Monday, August 9, 2010

Morning Feeding, Accomplished

And I was having such a great sleep!

I realize that initially, I was underfeeding Oscar. Now, he slurps back a full syringe and, sometimes, another half, and he has a warm water chaser, to boot. Look at how large he's grown. Almost fills my hand. And who knew that squirrels had such long whiskers?


This summer camp thing, I dunno. Sitting around the campfire, snuggled into a warm hand, he pretends to be asleep after breakfast, hoping that he won't be disturbed.


 The other thing I notice is how simian are his paws. If his thumbs were opposable (also spelled apposable), he would fall into the genus of mammals who can perform more human-like activities.

Here's what Wikipedia says about opposable thumbs:

Many animals also have some kind of opposable thumb or toe. An animal species is said to have opposable thumbs if the thumb is capable of bending in such a way that it can touch all the other digits on the hand. Most species do not have opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs are a signature feature of the primate family, and played a large role in the ancient humans' invention and use of tools.
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Meanwhile, Oscar will eventually be able to climb trees with different sorts of bark and he'll be able to hang from branches and even leap from tree to tree, but he'll never do this "bent finer grip" cricketer Iverson's unusual pad-to-side precision grip designed to confuse batsmen. Of course, I doubt I could do that grip, either.








2 comments:

  1. I have watched squirrels run down bark on trees and their feet are very agile. Also, freakishly large! (I got that last one from CuteOverLoad.)

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  2. Here's a link, if it lets me post it - I will leave some spaces so it doesn't know it is a link...

    http: // cuteoverload.com/2010/06/07/lullaby-and-goodnight-your-freakish-feet-are-a-fright/

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