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I was reading Geek Trivia and it had this question:
"Which of these North American mammals has a sophisticated language system?"
Elk, Prairie Dogs, Raccoons, or Coyotes
I choose prairie dogs and learned:
Recent research indicates that prairie dog calls, which were long believed to just be simple barks and chirps intended to sound a general alarm, are actually a language system that can communicate a high degree of detail about what is going on in the prairie dog community...specific calls for coyotes and wild dogs, unarmed men and armed men, and they even indicate if a predator is on the ground or in the air. The prairie dogs can communicate not just what the threat is, but what direction it is coming from and at what speed. Plus their vocal nature doesn't increase the risk of getting killed as they project their voices like a ventriloquist and when multiple prairie dogs are repeating the call, it becomes impossible to use your ear to narrow down the location of the animals.
Wow! Then I remembered Tinky Winky and I visiting The Prairie Homestead, Badlands, South Dakota in September of 2002. (Note small white animal, right of center.)
They had many rare white prairie dogs.
They are not albino, they are leucistic, which means their skin and fur lack basic color pigmentation.
And, this area had lots of them.
Here are some additional images I captured on that trip:
Love those wagon wheels...
Seeing the Franconia Sculpture Park reminded me of another open-air, remote, sculpture park I found while driving through South Dakota.
Driving west on I-90, about 25 miles west of Sioux Falls, you’ll see a site to make your head turn and your car pull over.
It is usually only open Memorial Day through Labor Day. I was driving by on September 4th (two days after
Labor Day) in 2002 and found the park open.
Made of scrap mental and old farm equipment by Wayne Porter, a self taught artist who learned to weld in his father’s blacksmith shop.
His art just makes me smile.
The grand piece that catches your eye from the freeway is the 25 ton Egyptian Bull Head:
It took 3 years to build and is the size of one of the heads on Mount Rushmore.
Here's his website: Link to Porter Sculpture Park
