We arrived home from Cyprus in the wee small hours of this morning. Temperature yesterday was 27 degrees, today it is 3 degrees, but a lovely sunny day.
These extraordinary photographs are some which Gay took during a walk in Polis Chrysochous while we were away. I didn't have a strong enough Internet connection to show them before.
I know that biologists need to pickle creatures in formaldehyde to preserve them for study, but I have never seen specimens hanging on a fence before. They include are all sorts of giant insects and many varieties of snake.
Of course I am not sure that they are in formaldehyde. They are probably preserved in the all-purpose Cyprus alcohol zivania, the equivalent of Italian grappa. In Cyprus it is used for drinking, cleaning windows, rubbing on afflicted bodily parts - so why not for specimen preservation and display?
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