Sunda slow loris, refers to the Sunda Islands, is a strepsirrhine primate. Yeah, that’s right, strepsirrhine. The word ‘Loris’ is derived from the old Dutch ‘Loeris’ which means clown!

It is commonly known as malu-malu, meaning “shy” in Indonesian. I see you, little loris! It is sometimes called kuskus, because local people do not distinguish between the slow loris and cuscus, a group of Australasian possums. They say, “Possum, loris, who cares?” In Thailand, it is called ling lom, which translates as “wind monkey”. Wind monkey? Really?

When Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire defined the genus Nycticebus, he made the Sunda slow loris the type species. But, later, British zoologist Oldfield Thomas, said the type specimen should be the Bengal slow loris, damn it. Further confusion resulted when Boddaert’s Tardigradus coucang was routinely mistaken for Carl Linnaeus’ Lemur tardigradus. An easy mistake in poor light. The fact was that Lemur tardigradus was actually a slender loris. Mammalogist Witmer Stone finally cleared things up by getting the slender loris off its strict diet.

The Sunda slow loris has dark rings around its large eyes and a white nose with a whitish strip that extends to the forehead. The dark eye rings may be from looking out for predators all night.

One major distinguishing feature between all loris species is locomotion: the Sunda slow loris moves slowly through trees using all four limbs, quadrupedally, as it were, typically, with three limbs holding on to a branch. You can’t be too careful in the trees, you know. They have a special network of capillaries in their hands and feet which helps them cling to branches for hours, without their digits going numb. Pretty cool, huh?

They sometimes feed on molluscs, like the giant snail which moves even slower than the slow loris. During estrus, females make whistle calls when in visual contact with a male. They will sometimes also call out, “Hey, Big Boy, over here.”

The Natuna Island slow loris is an arboreal and nocturnal primate, resting by day in the forks of trees. They sleep in a ball in the branches but are known to spoon with others at night.

We now leave the slow loris as the sun sets off Big Natuna Island.

I want to correct a few things. We are tall and thin. We tried projecting ourselves but it came out like we are shorter than you. We’re not. We come from a planet with less gravity, so we are thin and tall. Stately, even. Anyway, we don’t like your gravity and don’t like to walk around on your planet. The atmosphere dries out our skin, too. That’s why we stay in our ships.

We’re not supposed to contact you but, of course, some of us have to bend the rules. There was some kidnapping and probing but it was not authorized. Sorry. There were reprimands and demotions.

Yes, we can make ships that fly real fast but that’s about it for advanced technology. We can’t really share it with you because you don’t have the right materials on your planet to duplicate it. And you go fast enough, really.

We just observe. That’s all we are allowed to do. It’s pretty boring, really. You know what really got us going? Paper towels. We never thought of it! We have a statue of your Guy in the Flannel Shirt on our planet now. And Wet Wipes are standard issue now. Another gem. Chip clips. I could go on. We want to pay you back but we got nothing. Cures for diseases? We forgot them a long time ago. We had something like cancer but we got rid of it with DNA manipulation. That opened a sack of worms, let me inform you. Was it worth it? We got bones that can snap like a pencil now.

This is not an official communication. I just wanted to get a few things off my thorax.

Another thing, did you make English hard just to annoy us? I’m assigned to English language. Thanks a sockfull! It is an enormous headache. The spelling! I won’t go into that. And finish your dam sayings! We puzzled over: “you can lead a horse to water” forever until we found out there was more to it. I mean, what the dickens?

Whenever it gets on me, I think “paper towels, paper towels, paper towels”.

And we don’t like your food. Ever hear aliens stole our food! Won’t happen. Except for popping boba. And we can’t duplicate it either!

We brought back swearing and sarcasm to our planet. They asked us what good is it? It makes you feel good when you’re assigned to a stupid planet for a really long time said Xthyg. Oops, demotion time. Like I care, he retorted.

Well, I’m saying too much. A river in Derche,
Blyg

Alaska is our 51st or 52nd state. I’m not sure which. It was taken from the Russians when they weren’t looking in 1492. Anyway, you can’t get there from here. Well, that’s not quite true.

My friend Joe wanted to drive there. He looked at the map and saw Canada inbetween. He called this Canada place and asked if he could go through it. They said yes. Now he should have got this in writing because when he tried to go through this Canada place, the border guard said no. It turns out Canada has given these guys the last word on this. Joe complained that he was told something different when he called Canada on the phone. Tough tomatoes said the guard in his splendid uniform. You and Canada are not to be.

 

It was sad but true. Joe had this master plan to drive through Canada with a SUV he bought and sell it in Alaska. Now he was stuck in Seattle Wash with this large, black machine. Did he give up? No.

 

He checked and found that a barge could take the vehicle but not him to Alaska. He paid a steep price for this and flew to Alaska to await his machine. It arrived and off he went to explore The Land Up Under as Alaska is called by the natives. He went to Homer. He went to Fairbanks. He drove up and down the state. The sun stayed up all night as it was summer. The night lasts just two hours in June. That is not enough time to see the Northern Lights or the Aroarra Boringalice, as the natives call them. He did not see them.

 

His friend, me, heard of his adventures in the Canada Wilderbeast. He was inspired and aghast. Rather, he was aghast and then inspired. If Joe can’t do it, so can’t I, he said. So, he avoided Canada, The Land Inbetween, and flew to Alaska. He also traversed the Lost Continent of Alaska. From Fairbanks to Anchorage on dogsled and kayak. Filled with both vim and vigor, he returned to his native state of Inertia or Michigan as the natives call it.

 

Several things were learned by he. If an Alaskan does not like a sign, he will shoot that sign with a gun. The population is low so it seems like most everybody left town for the weekend or something. The Northern Lights are closed in the summer and only open in the Winter! The nerve, I say.

 

There are several types of bears in Alaska. There are the ones that may eat you and the other ones. I was unable to distinguish between the two myself and learned the best thing to do is to play dead. If the bear is a light brown color and slobbering a lot, it really doesn’t matter what you do. You can call it names, slap it on the nose, spray a spray that should drive it away. It really doesn’t matter. I did not encounter one of these so you are reading this account now.

 

One more thing, sometimes the bear also plays dead next to you and waits a few hours to see if you return to life. This can ruin your nerves. Some visitors to Alaska have been reported to have a continued look of surprise and fear etched in their visage, forever marking them as one who faced a grizzly bear and lived to tattle the tale.

 

My friend Joe did not sell his car as hoped. He left it there. But a friend brought it back to him in the land of Michigan. He is talking of going to Canada as soon as they agree to let him in.

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The city of St Petersburg in Russia is beautiful. But so are the people. There are many people walking around in that city that look like they are on their way to a photo shoot for a magazine advertisement.

Maybe you don’t believe me, so I brought some proof.

More about St Petersburg – Russia