Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Welcome to Fascinating Facts and Tantalizing Trivia

A Hartson Dowd Column

July 31, 2007

10 Amazing Things You Didn't Know about Animals

Myths and mysteries make the animal world fascinating, but even odd creatures ought to be understood. We explore a few recent findings, common misconceptions and amazing adaptations

10  Crocodiles Swallow Stones for Swimming

The stomach of a crocodile is a rocky place to be, for more than one reason. To begin with, a croc's digestive system encounters everything from turtles, fish and birds to giraffes, buffaloes, lions and even (when defending territory) other crocodiles. In addition to that bellyful-o'-ecosystem, rocks show up too. The reptiles swallow large stones that stay permanently in their bellies. It's been suggested these are used for ballast in diving.

 9  Whale Milk Not On Low-Fat Diets

Nursing a newborn is no "small" feat for the whale, whose calf emerges, after 10 to 12 months in the womb, about a third the mother's length (that's a 30-foot baby for the Blue whale). The mother squirts milk into the newborn's mouth using muscles around the mammary gland while the baby holds tight to a nipple (yes, whales have them). At nearly 50 percent fat, whale milk has around 10 times the fat content of human milk, which helps calves achieve some serious growth spurts as much as 200 pounds per day.

 8  Birds Use Landmarks to Navigate Long Journeys

Can you imagine a road trip vacation without missed exits, stubborn drivers or map-folding disasters? Of course not you're not a bird. Pigeons can fly thousands of miles to find the same roosting spot with no navigational difficulties. Some species of birds, like the Arctic tern, make a 25,000 mile round-trip journey every year. Many species use built-in ferromagnets to detect their orientation with respect to the Earth's magnetic field. A November 2006 study published in Animal Behaviour suggests that pigeons also use familiar landmarks on the ground below to help find their way home.

 7  For Beavers, Days Get Longer in Winter

Beavers become near shut-ins during winter, living off of previously stored food or the deposits of fat in their distinctive tails. They conserve energy by avoiding the cold outdoors, opting instead to remain in dark lodgings inside their pile of wood and mud.  As a result these rodents, which normally emerge at sunset and turn in at sunrise, have no light cues to entrain their sleep cycle. The beaver's biological sense of time shifts, and she develops a "free running circadian rhythm" of 29-hour days.

 6  Mole-Rats aren't Blind

With their puny eyes and underground lifestyle, African mole-rats have long been considered the Mr. Magoos of rodents, detecting little light and, it has been suggested, using their eyes more for sensing changes in air currents than for actual vision. But findings of the past few years have shown that African mole-rats have a keen, if limited, sense of sight. And they don't like what they see, according to a report in the November 2006 Animal Behaviour. Light may suggest that a predator has broken into a tunnel, which could explain why subterranean diggers developed sight in the first place.

 5  Baby Chicks and Brotherhood

It's a mistake to think of evolution as producing selfish animals concerned only with their own survival. Altruism abounds in cases where a helping hand will encourage the survival of genetic material similar to one's own. Baby chicks practice this "kin selection" by making a special chirp while feeding. This call announces the food find to nearby chicks, who are probably close relations and so share many of the chick's genes. The key to natural selection isn't survival of the fittest animal. It's survival of the fittest genetic material, and so brotherly behavior that favours close relations will thrive.

 4  Many Fish Swap Sex Organs

With so many land creatures to wonder at, it's easy to forget that some of the weirdest activities take place deep in the ocean. The strange practice of hermaphroditism is more common among species of fish than within any other group of vertebrates. Some fish change sex in response to hormonal cycle or environmental changes. Others simultaneously possess both male and female sex organs.

 3  Giraffes Compensate for Height with Unique Blood Flow

The stately giraffe, whose head sits some 16 feet up atop an unlikely pedestal, adapted his long neck to compete for foliage with other grazers. While the advantage of reach is obvious, some difficulties arise at such a height. The heart must pump twice as hard as a cow's to get blood up to the brain, and a complex blood vessel system is needed to ensure that blood doesn't rush to the head when bent over. Six feet below the heart, the skin of the legs must then be extremely tight to prevent blood from pooling at the hooves.

 2  Elephants Do Forget, but They're Not Dumb

Elephants have the largest brain nearly 11 pounds on average of any mammal that ever walked the earth. Do they use that gray matter to the fullest? Intelligence is hard to quantify in humans or animals, but the encephalization quotient (ESQ.), a ratio of an animal's observed brain size to the expected brain size given the animal's mass, correlates well with an ability to navigate novel challenges and obstacles. The average elephant EQ is 1.88. (Humans range from 7.33 to 7.69, chimpanzees average 2.45, pigs 0.27.) Intelligence and memory are thought to go hand in hand, suggesting that elephant memories, while not infallible, are quite good.

 1  Parrot Talk More than Just Squawking

Parrot speech is commonly regarded as the brainless squawking of a feathered voice recorder. But studies over the past 30 years continually show that parrots engage in much more than mere mimicry. Our avian friends can solve certain linguistic processing tasks as deftly as 4-6 year-old children. Parrots appear to grasp concepts like "same" and "different", "bigger" and "smaller", "none" and numbers. Perhaps most interestingly, they can combine labels and phrases in novel ways. A January 2007 study in Language Sciences suggests using patterns of parrot speech learning to develop artificial speech skills in robots.

Can you describe, properly , a group of rhinoceroses, or a bunch of ferrets, or a flight of larks?  You can?  Well, there may be some other animal terms here that will surprise you.

MY DICTIONARY informs me that the proper term for a group of larks is  exaltation.  An exaltation of larks!  How wonderfully descriptive.  You know the word, you say?  Well, perhaps you would like to take a little quiz.

To begin, what would you call a group of grouse?  "Covey" you say, clapping your hands gleefully.  But covey means a single family of grouse.  A group of grouse larger than a covey is known as a pack. You see how complicated this gets?

Here's one that's even tougher.  What is the proper term for a group of ferrets?  Don't just sit there scratching your head - guess!  Okay, it's a business of ferrets.  What business are the ferrets in?  I don't know.  Probably loan-sharking.

The next term - for a group of geese - seems a cinch.  Flock is correct, but only if the geese are standing around killing time.  Once they start flying, they become a skein.  If they're are on the water, they're a gaggle.

Among my all-time favourites are a crash of rhinoceroses, and a charm of hummingbirds.  Then there's a convocation of eagles, a skulk of foxes, a chattering of starlings, a mustering of storks, an unkindness of ravens, a sloth of bears, a gang of elk, a siege of herons, a leap of leopards, a murder of crows.

You probably don't know that a group of toads is called a knot.  Personally, I think I'd just as soon come across a crash of rhinoceroses as a knot of toads.

Sadly, there are no group names for outdoorsmen, who deserve their own group terms just as much as other wild creatures.  In the interest of lexicography, I have invented some of my own.

Let's begin with Wolf Cubs.  As with geese, the terms vary according to what the Cubs are doing.  If they are meeting at someone's house, for example, they are referred to as a den.  If they are meeting at your house, they are called a din.  A group of den mothers is a frazzle.

There are different names for groups of fishermen in different situations.  Several fishermen driving out to begin a day of fishing are an exuberance.  If the turns out to be unsuccessful, the group is variously referred to as a sulk or a grumble.  Fisherman surprised by a herd of mean cows (sometimes known as a mayhem of cows) become a panic of anglers or sometimes a skein of  anglers.   A group of ice fishermen is a chatter or a chill, althought the term looney is often used, particularly by their wives.

A boast of hunters refers to any group of hunters larger than one.  A tedium is any group of hunters who get started talking about their first deer, first elk and so on.

As a child, I once joined a berserk of kid campers heading for home after a mountain lion screamed near our camp.  It might have been a whole pride  of mountain lions, but even one was excessive.

But wait!  The sky is blue, the birds are singing, the great outdoors is beckoning.  I think it's time I set aside my chores, picked up my fishing pole and wheeled out the back door.  It's been a long time since I've gone off on an exaltation of my own.

750 Pounds! 2nd Largest Grizzly Bear Captured

By The Associated Press - posted: 20 June 2007

GREAT FALLS, Montana. (AP) — State bear managers seeking to capture and collar female grizzly bears as part of a population count recently trapped a 7 foot, 6 inch male grizzly that weighed 750 pounds after a winter of hibernation.

Mike Madel, bear management specialist with the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said it took two scales and a hydraulic crane to weigh the 8-year-old bruin that had 3 1/2-inch claws and a neck circumference of 4 feet.

“This bear was just a beautiful bear,” Madel said.

Madel said the big male with the bronze head, golden back and dark chocolate legs could weigh as much as 900 pounds by the fall.

“This is really a large male,” he said. In fact, it is the second-largest male grizzly ever recorded in the Northern Rockies Region, Madel said.

Madel captured the bear he dubbed “Big Daddy,” on May 24. He was trying to capture female grizzlies near Choteau to fit them with radio collars to track their movements and whether they have cubs.

“We actually were trying to avoid males,” Madel said.

But he decided to put a radio collar on the bear to track its range.

Madel said he didn’t know the big bear even existed.

“Here’s a bear that’s down on the Front, and he’s accustomed to moving in and around human activity, and he’s never caused a conflict before,” Madel said.

The average-sized male grizzly along the Rocky Mountain Front is 600 pounds, while females are around 300 to 325 pounds.

Madel, who has been managing bears on the Front for 24 years, wonders if the bear he trapped this spring was sired by the largest male grizzly ever recorded in the Northern Rockies: an 8-foot, 800-plus pound bruin trapped in 2003 in the Blackleaf Wildlife Management Area northwest of Choteau.

“This bear,” he said, “looked very much like that bear.”

Madel collected hair from the 2003 bear, but an Idaho lab lost the samples, making it impossible to know if they’re related.  Madel said the younger bear captured this spring hasn’t reached its full size.  “He’s got some growing to do,” Madel said.

Hartson S. Dowd                                                                                                                                       hsdowd@telus.net