What the heck is that?

One of the things I love best about nature is its capacity to surprise me. Even in the familiar greenbelt behind my house, I find new animals and plants and entities that I cannot even classify.

One day while working as an editor at a high-tech firm, I decided to take a walk on the property behind the office building. It was a better alternative than bashing my boss over the head with a computer monitor, which is what I really felt like doing at the time. As I strolled along a trail, muttering obscenities to myself, I literally stumbled across a creature I’d never seen before.

I was stunned. I’ve always been an animal lover, as well as an addict of all television nature programs and books. This critter was no miniscule insect; it was as big as a rabbit. I’ve worked on animal encyclopedias, for heaven’s sake; I can identify lots of animals I’ve never seen in real life. How could I not know what this was? It looked sort of like a large rodent, but had only a stub of a tail. It was totally intent on eating the greenery; it took no notice whatsoever of me standing beside it. It didn’t even look at me. I poked it with a finger. It squeaked and moved about half an inch, then moved right back.

A jogger passed by. I grabbed her and pointed. “Look! What is this animal?”

She shrugged. “Looks like a giant rat,” she commented with annoyance. Then she jogged away.

How could she not be amazed by encountering an animal she didn’t recognize? I was frankly even more amazed (and appalled) by her attitude. But maybe that’s just me. No doubt many people are just as stunned by my total indifference to professional sports or reality TV. (It’s actually a good thing that we’re not all alike—think about how colorless the world would be then.)

Anyway, after poking the mystery creature a few more times and memorizing its features, I went back to my office and sorted through clues about mysterious mammals. It turned out to be a sewellel (Aplodontia rufa), nicknamed “mountain beaver,” which is even more mysterious because it’s not a beaver and doesn’t live in the mountains. They are considered very primitive mammals, which is why you can poke the critters and even pick them up and move them, and all they are capable of thinking about is getting back to the exact same place and the exact same thing they were doing when you found them. Obviously I’m still amazed at running across a local mammal I’d never even heard of before. I wrote a sewellel into my second mystery novel.

Pileated woodpecker at my feeder

There’s no more exciting question to me than What the heck is that? I’m not a religious person, but how can anyone not be in awe of the diversity of living things on this planet? Insects that mimic leaves and sticks, bats that can catch a mosquito on the wing, lizards that can change colors, plants that can push up sidewalks—and this is all happening on dry land. The creatures I see while scuba diving are nothing short of astounding; every dive is like a trip to another galaxy.

Naturally, a lot of these wonder-filled moments appear in my novels. I hope I never cease to be amazed by the wild world. I hope my readers find all this planet’s creatures as miraculous as I do.

May you continue to have surprises in your life. May you have many occasions to say “What the heck is THAT?”