Taxon of the week

A blog that embraces biology and evolutionary analysis in law as freely as Jurisdynamics hopes to do needs a mascot. It might even need to rotate the honor from time to time. In Webs of Life, I've written at great length on how biodiversity conservation should be regarded as a species of information policy.

I hereby nominate Python reticulatus, the reticulated python. The word reticulated means "resembling a grid or network." The connection to the world of blogging should be obvious. The reticulated python happens to be longer and less bulky than most other pythons and boas, which is the likely fate of this blog.

Other reasons for picking the reticulated python abound. At a minimum, a blog with biological swagger shouldn't hesitate to dive into the heart of biophobia and snag as its mascot the very embodiment of human fear, loathing, and fascination in the natural world. Besides, I secretly root for Slytherin House in the Harry Potter novels.