Cloud Creature At Dusk

They've been shy in recent months, but today while driving home from work I spotted one and took this nice shot of it.

I don't know if Cloud Creatures come in different species and genera, but this one is strikingly similar in appearance to another one that appears in the antique photograph shown below, which dates back 100 years (oh, all right, so I took the photo just a few years ago^) -- allowing for a certain indefiniteness of outline owing to the gaseous/plasmoidal nature of their bodies, of course:

 
They both follow an elegantly simple, streamlined, fish- or shrimp-like body plan, with a large head that accounts for a third of the overall length of the body, a well-defined jaw and a noticeable cinch or 'joint' at the neck (which gives the head a hard, even bony, appearance -- which is extremely curious given that these creatures are not made of any solid substance), and from there tapering toward a split tail.  Also note what seems to be a tentacle at the top of the head, retracted in today's specimen and extended in the older one (the one in today's photo seems to be flying upside down, but this cannot be unusual for creatures native to the freedom of an atmospheric existence).  The only obvious difference is that the one in the older photograph has what seems to be an eye in what would be the normal spot for it in a terrestrial animal (although, granted, it could be accounted for by an unrelated fleck of dust or drop of moisture on the camera lens), and today's specimen apparently does not, but that could be due to the low level of illumination.  I would not be at all surprised if these two individuals belonged to the same, or at least closely related, species.

Related posts:  #1. The Growth and Maturation of a Predatory Cloud;  #2. A Cloud Found!

What Causes Clouds To Form?

I had the good fortune to observe these long, thin clouds directly above two tall, pointy trees, nearly mirroring them in form. This is a rare, double instance of an already rarely-seen phenomenon -- the formation of clouds of this form over certain types of trees. It has long puzzled climatologists, but a tentative explanation has been put forward in recent years.

It is hypothesized that the conical shape of these trees is conducive to the creation of rising eddies or vortices of air, much like the small whirlpools that form when water drains out of a bathtub, only reversed in direction, and which upon reaching a critical height begin to draw in moist air with their spin and thereby act as 'seeds' of clouds.

This process accounts for the elongate shape of the clouds as well; the cloud is simply manifesting in visible form the invisible vortex of air. The angle of the clouds with respect to the trees is easily explained as a result of high-altitude winds tilting the vortices.

As for the objection that the sighting of the clouds over certain trees is simply an accidental juxtaposition of viewing angles and that the trees and the clouds have nothing to do with each other, the possibility of such juxtapositions happening by sheer accident again and again is so remote that it may safely be ignored.