Joseph Knecht

    ANIMAL CROSSING Today's puzzle is brought to us by constructor Max Schlenker who has had previous settings published in Inkubator and Universal Crosswords and is making his debut today in the LA Times .  His theme concerns 4 zoologists who give us punny presentations on birds , spiders , snakes , and mollusks .  Trigger warning : some of these are a little creepy ... 17A. Teaching surface for an ornithologist?: BILL BOARD .   Ornithology is the study of birds, and birds have BILLS (aka beaks ).  The famous naturalist Charles Darwin was also an ornithologist who made an extensive study of the differences between the beaks of various finches on different islands in the Galapagos Archipelago .  He concluded that the differences in the shapes and sizes of their beaks were the result of adaptations to different plant life on the different islands, and that over many years they had  evolved into different species via natural selection ...

  Honors Courses Today's constructors, Lance Enfinger and Jeff Chen , bring us a letter addition puzzle , with 4 themers (2 across , 2 down ) that work with or without the addition.  Each themer fits the pattern "Honors course for an aspiring ___?" and the fill is a career description prefixed with AP , short for Advanced Placement .  Note also that all the theme fills actually begin with APP , which is short for AP Program . 18A Honors course for an aspiring aircraft marshaller?:  AP POINTING , as in telling the pilot where to go.  Aircraft marshalling is a real gig.  Complete this course and your career will really take off! Aircraft Marshaller 62A. Honors course for an aspiring pastor?: AP PRAISING .  A pastor  is the leader of a Christian congregation , who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation.  In Catholic congregations where there may be multiple priests, it is the pastor's job to administer the parish and supervise

 Today's constructors are LAT veterans and sometime collaborators Dan Schwartz and Shannon Rapp, aka Norah Sharpe , who invite us to enter the crossworld of benign Diplopia ... Seeing Double ... but don't worry, you'll get over it.  Their theme was pretty obvious from the get go and made solving this one pretty easy.  Here are the two word themers, all identified by the trailing "?"  If you got enough perps in either word you could guess them both: 17A. Double bond?: PROMISES PROMISES .  This clue might refer to a covalent bond (sort of the chemical equivalent of community property) and the fill could be the name of a Broadway musical ,with the title song sung here by the Divine Dionne Warwick : 26A. Double check?: TESTING TESTING .  Performed by the sound gal (or guy ). 43A. Double fault?: EXCUSES EXCUSES . The refs words to John McEnroe's in clue 17A on March 16, 2023 . 58. Double jump?: SURPRISE SURPRISE . I suppose this means to get a jump on so