In the darkness, I heard the dog barking and scuffling with something in the gravel driveway. I assumed it was a beetle. Obviously something small. But when I went over to look I could see it was a snake.
Calypso was dodging in and out enthusiastically. So much for the snake-avoidance training. I shouted at her, though, and she backed off.
“Is it a baby brown?” I wondered. It was too light-coloured for a red-bellied black snake.
But our biological dinner guests started shouting “Typhlops! Typhlops!”
Whatever that meant. Continue reading
Not so long ago I woke up to the sound of the dogs barking frantically at an echidna. They seem to take something about the way a spiny anteater moves as an affront to reality. The little heaves among the sharp spines it makes as each leg moves forward are an insult, as is the delicate pointed snout, and its intensely pointy coating.