Spelling Bee!

...and the Kansan wins!

Her word was "Laodicean": 

     lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics.

I got to listen to the last couple of hours of the Bee on the radio, and was quite proud that I was able to correctly spell—and define—axolotl in the 8th round. (It's a larval Mexican salamander.) For fun, check out the fish here. I've eaten one of them: the mantis shrimp.

kinda weird with those external gills, eh?

And now for my personal, tragic (and unfortunately, true) spelling bee story:  I was 12 years old, competing in the County level of the spelling bee in Central Ohio. My very first word was "minstrel". Except that the person pronouncing it wasn't clear. And I was SURE they said "menstrual". And there I was, at the tender age of 12, thinking, "There is NO WAY on God's green earth that I am going to spell "MENSTRUAL" in front of my PARENTS and all these people." So I intentionally blew it. And spelled it with an "i", which ironically was closer to the actual word I was supposed to be spelling. And thus, my spelling career ended. Moral of the story? ALWAYS ask for it to be used in a sentence!

p.s.—more obscure animals here