Fun_People Archive
1 Apr
WhiteBoardness - 4/1/96

Date: Mon, 1 Apr 96 20:13:25 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 4/1/96

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Monday, April 01, 1996

Wellington, New Zealand:

An April Fool's prank caused chaos with commuter traffic in Wellington.

Reports of a pod of killer whales having beached slowed traffic to a crawl
and had police frantically trying to keep rubbernecking motorists moving.

The whales turned out to be rubber "dorsal fins" attached to wooden blocks
and anchored to the sea floor.
==========

"We have found a common cause, and it's your money."

John Lydon, punk rocker, picking up where he left off as Sex Pistols lead
singer, Johnny Rotten and announcing that the band's reunion tour kicks off
June 21 in Finland.
==========

New York, New York:

A large red flower mimics the look and smell of rotting flesh.  A clever
spider tricks other spiders by playing their love songs.  A hungry hawk
imitates the flight of a harmless buzzard.

"In the natural world, it's April Fools' Day every day," said David Olson,
a scientist for the World Wildlife Fund.

Paying an April Fools' tribute to plants and animals equipped with bags of
tricks, the wildlife organization listed 10 species that "have perfected
the double-cross, disappearing act, and art of disguise" which they use to
attract, repel, confuse, or hide from other species.

Among them:

-- The Owl Butterfly, which when threatened spreads its wings to resemble
a large owl's face, a false black eye on each.

-- The Bluespot Butterfly fish's eye-like spot on its dorsal fin deceives
predators into lunging for its tail, making escape a little easier.

-- The South African Stapelia, a type of milkweed that masks its flower with
the scent of decaying meat to lure flies to act as a pollinator.

-- The Portia fimbriata spider that lures other spider species by playing
their specific mating vibrations on a spider's web.  The other spider
hurries over expecting a mate, but ends up as a meal.

-- The crab spider does an uncanny imitation of a bird dropping to lure
flies or fool hungry birds.
==========

==========

Fast News Forum:

Divers in Montgomery, Alabama, are searching the Alabama River for sunken
treasure -- logs.  The pine logs sank in the 1880s and will be used for
historic preservation jobs and for vintage-style furniture.

Northeast Utilities said CEO Bernard Fox's pay will be cut $82,000 -- less
than 10 percent -- unless the utility's Millstone nuclear plants improve
their safety records.

Police charged three people with trying to smuggle at least 17 Mexican
illegal immigrants across the border by cramming them into a portable
toilet.

© 1996 Peter Langston