- published: 30 Apr 2016
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The bird family Phalacrocoracidae is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags. /ˈkɔrmərənt/ Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently, and the number of genera is disputed.
There is no consistent distinction between cormorants and shags. The names "cormorant" and "shag" were originally the common names of the two species of the family found in Great Britain, Phalacrocorax carbo (now referred to by ornithologists as the Great Cormorant) and P. aristotelis (the European Shag). "Shag" refers to the bird's crest, which the British forms of the Great Cormorant lack. As other species were discovered by English-speaking sailors and explorers elsewhere in the world, some were called cormorants and some shags, depending on whether they had crests or not. Sometimes the same species is called a cormorant in one part of the world and a shag in another, e.g., the Great Cormorant is called the Black Shag in New Zealand (the birds found in Australasia have a crest that is absent in European members of the species). Van Tets (1976) proposed to divide the family into two genera and attach the name "Cormorant" to one and "Shag" to the other, but this flies in the face of common usage and has not been widely adopted.
Last night, I watched the moon drink the tides
'Til a whale rose from the hole in the sea.
She breathed in the clouds like an opium ride,
Smiled, and devoured me.
My flesh had melted when my mind awoke
To feel her tail tear open the sky.
Fins punctured cities, bled sulfur and smoke;
I wept as the last scream died.
She spat my soul onto a planet of dust.
My thoughts dissolved into the grain.
Whale became woman, the sun gazed with lust;
He took her, and fathered the rain.
From this coupling my shell grew green.
Rainforests sprung from my skin and soil.
Mountains spawned cells, apes & All-In-Between,
And I understood.
I am this mortal coil.