Day 5194: More Manhole Covers & Patagonian Mara.

"Mallory": ink brush, watercolors, junk paper collage.

                                                                       

  

Want music?

   Click: Patti La Belle & Michael McDonald, On My Own

2GN2S

Manhole Covers from everywhere. 

Nine years ago when I went to New York City for the first time, I was fascinated with the manhole covers that were great designs and each different. My daughter, WW said she had to block for me as I was oblivious to the street traffic. It is my impression that covers used to be mainly the same and pretty mundane until about 12 years ago when people started to notice the unique ones, and cities and principalities began to put effort into their own designs. This may or may not be true? Another fifteen for you to enjoy or skip?

Tokyo, Japan

Reykjavík, Iceland

Kerry, Ireland

Lantau Island, Hong Kong

Khiva, Uzbekistan

Memphis Tennessee

Rebun Island, Japan

Bielsko-Biała Poland

St. Petersburg, Russia

Sydney Australia

Valentina, Sweden

Trondheim, Norway

New Zealand

Bucharest 

Barcelona, Spain

The World's Fastest Rodent Is Related to the Guinea Pig, But Can Run Up to Nearly 28 MPH with 8-Foot Strides

Learn how the Patagonian mara’s long legs and unusual movements help this guinea pig relative escape predators across Argentina’s plains.

Oct 27, 2026, 2:04 AM| 3 min read

In 1972, a researcher named J. P. Rood wrote that a Patagonian mara had run alongside his car, and he clocked the animal at about 28 mph, a speed it held for more than half a mile. That is a long way for a rodent about 27 inches long and related to the guinea pig.

Researchers call the mara the fastest rodent, and a 2019 study published in Mastozoología Neotropical points to a body more specialized for running than any other living rodent’s. When a team filmed 10 of them at a zoo in Argentina in 2012, four decades after Rood’s report, the top speed came in at about 22 mph, and the footage showed the animals pacing the way camels do, with both legs on one side swinging forward together.

“[Pa]cing in maras is thus a unique behavior within rodents,” the researchers wrote in their study.

What Makes the Patagonian Mara So Fast

According to the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, a mara weighs roughly 18 to 35 pounds, has long ears and a white rump, and eats mostly grasses. Maras live on the dry grasslands and scrub of central and southern Argentina as pairs that mate for life, with the male defending his partner against other males and predators. Their young are raised in shared burrows, where mothers tell their own pups apart, and pups now and then try to nurse from the wrong female.

The team filmed the animals in a zoo enclosure with a high-speed camera and watched how their legs worked at different speeds. Much of it comes down to build, since maras have long lower legs and hold their limbs straighter than most rodents do, which the authors compare to small hoofed animals. They link pacing, a way of moving most mammals skip in favor of a trot at moderate

  

 

A  4+ minute video, Happiness, here.

 

 

Just because ...

Andean Condor

Saturday's Smiles ... 

Hoping you feel all the good things in your day.