Skomorokhs in a Russian Village: Franz Nikolaevich Riss

Photo: Skomorokhs in a Russian Village (1857), painting by Franz Nikolaevich Riss

The painting by Francois Nicholas Riss (1804-1886), often referred to as Franz Nikolaevich Riss, depicts Skomorokhs performing in a Russian village street. It is a typical Russian village setting of the times with wooden and thatched roof houses, and the village folks of all age groups, from very young children to old men and women gathering to enjoy the show.

Born in Russia, Franz Nikolaevich Riss studied painting in Paris at Baron Antoine-Jean Gros and mainly painted portraits, including the famous portrait of Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of Canada. In 1930s he returned to Russia and settled in Saint Petersburg.

The Skomorokhs were East Slavic street performers who were active in medieval times in Russia and many other Slavic nations. Their origin is documented to the 11th century, becoming very popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. They had to face severe persecution from the orthodoxy, especially from the Russian Orthodox Church, and they had to disappear from the scene by the 18th century.

In fact, many of the folk traditions of many eastern regions from Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent have influences of these folk performers. For instance, the evolution of the Russian puppet theatre drew directly the Skomorokhs.

As their repertoire included singing, dancing, playing musical instruments and composing and choreographing for their performances, they could draw crowds of hundreds that is remarkable for the era that had no advertising and marketing for such shows. Neither was there the electronic media of today’s times nor the elaborate stage settings to attract people.

The Skomorokhs were feared as the devil’s servants by the Orthodox Church that also discouraged folk art and popular culture which were considered irreverent and repelling people from God. As the rulers were either strongly influenced by the church or rather the rulers were ruled by the church, banning their shows was easy. A case in point is the ban order issued by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in 1657, which was influenced by the church.

The feudalists and the clergy were dead against Skomorokhi as their art occasionally included satire, masks and mock songs that were popular among the common people. These could be used against the elite that seem to be the refrain of the church that wanted to propagate ascetic living.

The Fate of Tiger Temple in Thailand

Photo: Tourists watching chained tigers in the Tiger Temple in Thailand, photo taken in June 2004

The picture shows an area inside the Tiger Temple (Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Yanasampanno) located in the Kanchanaburi Province of Thailand.

Established as a Buddhist forest temple and wildlife sanctuary in 1994, it had about 150 tigers, other animals and birds as of January 2016. The star attraction of the sanctuary was the Tiger Island, spread over five hectares and completed in 2011 at a cost of over US$ 2.5 million. It had 28 tiger enclosures and was a huge hit with local tourists and backpackers.

The whole complex presented a romantic picture, monks living with tigers and other wild animals in perfect harmony. You too could have been part of such a mystical harmony, getting photographed with tigers or even taking a selfie with the magnificent feline friends.

But for a price; reportedly, the entrance fee per head ranged from US$17 to US$140, earning millions of dollars for the temple management.

Over the years, the temple had been accused of illegal breeding and controversial commercial activities. A number of NGOs and conservation and animal rights groups contacted the Thai authorities urging them to take action against the temple.

The NGOs alleged clandestine exports to a tiger farm in Laos, among many other allegations, and asked the authorities to conduct genetical tests to determine the subspecies and pedigree of the big cats.

Breeding tigers for commercial use is restricted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to which Thailand is a signatory, and the unlicensed breeding violates Thai laws too.

The authorities had been persuading the monks to stop all illegal activities. They also wanted the monks to stop exposing tourists to hazardous contact with tigers. The NGOs had already pointed out that there are up to 60 reported incidents annually of captive tigers attacking tourists and/or attendants.

On May 30, 2016, more than 500 officers consisting of wildlife officials, police and vets raided the temple complex. They seized 137 living tigers, 40 frozen cub corpses, a dead bear, a large number of body parts of other animals preserved in freezers and horns of various animals. Some of the dead cubs were found preserved in formaldehyde. They also found protected birds such as hornbills that were being reared without license.

The police also stopped the abbot's secretary trying to flee with tiger skins, over 1000 amulets containing pieces of tiger skin, and other contraband items. They also seized trucks loaded with protected Siamese rosewood.

Some packed carcasses of cubs in containers had labels in English implicating they were for local sale or international trade.

The subspecies of the tigers in this unscientifically maintained sanctuary is not clearly known. However, it is believed that they are mostly Indochinese tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti), along with subspecies such as Malayan tigers (Panthera tigris jacksoni) and some hybrids resulting from cross breeding. One animal was identified as a Royal Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris).

With the help of animal welfare charities, the tigers were rehabilitated by the authorities.

Painting of a bison on Altamira Cave ceiling in Spain

Public Domain Photo: Altamira Cave, located near Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, 30 km west of the city of Santander in Spain, is famous for its European Upper Paleolithic (also called Late Stone Age, for the period broadly between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago) cave art comprising paintings, drawings and polychrome rock paintings depicting wild animals and human hands. The cave along with its paintings has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

PETA Asia Pacific

Public Domain Photo: PETA Asia Pacific demonstrates at Hong Kong Fashion Week 08.

Public Domain Photo: PETA Asia Pacific Lettuce Ladies demonstrating in Guangzhou, China, photo dated September 25, 2008.

Public Domain Photo: PETA Asia Pacific anti-zoo demonstration by body-painted people with the banner, ‘Let Animals Show Their True Colors’, photo dated 26 August 2010.

PETA Asia-Pacific, an affiliate of PETA US, and its affiliates are dedicated to protecting the rights of all animals. Their campaign is based on the the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment. PETA focuses mainly on ‘the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in factory farms, laboratories, the clothing trade, and the entertainment industry’.

The Hong Kong based PETA Asia-Pacific campaigns in 15 countries in Asia, where more than one-third of the world's populationlives, and they have made an impact and created awareness about animal rights in countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. Learn more about PETA Asia-Pacific from their site: www.petaasiapacific.com

PD Images of horses

Animated Image: Sequence of a race horse galloping; photos taken by Eadweard Muybridge (death in 1904) first published in 1887 in Philadelphia. The horse galloping animation is set to motion using the frames of photos taken from Muybridge's Human and Animal Locomotion series, published 1887 by the University of Pennsylvania.

Note: This image is in public domain. But you may not be able to save it to your computer as the image did not move/ show animation when uploaded to this site’s server. So, I am placing the image from a different server.

To place this FREE animated image in your blog, site or homepage, just cut and paste the code below:

<p align="center"><a title="Nexus International marriage and dating" href="http://www.nexusinternational.biz/e-pals.html"><img alt="Galloping horse free animated public domain image" border="0" src="http://www.nexusinternational.biz/images/Eadweard-Muybridge-race-horse-animation-PD-image.gif" /></a></p>

Horses generally move with four basic gaits: four-beat walk (average speed 6.4 kmh/ 4.0 mph); two-beat trot or jog (13 to 19 kmh /8.1 to 12 mph); canter or lope, a three-beat gait (19 to 24 kmh/ 12 to 15 mph) and the gallop (40 to 48 kmh/ 25 to 30 mph. The reported world record for a horse galloping over a short, sprint distance is 88 kilometers per hour (55 mph). Besides these basic gaits, there are many variations observed in many horse breeds.

Horses generally move with four basic gaits: four-beat walk (average speed 6.4 kmh/ 4.0 mph); two-beat trot or jog (13 to 19 kmh /8.1 to 12 mph); canter or lope, a three-beat gait (19 to 24 kmh/ 12 to 15 mph) and the gallop (40 to 48 kmh/ 25 to 30 mph. The reported world record for a horse galloping over a short, sprint distance is 88 kilometers per hour (55 mph). Besides these basic gaits, there are many variations observed in many horse breeds.

PD Photo: Wild stallion Lazarus and part of his band in West Warm Springs HMA (source: Bureau of Land Management, Office of Public Affairs, Oregon, USA).

Bay colour (left), and chestnut colour (also called sorrel) are two of the most common coat colors seen in almost all breeds. Horses exhibit a diverse array of coat colors and distinctive markings explained in a specialized vocabulary for horse breeders/ lovers.

PD photo: Three horses in a breeding place eating grass

Tortoises mating

PD Photo: A pair of tortoises mating in a zoo

Tortoises (land turtles) are reptiles living on land belonging to the family of Testudinidae of the order Testudines. Tortoises vary in size from a few centimeters to two meters. Their lifespan is compared to humans, though there are claims about tortoises in zoos/captivity having lived longer. For instance, in the Alipur Zoological Gardens in India there was an Aldabra Giant Tortoise brought to India by Lord Wellesley in 1875. It was at least 130 years old when it died, though there are claims that it was over 250 years old.

Many species of tortoises are sexually dimorphic. In some species, males have a longer, more protruding neck plate than females. In others the females’ claws are longer than males’ claws and females tend to be larger than males. The male also has a plastron that is curved inwards to aid mating.

Tortoises of some species lay only a single egg, while others may lay up to 30 eggs. For instance Testudo hermanni boettgeri, the Balkan Hermann's tortoise, lays 6 to 10 eggs. Most Mediterranean tortoises lay 5 to 6 eggs per clutch, and they can lay two or more clutches per season.

Incubation of tortoise eggs depends on availability of favorable temperature range (around 30 °C), and for most species incubation takes between 8 and 11 weeks. The lower the temperature the longer it takes, for example, at around 27 °C incubation can take 18 weeks or more, while at 35 °C the mortality rate of eggs/newborn tortoises will be the highest.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, India

Photo: A leopard at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, India

Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), earlier known as Borivali National Park, is a large protected area on the northern fringes of suburban Mumbai city in India, covering an area of 104 sq km (40 sq miles). It is one of the few national parks existing within a metropolis limit in Asia and it attracts more than two million visitors annually. The 2400-year-old Kanheri Caves sculpted out of the rocky cliffs which lie within the park.

Photo: A monkey and its baby at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, India

The Sanjay Gandhi National Park is home to a number of species of flora and fauna. Visitors can easily spot animals including leopards, spotted deer, Indian hares, barking deer, porcupine, Asian palm civet, mouse deer, monkeys, Indian flying fox, Sambar deer and reptiles such as crocodiles, pythons, cobras, monitor lizards, Russell's vipers, bamboo pit vipers and Ceylonese cat snakes.

Camel Spider eating a lizard in Iraq

Video: Marines and Camel Spiders

Do Camel Spiders attack US marines in Iraq, or Afghanistan? Well, judging from the frequency of stories of Camel Spider attacks on humans deployed by American and Coalition forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, first I thought that they are well-trained by Taliban or Al-Qaeda, or both, or they are themselves hardcore terrorists bent upon attacking the western forces.

While hunting for public domain photos for posting in this blog, I came across the photo of a very nice F-16 fighter aircraft, and while looking for details it, I came to a report that said, on 31 August 2006 a Dutch F-16AM crashed in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan and the pilot Captain Michael Donkervoort was killed. The investigations to find out the cause of the crash could not blame the crash on any technical or human errors, as if it was a mystery. But the investigation report referenced to the fact that a Camel Spider and other creatures had been found recently in the cockpits of Dutch fighter aircraft in Afghanistan. Indirectly, it seemed to allude that the Camel Spider had bitten the pilot who was paralyzed and lost control of the F-16, eventually crashing it.

My further efforts to find out more about these scary, bizarre, vampire-like creatures brought me to this video on YouTube. And I found much more videos and blogs that showed how the foreign soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are scared about these vampire Spiders. (In fact, biologically, they are not spiders but they belong to another family like that of the scorpions with more than 1000 identified species in their family).

Here is, in a nutshell, what the author of this video posted in YouTube (click on the video to go to his page), summarized as, “I made this video in Iraq. When stress comes calling... it has been a little busier and we're at the 1/3 mark in the deployment.”

That night the marine walked outside his office and saw the dead Camel Spider. A devilish idea struck him, as he was always talking about Marines screaming like little girls on the sight of these creatures. So he picked it up, pulled out his digital camera… He would walk up to people filming and telling them he was making a video to send home about Iraq, and what they thought of Camel Spiders... He would then toss the carcass onto their laps. He wrote, “Out of 15 subjects tested, 5 did indeed squeal like little girls, one was female though.” Any way, he has shot the Camel Spider comedy surprisingly well as you can see from this video.

Under the comments, I found myths surrounding camel spiders, like ‘Camel Spiders can move at speeds over 30 MPH screaming while they run, they can be as large as a Frisbee, their venom is an anesthetic that numbs their prey, they can jump three feet high, they got their name because they eat the stomachs of camels, they eat or gnaw on people while they sleep, due to the numbing effect of their venom the victim is unaware until they wake up.’

Any way the Camel Spider in this video is dead, not a living one! I have posted another video that shows a Camel Spider eating up a lizard in Iraq.

Camel Spider in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert

The Camel Spiders (Solifugae), also known as wind scorpions, jerrymuglum, sun scorpions and sun spiders, are not true spiders, which are from the order Araneae.

Most Solifugae inhabit arid habitats, including all deserts in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, including in Afghanistan, Mongolia, India, South Africa, and Middle East countries like Iraq. They are carnivorous or omnivorous; feed on termites, darkling beetles and other small arthropods. Solifugae have been recorded feeding on snakes, lizards and rodents. They do not normally attack humans, but their large chelicerae can penetrate human skin and cause much pain.

The larger species grow to 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) in length and have a leg span of 12 centimeters (5 inches). They have large chelicerae, each of the two chelicerae has two articles forming a powerful pincer and each article bears numerous teeth.

There are many legends about them. In the Middle East, soldiers of the American and coalition military forces believe that Solifugae will feed on living human flesh, stories as scary as vampires sucking blood and killing the victims. They say believe the creature will inject anaesthetizing venom into the skin of its sleeping victims and then feed voraciously, leaving the victim to awaken with a gaping wound. But these creatures do not produce such an anaesthetic or poison, and they do not attack unless they are threatened.

Other stories about them include tales that they leap into the air, disembowel camels, scream, and run alongside moving Humvees and other military vehicles. These stories are dismissed as baseless by biologists. But for because of their bizarre, scary appearance many people are afraid of them. The only threat they pose to humans is their bite in self-defense, mostly when they are hurt. There is no possibility of death due to their bite. However, due to the strong muscles of their chelicerae, they can cause large wounds prone to infection.

Solifugae apparently have no venom, with the possible exception of one species found in India. A published study of one species, Rhagodes nigrocinctus, carried out in India in 1978 by researchers found what they believed to be epidermal glands. Extracts from these glands were injected into lizards, on which it induced paralysis in 7 out of 10 tests.

But this study has never been confirmed by peer verification or research. While other researchers have been unable to locate similar glands in other species, this particular species found in India may possess venom.

However, insect bites of any type can be toxic and even dangerous if not treated, and the bites or injuries caused by camel spiders also need medical attention to avoid any complications. Also, there is nothing as dangerous about them as the westerners holed up in Afghanistan may like to tell others.