BBC America "Wonderstruck" is great joy and therapy
this one is titled “Coasts” and it starts with an Olive Ridley sea turtle return to shore. She spends most of her life in open ocean, but after a 1200 km swim to the shore of Costa Rica, she returns to the same beach on which she was born, only because she needs to lay her eggs there on dry land. Maternity is a strong drive, isn’t it?
Before this, another BBC program was discussing the Asian Sheephead wrasse. How amazing to be told that one of the largest female wrasse enters a cave and undergoes a transformation in which parts of her body lose their function and she grows a large hump on her forehead, and becomes aggressive as she emerges as a male, then entering a fight with the current dominant male and taking over his territory. The Sheephead wrasse can live to be 40-50 years. “Sequential hermaphroditism”, the scientists call it, but it sounds a lot like transgender to me. God forbid anyone describe it in a school science book, though; this iteration of primitive right wingers will consider the facts of this beautiful world to be too much for their fragile snowflake souls to handle.
Nature programs are awesome, and a great antidote to the state of the world.
Male sheephead wrasse:
