Tag Archives: swarthmore

Danderfluff Purrington is missing

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In sad personal news, our beloved cat, Danderfluff Purrington, disappeared from the front yard on April 14th at approximately 5:15 pm. It was her birthday, too, and she was turning 18. I have reason to believe she was stolen so I’m making this post just in case it might help bring her back. Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayans (“tortie points”) are not particularly common, plus she’s a objectively a very, very pretty girl. Maybe some kind person out there will notice a for-sale listing and recognize her. It’s a complete long shot but I have to try.

Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat
Sealpoint tortoiseshell Himalayan cat

I have of course posted her information to a variety of missing-cat groups (e.g., here and here) as well as filed a police report. And there is always the possibility that she just went to a quiet place to die, which is something cats do when they get to the end of their nine lives, and at 18 that point was likely near. Finally, I can’t rule out that a coyote took her. Coyotes are present in Delaware County and one in nearby Broomall was recently seen carrying off a dog. And there are some free-range dogs in the neighborhood, too.

If anyone has leads, please contact me or Officer Mattioli (610-543-0123) of the Swarthmore Police Department.

UPDATE: on May 11th, there was a coyote sighting two blocks away from our house. I’m thinking that fact explains our cat’s disappearance the best.

UPDATE: People really don’t know the difference between coyotes and foxes.

Pyractomena borealis

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Pyractomena borealis (Lampyridae) exploring the surface of trees on a warm winter day in February. At first I thought it might be foraging — they are highly predaceous, and hunt slugs and earthworms (in packs!) by first injecting them with paralytics. But it turns out they are just looking for a place to pupate.

Here is a close-up of the fully retractable head. Those mandibles are hollow.

Pyractomena borealis mouthparts

Here’s a photograph showing a retracted head.

Adults of this species will emerge from pupae sometime in early Spring to be the first fireflies in the area.

The larvae are bioluminescent, too, by the way. The hypothesis about why the larvae glow is that it evolved first as an aposematic trait in larvae, warning mice and toads of the presence of lucibufagins, steroidal toxins in the hemolymph. It’s thought that the adult habit of using flashes is secondarily evolved, millions of years after the larvae evolved the ability to glow. The ability of larvae to glow even predates the origin of the Lampyridae, I gather. For more enlightening details, see Branham and Wezel (2003), Stanger-Hall et al. (2007), and Martin et al. 2017.