Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Quiz


What do these items have in common?

Feel free to leave your guess in comments. The answer will appear there in two days (unless someone gets it right before then.)

9 comments:

Adam said...

They were all found in a shark's belly?

ronnie said...

They were all found on a beach, that's evident from someone with a lifetime of beach-combing. (Of course, I'll have to turn in my Lifetime Permit if I'm wrong.) Except for the Spam(tm). Teh Spam(tm), it is teh mystery.

Sherwood Harrington said...

Boy, that didn't take long.

ronnie, you submitted your answer -- which was very close -- while I was composing Adam's congratulations over on Facebook. (A couple of other folks had chimed in before Adam over there.)

Here's the skinny:

The photo is of a small display in the Steinhart Aquarium of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The sign next to it reads:

"Stomach contents of the tiger shark
"Galeocerdo cuvier
"Pam Schaffer, Senior Aquatic Biologist
"I think a lot about what sharks eat, especially if I'm swimming near them! Tiger sharks feed on fish, turtles, other sharks and seabirds, but are also known as swimming garbage cans. They bite objects first to test if they're food and accidentally swallow shoes, license plates, antlers, bottles and tires."

I'm impressed by the egg that apparently made it through the whole process intact. One does wonder about the Spam(tm) -- and about the shoe, but not enough about the shoe to check to make sure it's empty.

Nostalgic for the Pleistocene said...

I was composing a post to thank you for cleaning out our guest rooms after our houseguests leave.

Brian Fies said...

Yeah, I'm glad Adam got it right before I replied "If you were in my garage to take a photo, you could've at least knocked on the door to say hello." Whew.

ronnie said...

NFTP and Brian - LOL! I am now disturbed to wonder whether someone could gather all the items in this display from a stroll around our cluttered home.

Contents of a shark's stomach leaves me amazed and baffled - would the shark have eventually digested all this? If not - what the heck do they live on?

I'm guessing, had this shark lived, it would have digested all of this - thus getting the nutrients out of the turtles,the egg, etc. - but what of the bottle, and the metal Spam can? Can they actually process that, or pass it, or would it have killed the shark?

Glory!

ronnie said...

p.s. ANTLERS? Glory!

Sherwood Harrington said...

ronnie, that's why -- even though we have sea horses and sea dragons -- nobody has ever seen a sea deer.

The sharks eat them all.

Adam said...

Not one, but TWO nekkid Barbis! What'r the odds?

I wonder if Rae is aware that his or her former license plate is on display at the Academy.