Posted by Twelvebit (Victoria, United States) on 6 October 2007 in Animal & Insect.
Driving to Waco awhile back I spotted a flock of buzzards on the side of the road possessively guarding a dead deer. The deer was well off the road and up an embankment --not an obvious road kill-- so I have no idea how it came to die. It's amazing though, isn't it, the efficiency of nature? --that there are both animals who kill to exist and animals who live from the scraps of death? And what I also find interesting is how many animals have a look appropriate to their place in the natural order. A lion is a beautiful animal, yet he is a beast of prey. A buzzard on the other hand, doesn't really work for his dinner, but benefits from accidents and lives off the efforts of others; and a close look reveals his ugly visage.
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This is the law of nature that takes everything back on elemental/molecular level and inject them through a cycle that has neither an opening nor an end.
Proteins > Amino Acids > Amins + Acids > N2, C, O2, P, H2 and many more. Earth is one of the fastest in this regard. This is the power of regeneration, also knows as life-support. If you leave the same body on the surface of the moon, it will not decompose as fast; in fact it might take hundreds of years to see the same effect.
This picture while sad, reminds us that we are not much different from this deer, Earth will not discriminate while decomposing us into elemental compounds.
Very meaningful shot.
6 Oct 2007 11:20am
@Amir: Very good points. But there is evidence that these cycles are not perpetual, and will, in fact, end. For one thing, the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating, and this suggests the eventual extermination of all life. But even if this turns out to be incorrect, in about 5 billion years, as our sun dies out, it will expand and consume the earth in the process.
I think its probably the work of a 'Chupacabra'
Seriously, it might have died of old age, been a victim of a predator, been poisened, had an illness....Its strange how death and decomposition makes such an interesting photographic study, the ungainly shape of its open chest and splayed legs, yet the face and head is still intact, wierd stuff, and thought provoking too
6 Oct 2007 11:25am
@Richard_Irwin: Here's an actual artist's rendition of the Chupacabra killing a deer.
My own reactions to this scene were a mixture of fascination and repulsion. I was fascinated enough to take several photos, but repulsed enough that I didn't explore all the photographic possibilities I normally would, and had to suppress the urge to leave.
Oh my :-( not pretty indeed....sigh....
6 Oct 2007 12:42pm
@Lost Valley View: There is always the question here of just how much to document certain aspects of life that are not pretty. I try to err on the side of pretty, but I'm not sure where to draw the line.
Think of it this way, 100% of us will not make it through this life alive.
6 Oct 2007 3:42pm
@Viewfinder: I'm straining to think of the song with lyrics to that effect: that none of us are going to make it out alive. I think the timing is important to a lot of us though.
Wow....wonder what killed it? Man beast - a.k.a. the automobile?
6 Oct 2007 4:07pm
@Carson: That's possible. That's the usual thing here.
It's so like the kangaroo bodies which dot our roadsides Twelvebit - but without large preditors they can lie there for a very long time intact. The photo is graphic and well framed!
6 Oct 2007 5:20pm
@Bron: I never really thought about kangaroos as road kill. I would have thought a kangaroo would be better able to keep out of the way of the automobile. I'm saddened to hear that: they seem to be such interesting and wonderful animals.
;-( Not a Pretty Picture
7 Oct 2007 8:44am
@Maysam: Yes. I don't post many like this, but death, after all, is a part of life.
The concept of constant expansion of universe that you mentioned, is called Entropy or Randomness. According to this physics/chemistry theory, everything in this world is on the path toward destruction and chaos. The only thing that keeps everything in place, as we know it, is the consumption of energy.
Most if not all of life precesses are "Endothermic" (in oppose to Exothermic), meaning the inputed energy is greater, by many folds, than the outputted results. That's one of the reasons of high costs of energy. Energy is the only force that keep our constant chaos seeking world in order.
As you know the energy is a different form of mater, according to quantum theory, and the conversion of one to another remains constant. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only changes from one form to another. But one day as you said, on the micro (tiny indeed) level of our Solar System we will witness the expansion of our Sun to a "Red Giant" and eventually to a "White Dwarf" (life cycle of all Sun-like starts). But till then is a long way to go, at least on our split-second life span.
8 Oct 2007 1:32pm
@Amir: They even knew about the expanding universe when I was a kid; but I was referring more specifically to measurements that indicate the expansion is accelerating and the related supposition of dark matter.
Yes, I expect to check out before our sun does. Still, there is the existential puzzle in a universe headed for destruction --or even just a solar system. There is a joke about the sun burning out in a Woody Allen movie, where a little kid learns this fact in school, and loses his motivation saying: "what's the point?"
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