talking animatedly to themselves.

But there's also nature! The park plays host to a gray heron, about 40 ducks, and about 10-12 moorhens. The moorhens are my favorite -- they don't fly very often, so they mostly run here and there on their gigantic yellow legs. Even though they spend half their time in the water, evolution still has yet to equip them with webbed feet, so when they swim, they have to pump desperately. Their sole cry is a sort of strangled half-squawk. They get bossed around by the other, larger birds, but survive on craftiness. The other day, one of them was being much friendlier than usual, jumping up on the bench beside me and even trying to jump onto my leg. She (presumably) wanted some of my peanuts. So I gave her one. Shortly, the reason for her overtures was clear. She immediately hopped down from the bench and ran at full speed across the lawn. Two moorhen chicks ran just as fast toward her, frantically waving their absurdly tiny wing-palps. She broke the peanut into chunks, and the chicks gobbled them down, waving their wing-nubs in delight. You can see the peanut in her beak in this dramatic photo, taken just before the transfer: 

And now to the actual subject of this post. Hovering over the artificial pond in the middle of the park is this fine tree:

It looked pretty exotic, so I went on a quest to figure out exactly what sort of tree it was. I couldn't find it in my local nature guide, so I then began browsing through tree websites. Now there's little on this earth more pleasant than looking at trees, but little more boring than looking at pictures of trees. I was about to give up, when I decided to go look at the tree itself. Sure enough, there was a little label nailed onto the damn thing. It is Pterocarya fraxinifolia. In German, it's called the Kaukasische Fluegelnuss (g). Which, literally translated, means: "Caucasian Wingnut."

As I performed this literal translation in my head, I began laughing to myself out loud, in the middle of the park. (This is common in the Florapark, so nobody paid it any mind.) I thought to myself: it would too perfect if the English name for this tree were actually "Caucasian Wingnut." Lo and behold, it is! Other examples of Caucasian Wingnuts can be found here and here (g). This tree may look placid and mild-mannered, and doesn't seem to have its own radio talk show yet. But that just makes it perhaps the most dangerous sort of wingnut...

UPDATE: The pun-sibilities are endless. Here's another: "Feel free to waste a wingnut or two! They do grow on trees, after all!"

What Sort of Bird is This?

We spotted this handsome creature on an island in the middle of the Spee'scher Graben (g)  in Duesseldorf, yesterday. Anyone know what kind it is?

A Fine Roman Snail

While bicycling along the Rhine last weekend, I came across this glorious beast ambling across the trail:

This is helix pomatia, known in German as a Weinbergschnecke (lit: vineyard snail). It belongs to the category of animals known in German as Weichtiere (lit: soft animals!). It has various names in English, such as Burgundy snail or Roman snail (since we know the Romans liked to eat them). They are generally what you get in a French restaurant when you order escargot.

In the wild, they can live 6-8 years, in captivity up to 20.  Specimens found in the wild are protected under the German equivalent (g) of the Endangered Species Act. They are hermaphrodites who nevertheless mate in pairs, a process which involves two snails rearing up, locking their moist bodies together, and stabbing each other with 11-millimeter long "love darts". Not unlike what goes on in my apartment of a Saturday night.

The snail made me think of this stanza of a poem by Kenneth Koch: 

Look at this wolf.

He is lighter than a car

But heavier than a baby carriage.

He is highly effective.

Each wolf manifestation is done entirely in the classic manner of a wolf.

He stands completely still.

He is not "too busy to talk to you,"

Not "in conference" or "on the phone."

Some day there may not be any more wolves.

Civilization has not been moving in a way that is favorable to them.

Meanwhile, there is this one.