It was a European badger. I know because long ago, after were were unable to stop in what the English call a "roundabout"* to retrieve a carcass, zoologist- artist Jonathan Kingdon gave me a skull of one with the beginnings of muscles that he was building out of plaster of Paris. I wonder if I could have even gotten it home these days?
At least one reader suggested-- jokingly?-- "black bear". Years later Libby and I, on our first spring hike into the Magdalena Mountains, found the skeleton of a winter- killed bear melting out of the snow at about 8500 feet.It was huge and seemed very old, with worn teeth.
They are very similar but for size.
And here is one of Jonathan visiting Tucson a few years ago, with Lashyn. He is living mostly in Rome now and continuing to do writing, science, and art. I will write more on him and his work later.
*New Englanders call them "rotaries". New Mexicans don't have them.
6 comments:
Unfortunately, you're wrong about those crimes against sanity and traffic. Some sick quarter-wit has installed at least one here in Los Alamos (and they keep trying to ram more down our throats- on the main drag no less!) and I can think of one in Santa Fe as well. There are probably more hiding in other parts of SF that I haven't found yet.
True to conehead form, one of the installed atrocities here was so badly designed that it was literally impossible to go around in any vehicle longer than a Mini Cooper without having to reverse and make it into an awkward k-turn. Thankfully, that particular bad example has been removed, but another lives on.
Stingray's right, there are a few in Santa Fe, as if we needed any more such perverse contrivances to go with our five-way stops, AMS-afflicted pedestrians and pairs of streets that intersect more than once. Don't know what their thinking; "yield" is not a New Mexican concept.
Sort of hi-jacking the badger skull thread here, sorry! New Mexico's just so fun to complain about, as if everywhere else weren't even worse.
Steve
HANDSOME!!
SBW
PS thanks for the mention
PPS must get to work
Ah, a traffic circle, New Jersey added the jug handle 35 to 40 years ago to eliminate almost all left hand turns.
Any place in NM can be and is used as a roundabout. Have you gotten paved roads yet? ;)
Max, I know you are kidding, but: western Socorro County-- anything west of Socorro proper, or most of a Connecticut- sized block--- has TWO, other than a couple of less- than-a- mile- long dead ends in Magdalena, the second largest town after Socorro proper. There is route 60 which goes through, west to east, and the road north to the Alamo Reservation 40 miles away, where the pavement will someday theoretically stretch 70 miles further north to the highway,but still ends just past the rez.
We live downtown,a block off the main intersection, on dirt. Maybe it is time for photos again.
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