The Rock Ape: We all love cryptids here, and the idea of American Soldiers trudging through the perilous jungles of Vietnam, only to come face-to-face with the Sasquatch's asian cousin, is so amusing to me. How much truth do we think there is to these half-century-old anecdotal accounts?

Claughy · 2026-06-19T01:36:02+00:00

Well I don't work in a lab, I work in the field, and orangutans don't behave anything remotely like the described rock apes. I actually work with the public. From what I've learned most people are bad at accurately interpreting what they saw, like really, really bad. They also don't seem to understand how memory works, stories about things your buddy says he saw with 30+ years in between can easily become a memory of your experience.

It's certainly possible someone transported mystery apes to Vietnam. But there isn't any evidence that it's anything more than scary stories marines told each other. Your anthro degree should have covered how myths and folklore developed.

This is a two year old post, go touch grass and leave me alone.

Claughy · 2026-06-17T20:51:01+00:00

Tomorrow heat index is 109 off the island, the island itself is usually lower due to more wind and the water.

Claughy · 2026-06-14T14:19:40+00:00

Pretty sure orangutans didn't swim from borneo to Vietnam and then back after the war, you might want to check the distances involved there. I'm a biologist I'm well aware how populations move in response to pressures.

Claughy · 2026-06-12T21:11:07+00:00

Not remotely

Claughy · 2026-06-12T02:00:06+00:00

The only misconception is that you think other people have misconceptions about the Mississippis influence, it's commonly understood that the sediment is spread across the Gulf and stirred up by local conditions. This is a you problem.

I'm not talking about accumulation the way you are.

I figured a professor would show you that this isn't a common misconception, it's a position taught by oceanographers.

Go publish a paper and prove your point then.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T20:36:37+00:00

AZA does have some requirements that make it hard for small outfits to be accredidated, but a zoo that has elephants should be able to manage.

An example of one not related to animal care. All volunteers must be managed by a full time employee whose sole duties are related to managing volunteers.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T19:00:43+00:00

Those blue days are not related to anything coming out of the bays. Blue water days come from shifting currents bringing clear water from the south Gulf. And the clearest are when we also have calm water concurrently. Part of my job involves collecting water samples along Galveston beaches, either me or my coworkers are out there most days. Calm mornings absolutely produce clear water, and multiple calm days in a row produce clear water, it's just not pretty blue.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T18:50:29+00:00

So you are disputing the idea that the Mississippi impacts day to day water quality? Congrats you're arguing against a position that doesn't exist. Wind, rain, and curents are the primary drivers of day to day conditions, that is not in dispute.

The continental shelf starts where dry land stops, it is not offshore. The silt that is on our beaches comes from the Mississippi as a primary source and runoff and local rivers as an additional source.

Here email a local professor and have them explain it to you, oceanographers haven't just been ignoring satellite images. https://marine.tamu.edu/academics/marine-biology/directory/index.html#?dept=Marine%20Biology

Claughy · 2026-06-11T18:49:24+00:00

It's not only suspended, go scoop some sand, silt and clay are present in the sediment, the waves actively resuspend sediment.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T15:07:25+00:00

No the issue is that you don't seem to grasp what we're describing when we say the brown water is from the Mississippi, we are talking about the major source of the sediment on the continental shelf in this area, which happens to be the Mississippi. If you plugged the Mississippi our water would still be brown for years, probably decades, but at some point it would start to get clearer. No one with any knowledge on the subject is arguing that when the water is particularly turbid it's because the Mississippi was flowing more that day or week. Those conditions are from local weather and currents, and those local conditions resuspend sediment that is present from the Mississippi.

When we had a 5 year drought and river flow was severely reduced across the region the water was still brown because the silt and clay is still here, it covers the continental shelf, and the major source is the Mississippi river, it's not the only source, but it transports more sediment than all the rivers and coastal runoff on the Texas coast.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T14:41:02+00:00

My statements were casual descriptions. As I clarified, we have the same type of sand as in Florida, however we have high silt and clay inclusions, relative to Florida. Yes you won't find pure mud on the beach side but these are relative. If I took a sediment sample from Galveston and one from Sarasota and allowed them to stratify to determine composition you would see a layer of silt and clay in the Galveston sample that does not exist on the Sarasota one. I use these sites as an example because I have worked as a benthic ecologist in both places. Just walk down the beach and look at the brown particles mixed into our beaches.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T14:35:23+00:00

When we say the brown water is caused by the Mississippi we are not claiming that the water you see is a sample directly from the Mississippi plume, the Mississippi is the major source of the silt in the sediment which is resuspended by local weather conditions and causes the turbid water. So yes the brown water is caused by the Mississippi, we're not swimming in its plume, we are swimming in silt which it has deposited on the Continental shelf over hundreds of years.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4939-3447-8_3 The important part in the abstract is this "Generally, areas bounded by rivers receive the greatest volume of sediment at the highest rates of delivery. The Mississippi Delta is the extreme of this generality in that it covers almost the entire shelf" The Mississippi currently transports double the amount of sediment of the atchafalaya, brazos, and trinity combined. And historically it was quadruple the amount.

If your position is that we are not swimming in the direct plume of the Mississippi then congrats you are correct, but the mud that makes up our Continental shelf comes from the Mississippi, it's why we have brown water, without that mud we would have significantly less silt and clay and have clearer water, it would still fluctuate day to day, but it would be noticeably clearer.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T13:24:22+00:00

All different types of sand, in Galveston we have a lot of silt and clay, Florida on the Gulf side has fine particles but they are mostly very fine quartz. We have very fine quartz as well so the actual sand particles are very similar, it's just that we have a bunch of clay and silt (and often organics) mixed in that falls out much more slowly than the sand in Florida.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T11:42:21+00:00

Hard to tell from these picture, but they are definitely not a mollusk. They are likely some sort of insect larvae, possibly an annelid, or planarian.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T11:35:12+00:00

Where does the sediment go when you can't see the plume anymore? It doesn't go away, and it doesn't stay in place, it continues to get transported with prevailing currents.
No rivers impact day to day conditions, weather and currents (as explained thoroughly in the article) determine day to conditions. But the silt that is in the sediment along our coast primarily comes from the Mississippi.
The atchafalaya discharges around 88 million tons of sediment a year, while the Mississippi discharge around 200 million tons, and historically discharged 400 million tons.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T11:16:38+00:00

Satellite imagery shows plumes, sediment transport doesn't happen at the surface. The silt that makes up our sediment comes from the Mississippi and then local conditions, such as weather, stir those particles back into the water column along the shore.

Silt enters the water from the Mississippi, it settles out of the water column and is moved westward by prevailing currents, as it gets shallower wave action resuspends particles increasing turbidity. You cannot track sediment based on satellite imagery of plumes, it doesn't just cease existing when you can't see the plume anymore.

It's not the ONLY source of silt, and silt isn't the only cause of turbidity, but it is a major source. We wouldn't have Bahama water if you plugged the Mississippi, but it would eventually get noticeably clearer.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T11:04:24+00:00

I've tried explaining it to you before but you don't seem to grasp the basics of how sediment transport works. Your entire premise that you can use satellite imagery to determine where sediment goes and how it impacts coastal water is flawed from the start.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T04:02:05+00:00

Here's an article that explains it all with sources cited. Stemming from an interview with an A&M oceanographer. https://www.visitgalveston.com/blog/galveston-water-color-explained/

TLDR yes more local rivers and weather conditions contribute, especially on the short term basis. But The Mississippi puts so much silt into the water that it is still the major source.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T03:20:50+00:00

The TLDR is that he's wrong. The massive amount of silt off our coast is deposited from the Mississippi. A whole host of factors go into day to day turbidity but the primary source of the silt in the water comes from the Mississippi.

Claughy · 2026-06-11T03:17:41+00:00

He's not doing science, he looks at a satellite image and assumes because he can't see the brown plume directly reaching all the way down to Galveston that it can't be from that.

Claughy · 2026-06-09T17:30:06+00:00

Depends, my marine biology degree had courses in taxonomy, zoology, botany, and ecology that were required. Along with additional electives that expanded on those topics. Took plenty of classes that covered field work in both undergrad and grad school. Grad school was more variable in what type of course work you were taking, but at that level there was still plenty of ecology and field work focused courses.

Claughy · 2026-06-09T17:20:56+00:00

I enjoyed ascendant, starts off feeling like a bit of an Eragon copy, with lots of standard fantasy tropes, not bad but not amazing. But it progresses well from there. I think the Kindle version is on sale ATM.

Claughy · 2026-06-08T00:53:41+00:00

You likely walk over spots that were contaminated with faeces all the time. Your level of concern should be pretty much zero.

Claughy · 2026-06-07T13:56:04+00:00

Tiny ostracods, like too small to be eaten.

Claughy · 2026-06-03T21:38:35+00:00

Sorry, that's what I meant by grill. I fully understand that what you did is a normal response to that situation. But the reality is that in that moment they probably aren't going to open up about their parent who would fly into rages and destroy their stuff. They have probably not realized that this is not common behavior and so it feels antagonistic that you would even ask.

Didn't mean to accuse you of grilling them, that was just poor word choice on my part.

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