RUNNING ON TWO LEGS

I was sympathetic to read of the students running from the pint-sized killer at the Parkland, Florida school shooting. I can imagine the feeling of fear--that total hopeless nightmarish fear like when you can't run fast enough to escape the pursuing devil-monster of death in a dream!

 

Or the desperate clutch of fear in war, or being lost in a parking lot, or a boy running up a gravel road in Missouri trying to stay ahead of a cloud-shadow, or dreading what deadly ghost could come down the haunted stairway in our two-story farmhouse. Those are times when the effect of fear clutches you right in the middle. Hide or run! Escape! There was no escaping the dread-terror put out by the battery radio with squeaking-door stories like “The Monkey's Paw.” The image just crept into your mind and fermented there!

 

Running and balancing on two legs is quite a trick and few species of animals can do it. Nearly every species of land animal uses four legs except mankind. Four legs definitely have an advantage, and even though human racer E. Bolt set a record of 29.55 mph, most non-sports people can't do over 11 mph. That's pretty low on the scale when most four-leggers can do about 40 mph, and even an elephant can do about 20 mph. You can be caught by a green iguana [22mph], bear [30mph], and maybe by a legless African Black Mamba [14mph] unless you are healthy and go into overdrive!

 

Most snakes can only move along at a couple mph, topped by racers that make almost 4mph, although the Missouri blue racer I encountered in a field as a boy seemed to be going much faster than that—with its head high, swerving one way then another, and sometimes seemed to be headed in my direction! I ran as fast as I could fearing it was right behind, because I hadn't yet learned that nearly all snakes are harmless and that snakes actually help keep rodents under control.. I was filled with beliefs that the uninformed farmers fed me. Neither had I ever seen a video of the “deadly “spreading viper's harmless scare tricks. In that community it was even believed that “hoop snakes” could roll down a hill and kill whatever their poisonous tail could strike! “That Burress nature-boy is spreading fake news,” it was declared when I became a Nature Knight and an interpreter of nature!”

 

You might be surprised to learn that the fastest animal on two legs is an ostrich! They can run 60 mph with 12-foot strides! Some other birds can speed along on two legs, like the emu at 31mph, and although most quail can fly at about 50mph, they can run about 15mph.

 

Other speeds, Cheetah [75], fastest mammal, and the fastest organism on earth relative to body size-- the Southern California MITE--[322 body lengths per second], Fastest insect, Australian Tiger Beetle--[171 body lengths per second], horse [43mph], but the horsefly can fly 90mph!

 

In reference to speedy snakes, my striped kingsnake was the second fastest snake in the San Francisco St. Patrick Day's Snake Race about 1969! Those were the days when I was a “Cool Hand Luke” naturalist/snake handler, and to the cheers of thousands I almost coaxed my entry to a win over an eight-foot Mexican Racer!

“A man who causes fear cannot be free of fear.”--Epicures

 

“The fox wakes up in the morning knowing it will have to run faster than the rabbit to stay alive. The rabbit wakes up in the morning knowing it will have to run faster than the fox to stay alive.”

--Rex Burress

 

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”--Marie Curie