Note to scientists: keep an eye on the Cameroon markets. Mokele-mbembe might turn up there one of these days.
I love this story, but I also loved it two years ago when my dad told me about it. Unless it’s changed somehow since then?
I do like the “Shopping for Species” part that this particular article has, though.
Well it is now…
Do I recall the same thing happened with the Coelecanth, decades ago?
From the linked article
These surveys are hard work. Researchers have to arrive before dawn, before the boats come in to land their catches. The species of interest have to be identified, counted, measured and sampled before they are sold to customers. When further study is required, researchers need to purchase the fishes themselves.
Cry me a river. Hard work… sheesh! Talk to the fishermen who’ve been up all night battling the sea and the elements to bring those fish in.
Given that the fisherman have survived the all-night battle with the sea, I’d think that the fisherman are tougher than the sea. Now, the survey may not be as hard as that work, but it’s still hard work.
or
Cry me a river. Hard work… sheesh! Talk to the bomb disposal technicians who’ve been up all night defusing IED’s during a firefight.
or
For every job n there exists another job m with observer o such that o could reasonably describe the relation m->n as harder than.
There’s a great book about that discovery, A Fish Caught in Time.
Pretty much everyone in a major fish market has a harder job that the one described in the article. I was commenting on what these scientists think hard work is.
Yes, for any job you can find a tougher one until you reach roughneck. I’ve no idea the point you are trying to make here.
But really, I don’t know you. Maybe you think waking up early, counting fish, taking samples, and sometimes buying them is hard. I dunno. It’s more physically taxing than say, writing a scientific description of a fish but the average person would be hard pressed to call these market excursions hard work.
Nobody is tougher than the sea, only smart, aware and lucky. If She wants you, She’ll have you.
I was a roughneck for a couple of years. I think the consensus on my rig was that we were near the top (or is it bottom?), but that crab fishing was probably harder.
I also thought it was incredibly stupid to say how hard the surveying work was, especially given the clear juxtaposition with fishermen.
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