dragon@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Sam Conway) (07/17/90)
I have just returned from a trip to St. John's, Newfoundland, where I had the pleasure of doing a bit of birding. While out on an excursion boat during this trip, I was fortunate enough to witness a breaching humpback whale not more than one hundred feet away. As it threw its 40-ton body 2/3 the way out of the water, landing then with a thunderous splash, I began to contemplate the reasons for this behavior. I have concluded that we are witnessing evolution in progress. Such a spectacle is quite obviously an attempt by the whale to achieve powered flight. Such a thing no doubt occurred eons ago when the first ancestral birds made their feeble attempts to reach the sky. Surely, with its huge pectoral fins, the humpback is much more likely to be capable of flight than its smaller-finned cousins. Someday, I am certain, and somewhere, a humpback whale is going to breach and simply keep going. Hurrah for another successful evolutionary leap! I can only hope that it happens in my lifetime. Of course, we shall have to be certain that funds are allocated for the construction of appropriately-sized nesting platforms near the seaside. There were also some ospreys nesting at the Botanical Gardens of Memorial University, but they were nowhere near as spectacular as the aerial humpback (which, I have no doubt, will be found after sufficient study to be not a member of the mammal family, as was previously believed, but rather a type of passerine). -- Sam Conway * What shape do you usually have? dragon@eleazar.dartmouth.edu * Mickey Mouse shape? Smarties Chemistry Dept., Dartmouth College, NH * shape? Amphibious landing craft Vermont Raptor Center (VINS) * shape? Poke in the eye shape?