For Halloween 2021, my husband and I picked the most convoluted costume.
Here are two photos. On the right is a zookeeper next to a white-naped crane. On the left is my husband and I (a human, not a real bird. Shocking, I know).
Walnut is a captive white-naped crane, a threatened species, who kept murdering the potential boyfriends the zoo presented to her. One day she met and imprinted on human zookeeper Chris Crowe, who is now the only one (bird or otherwise) she allows to go near her. Using this trust he was able to artificially inseminate her and as a result she’s had a bunch of kids and grandkids, thinking that Chris is her bird daddy. She has about twenty years of her life left and Chris has accepted that he can’t retire while she’s alive, meaning Walnut is his murderous bird wife, but at least she’s no longer endangered. Still a better love story than Twilight.
A while after Halloween, I was googling my name to see what my pretend internet catfish boyfriend could use to steal my identity, and stumbled upon this write up about my Halloween costume in Nature!! Does this mean I can brag about being published in Nature now?