Just a small collection of letters I received in regards to the Mantis Shrimp article, for no real apparent reason. Click 'more' to see 'more' if you're the type who likes 'more' words.
I had a load of fun writing this one. I really do miss the Animalia section. I'll try to sneak more of the same kind of articles in sporadically. Here's a few letters I received in regards to the post. PS, my Christmas tree is still up. We're waiting for it to go up in flames in the middle of the living room.
Matthew NG writes: I was just reading your article on mantis shrimp. I didnt know they were kept as pets. All throughout Asia and some parts of Europe, people actually eat this thing, they actually taste like lobster. Just a piece of trivia.
REPLY: I think in Asia they're more common as food fare, whereas here they're more common as pets. My assumption is that, generally, people don't like keeping pets that they normally eat. I've always wondered why saltwater aquarium enthusiasts rarely added lobsters or crabs to their tanks here, and the only reason I could come up with is that we liken them way too much to food. (I only mention this because lobsters in particular would be pretty interesting tank pets, giant crayfish rock mang yeah shit) Though I should also say that the mantis shrimp usually eaten are almost definitely not the more exotic species - I'd presume they were the blander, one-color versions rather than the multicolored monsters that typically fetch 50-70 bucks in some pet stores around here.
Chris writes: Hey, been reading your site for a good couple of years now, but this is the first time i've ever felt the need to write. Your article on the Mantis Shrimp is great. I sometimes find myself just zoning out to the discovery channel and your article had the same effect. I think i'm going to read more about these awesome little animals and see if they really are as strong as you say they are. Keep up the good work.
REPLY: I'm a National Geo nut, too. Always have been, though I never really considered why that is. The only books I ever read are animal encyclopedias. The only animals I probably haven't read a lot about are birds. For some reason, I can't get into birds. Sorry, birds.
NOTE: This next letter, from 'The Goblin', contained a few pretty interesting articles about shark attacks. If you're into that kinda stuff, read through this one carefully.
The Goblin writes: This is a couple of interesting articles about The Matawan Shark Incident. One from "The Net", and another from National Geographic. I found it interesting. If you have already seen this stuff or heard all about it... well... OK then.
Anyway, I enjoy the site. Good work.
The Matawan Shark Incident of 1916 changed forever the way that sharks would be viewed. Prior to 1916, sharks were no more feared than barracudas or any other fish that had teeth and could bite. Even on July 1, 1916 when Charles Van Sant was dragged underwater in full view of other swimmers at Beach Haven, New Jersey, the public's attention was unphased. The New York Times posted a tiny article that indicated that a New Jersey man had been killed by a fish. No one really seemed to care until five days later when Charles Bruder was attacked and killed while swimming at Spring Lake, New Jersey.
Motor boat patrols were established and a shark-proof net was put up around the swimming area of Spring Lake as well as at nearby Asbury Park. The use of nets were even advertised in the paper to help lure cautious swimmers back to the beaches. Still, the threat of shark attack seemed more of a nuisance to most people of the time. There was no widespread fear or panic that such a duel attack would engender today.
It's important to note that shark attacks are extremely rare. Only a handful of people are bitten by sharks worldwide each year. Winning the lottery has better odds. Of course, perception is everything. People buy lottery tickets because they think they might win and they fear sharks because they think they might get attacked. For almost everyone, neither will happen. If it hadn't been for that fateful week in 1916, sharks might have the same level of respect as bears or lions, another large carnivore to admire but be wary of. On July 12, 1916 the vilification of all sharks took a giant step forward.
It was six days after the Spring Lake attack, four boys swimming in a creek in Matawan, New Jersey, saw a fifth companion, 12-year-old Lester Stilwell, disappear underwater, come up thrashing and screaming, then submerge again, this time permanently. They ran for help thinking their friend had had a seizure. What they didn't know was that only short time before Lester was pulled under, a retired sailor, walking along a bridge overlooking Matawan Creek had seen a large dark shape moving in with the tide. He had run into town telling people that there was a shark in the creek but no one believed him. Matawan Creek is small, only 11 yards across at it's widest and what would a shark being doing upstream anyway?
About 200 people lined the banks as men dove into the creek looking for Lester's body. Stanley Fisher was one of the men making the dives. He shouted out that he had found the body and as he made his way toward shore in waist deep water he suddenly cried out and had to be pulled from the creek by several men in a motor boat. His right leg had been bitten off and he was bleeding profusely. There were no hospitals in Matawan so he was put on a train to Monmouth where he died that evening.
While Stanley was en route to the hospital, another boy, Joseph Dunn, from Manhattan, had been severely bitten in the leg just after he had been warned about the other attacks and as he was getting out of the creek. He survived.
If the public had been inattentive to Charles Van Sant's "fish attack," it was now a buzz over this series of shark attacks. News reel cameras captured the mass-dynamiting of Matawan Creek which led to many dead fish but no shark. Rewards were posted for the capture of the "man-eater" and thousands of ships set out to sea (including the Navy at President Woodrow Wilson's request--he had a home on the New Jersey shore) looking for the shark.
It is estimated that over the next few days over one million sharks were killed in a frenzy of anti-shark mania. On July 14, one of the sharks killed, a large great white, was said to have contained two possibly human bones. When a New York physician identified one of the bones as the shin bone of a boy, the panic was over. The ships returned to port, the wanton shark massacre subsided, and the "man-eater" went on display to thousands for a mere ten cents a viewing (leading some to speculate on whether the bones were possibly planted then "identified.") Regardless of the authenticity of the displayed shark, with all of the sharks killed within those few days in July it is very likely that the killer met his or her end. As suddenly as they had started, the attacks had ceased.
Great Whites May Be Taking the Rap for Bull Shark Attacks
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
August 2, 2002
Although shark attacks are uncommon, they creep into the consciousness of many beachgoers throughout the summer season.
What most people have in mind in fears of attack is the large and powerful great white, often mischaracterized as a relentless man-eating predator that lurks near popular beaches.
Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of famed explorer Jacques, thinks he knows what's behind that thinking. "Since 1974, when Jaws came out, almost every shark attack has been pinned on a great white," he said. "Every time you ask someone about sharks, the first thing that pops into their head is the great white."
Now, some experts are suggesting that the great white may not in fact be responsible for many of the attacks pinned on the species. These people say the real culprit behind many of the reported incidents including the famous 1916 shark attacks in New Jersey that may have served as inspiration for Jaws may be the lesser known bull shark.
Matawan "Man-Eater"
In July 1916, it was business as usual at the New Jersey shore. The coast was booming with thousands of vacationers and locals striving to beat the heat. But the summer revelry was shockingly disrupted by a series of five shark attacks that left four people dead in 12 days.
In the days that followed, a 7.5-foot (2.3-meter) white shark was captured off the coast, reportedly with human remains still in its stomach, and many people presumed that a rogue great white was responsible for the deaths.
Nearby residents that had set out to avenge the deaths felt sure that they had their "man-eater." But some people now say that unusual circumstances behind some of the attacks suggest that the predator was a bull shark.
Three of the attacks occurred not in the ocean but in a shallow tidal river named Matawan Creek, about 40 feet (12 meters) wide and 11 miles (17 kilometers) from the open ocean.
Matawan residents were surprised in 1916 to discover the existence of a shark in such waters. Fabien Cousteau said he would be equally surprised to learn that that shark was a great white.
Cousteau believes the evidence in the historic case points to a bull shark. In Attacks of the Mystery Shark, which premiers August 4th on National Geographic EXPLORER, he sifts through some of the clues, and along the way sheds light on a fascinating but little understood shark species.
Freshwater Survival -
"The bull shark is an amazing shark in so many ways," Cousteau said. "It can switch from salt to fresh water, which is a rare thing. For most sharks, that would be deadly."
Sharks need salt inside their bodies; without it, their cells can expand and possibly rupture, leading to bloating and death. If most sharks, including great whites, enter freshwater, their internal salt levels become diluted.
Bull sharks have special physiological features that enable them to live in freshwater. A gland near the tail helps them retain salt, and the kidneys are designed to recycle the salt already in the body.
So it may have been a bull shark in Matawan Creek that took the lives of Lester Stilwell and Stanley Fisher.
Shark expert Scott Davis, who tracks the movements of great whites, said he doesn't know what the salinity level of the creek was in 1916, but the presence of a great white in such an area would be unusual.
"In my tracking studies, I've never noticed great whites going upstream," he said. "There are a number of places on the West Coast where they inhabit right at river mouths, but whether they go upstream no one knows. My perspective is that great whites would not be able to tolerate a freshwater environment at all."
Bull sharks, in contrast, have been reported in waters thousands of miles up the Amazon River in Peru and in the Mississippi River as far north as Illinois. There is also a population of the sharks in Lake Nicaragua, which because of its great distance from the ocean was once thought to be landlocked.
Sharing the Water -
Bull sharks, which are generally about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) long and up to 285 pounds (130 kilograms), are big eaters. Their diet consists primarily of bony fishes and small sharks, including young bull sharks, but they have been known to feast on everything from seabirds to dogs.
That appetite could spell trouble for humans who enter the same coastal and freshwater areas as the sharks.
"Bulls have a certain pattern of survival, a way of doing things, that happens to overlap with the way people encroach on their realm," Cousteau said. "Bathers are in shallow, warmer coastal waters where these sharks are living. It's amazing that we don't have more instances, and it just reconfirms that they really aren't interested in us and usually an attack is a mistake."
Last summer a bull shark was involved in a highly publicized incident in which a shark severed a young boy's arm. But experts say bull sharks aren't inherently violent toward humans, and in some environments are even docile. In the clear waters of the Bahamas, for example, divers regularly interact with crowds of bull sharks.
Some researchers speculate that this non-threatening behavior may be because the sharks can clearly see people and recognize that they are not a typical food source. By such reasoning, incidents in murkier waters, such as Matawan Creek, might be regarded as cases of mistaken identity.
Whatever the motivation, shark attacks on humans are relatively rare. According to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF), hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History, there were 76 unprovoked shark attacks and five fatalities worldwide in 2001, a fairly typical year.
Cousteau said lack of caution in human actions often contributes to the shark attacks that do occur, such as swimming at dusk or dawn, splashing in murky water, and entering known feeding waters or areas where people are fishing or chumming.
"We pin the few shark instances that occur around the world on the sharks," he mused, "and never on us for maybe putting ourselves in bad situations."
If you haven't read the Mantis Shrimp article, click here to do so. Mooshagaloogapork.
Posted by Matt on 01/17/2003. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
jelly fish suck.