L'ancêtre des baleines

J'ai blogué il y a quatre ans en anglais sur le Mesonyx, l'ancêtre des cétacés. Quand j'ai vu il y a environ trente ans cette reproduction au Musée de l'histoire naturelle, j'avais été profondément impressionné. Un mammifère pas marin qui est l'arrière grand-père des baleines et des dauphins, ça m'a donné une idée de ce que signifiait l'évolution des espèces. Rien que de revoir cette photo, j'en suis encore tout émerveillé.

The Mesonyx

You can see on the picture on your right the Mesonyx, or rather a model of a mesonyx, which is a wolf-like mammal, of the Mesonychidae family, which are linked to... the whales and dolphins. They are their ancestors, which makes the now extinct mesonyx a distant relative of the sea creatures, a great uncle of some sort. I took this picture, of course, during my last trip to the Natural History Museum. It was a few minutes before closing time. I was really happy to find it: I had been obsessed with the mesonyx of the Natural History Museum since I was eleven, when I first saw it. I had forgotten its name, but not its look and not its affiliation with its sea dwelling grand-nephews.

I want to see Ireland again

We just watched the last few minutes of Countryfile, a BBC program. The journalist was in Tory Island, it seemed like such a lovely place. Small, lonely, in the middle of nowhere, probably cold every time of year, but still lovely. They had a Labrador dog that was swimming with a dolphin in the bay. It was just idyllic. I have been to Ireland only once, more than eight years ago, I have been missing it since then. I have only been to Dublin for a week, I might as well say that I didn't see Ireland at all. There is a special connection I feel with the Irish people, something to do with their climate and Catholicism I think. I always had the feeling that they were Quebeckers who didn't speak French, or that we were French speaking Irish. The last one must be more appropriate, as they are a much older people than we are.