0 Happy Huskies

Not a post about the U. Washington, Seattle teams, who I'm sure do fine.  Instead Alaskan Huskies I visited on my vacation:

This was at the Chena River Village, which I'll be talking more about later.  The huskies are, of course, adorable in their own way.  That's sufficient, of course, but there's also some science involved.

These are Alaskan Huskies, of course.  The major distinction between Alaskan and Siberian, to borrow a description from an Alaskan musher (not the one above with her lead dog) is that the Siberians are 'Disney Dogs' -- selected for prettyness.  There might be some regional bias involved.
The Alaskan Huskies are selected for their ability to run for long periods in Alaskan winter.  To that end, they're not uniform in size or appearance.  In size, they're from 35-85 pounds (16-40 kg).  Surprisingly to me, a 35 pound dog can be hitched with an 85 and both pull well.

A different thing they're selected for is enjoying running.  The two dogs in front of the lower photo are absolutely thrilled -- they're about to get to run!  The white dog in the foreground is now retired.  I didn't catch it in this photo, but both he and the dogs in the pen are very excited.  Even though they're not the ones getting to run, they're all excited.  Running will be happening!

The downside for the dogs was that the day we visited, it was about 50 F (10 C).  The dogs are happiest running at about -10 F (-23 C).  So the dogs were only allowed to run a little and then released to the river.  Here's a video of the tail end of their run:

Detail: Happy Huskies

0 Giant Mutant Imperial Moths

Here's the title-bearer:

He's about 5", 8 cm from wing tip to wing tip.   The reasons I call him a mutant are a little more obvious in this top view:

He's got 5 legs.  You can see the front left leg, and the doubled front right legs.  The photo couldn't capture it, but I did verify two more back legs.  He also seems to not have antennae, and moths do normally have some, including members of this family.

For completeness, here's the bottom view:

For more technical information, see http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Eacles-imperialis

It was my first time seeing one of these.  I had seen two other moths of this size -- a Luna moth many years ago, and a Polyphemus a few years ago while I was running in a 24 hour relay.  Turns out they're all in the same family, the Saturniidae.

He was extremely patient with my photography and my wife going in and out of the sliding doors.  Stayed put for several hours. 

Like other members of this family, the adults don't eat.  Go back to the top view -- no mouth parts.  The adults try to reproduce, the females lay their eggs, and a few days later they die.  Their main period of life is as a caterpillar.  I've been calling this a male because it seems (the top link and further checking around the net) that the females are a more straightforwardly yellow.  It is the males who have fair amounts of purple/brown.

Detail: Giant Mutant Imperial Moths