#Agent Thoth's #Personal Log: Day 135

Hey Everyone! :-)

Here's a look at Agent Thoth's experiences in the outside world. Incidentally, if you've missed Agent Thoth's earlier entries, you can find them here: Thoth's Journal

Department for the Preservation and Confirmation of Intelligent Life (DPCIL)

Agent Thoth's Personal Log

Day One-Hundred-Thirty-Five:

It has been a few days since my last report due to endless distractions from my hominid-servant and her canid companion, but those will have to wait for a later entry. As promised, here are some of my observations from my excursion beyond the domicile. Almost immediately, several large, loud, contraptions that spew noxious fumes and are mainly comprised of metals and plastics captured my attention. It didn't take much effort to divine that the contraptions are used by hominids to facilitate transportation. I know anyone accessing this log will find this almost impossible to believe, but the hominids burn non-renewable, polluting petroleum byproducts to power their vehicles! And the hominids seem to use these vehicles constantly, which dumps continuous streams of poison into the air. Even more baffling, this species has discovered non-polluting, renewable means of producing energy; they've just failed to develop such technology to be compatible with their vehicles. It's astonishing that any species being considered as possibly intelligent would seem so determined to destroy the environment of their own planet.

It took several moments before I recovered from the dichotomy of a potentially intelligent species and the unnecessary, unregulated production and dissemination of toxic waste, but once I did I was able to focus on the biosphere. Which, surprisingly, is still quite diverse, in spite of the hominids' actions. As a side note, DIPCIL might want to consider collecting extra samples of the flora and fauna on this planet for both preservation and study, as it seems probable that many of these species will soon cease to exist.

One creature that I found particularly interesting was a small, eight-legged arthropod that weaves intricate traps for other arthropods that it then consumes. The traps are woven from a sticky fiber that the eight-legged arthropod extrudes from its body. The fibers themselves do not taste good and get stuck on one's tongue and whiskers, but I sampled several varieties of the arthropods themselves, and they are delicious! They do have a venomous bite, which can be annoyingly painful, but it is worth the risk of this a small hazard for such a delectable treat.

There were many other types of arthropods, as well. Some of them crawl, some of them fly, some of them climb, but so far all of them have been quite tasty. My least favorite of the arthropods, so far, are a type of brightly colored, flying arthropods with a very painful, venomous sting. They tend to work in groups, and if enough of them swarmed, they could actually pose a mortal danger to a DIPCIL agent.

Due to the brevity of my excursion, I was unable to make a thorough survey of the local biosphere. However, there were two other types of creatures that caught my attention. First, there is a type of legless reptilian animal that seems to be hostile by default. Even a cursory examination was met with a whipping tail and a hiss. I will have to be more aggressive in order to further any study of this creature.

There is also an endothermic creature that lives underground. I believe it is mammalian in nature, and not one of the warm-blooded avians that are so common on this planet. However, since I have yet to lay eyes on it, that is merely speculation on my part. Whatever it is, the creature seems to burrow through the earth and moves quite rapidly. As a result, it takes a lot of concentration detect it at all, never mind tracking it. I believe I will need to devote an entire excursion to isolating and identifying this creature.