Dave's Jungle / Check out www.davesjungle.com

Are Reptiles Intelligent?

2011-07-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Frank the Monitor Lizard

I have often been asked about the intelligence of reptiles “Do they know you?”, “Do they learn?” These are sensible questions and I answer them from my own perspective. My reptiles know my smell and that I am not food, most know that I am not a treat and are relaxed around me. I wouldn’t say they like me or hate me as evolution has not seen the need for them to like other creatures even if it is one their own species, they might tolerate me just as they might tolerate another reptile and not run away if they are in the vicinity of one.

Eddie my oldest iguana, with who I have spent the most time and who sometimes rides with me in the passenger seat of the truck thinks I’m a tree, I am convinced of it as he always seems to want to sit on my head which is painful.

With other reptiles such as snapping turtles I find their reactions to be more like reflexes if there is a threat he bites it. There is no stress afterwards and if the threat is there again he will bite again and so on.

I find that my lizards who are naturally predisposed to be frightened of snakes seem to eventually get over their fear but, if they have not seen a snake for a few months they may be back to being scared again.

Snakes cannot open their mouths very wide they have to stretch their mouths over their prey not unlike a sock as it stretches over a foot. In order to do this they must find the narrowest point to start the process which is the head, when it does this and starts swallowing the legs fold back sleekly which allows for easy consumption. They don’t always get it right sometimes it takes several attempts to find the right starting point as sometimes they start at the side of the prey or at the tail and you will find them with the rear legs of the victim doing the splits out the corners of their mouth not allowing swallowing. Over 100 million years of evolution and they still can’t get it right first time.

What brought me onto the subject of animal intelligence was today watching one of my reptiles frank the monitor lizard who weighs in at over 10kg and over 4ft in length. I let him out for a walk from his enclosure he was dying to get out for a wonder around. He walked around smelling the nooks and crannies of the reptile house, as I was watching him he came back to his own enclosure, It was as if it was all new to him he got all the scents and a while later he went back in again and repeated this several times. I eventually put him back in his “New home” he ate his rat and went to sleep.

Monitor lizards are clever in ways, tests have shown they will push the black button for a treat, when the button is moved and pared with a white button they will still push the black button. They are capable of identifying up to six items, in other words they can count to six. They are the only reptile to cooperate, monitors sometimes work in pairs one will distract a brooding female crocodile while the other grabs the eggs.

There is one thing reptiles seem to all have individual personalities, some are shy others are easygoing some easily scared while others not, to me this shows they are aware of themselves and the environment around them. That they have feelings (not human emotion) some times are quite and passive other times not so. While intelligence is an important tool for human survival, reptiles have all the intelligence they need to exist their simple skills have been proven over the last 290 million years

Frank Thinking?

Baboons

2011-05-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

Baboons are clever, crafty creatures that have very little fear of humans. In most cases they seem to be regarded as pests and thieves in Africa. You must close all your windows and doors and hide your valuables. They can completely ram sack a house looking for food and defecate all over the dwelling, if they were neat and tidy you wouldn’t mind! I have a terrible problem with closing doors thankfully my fellow volunteer Linda constantly reminded me to do so. Of course baboons rewarded her by peeing on a novel she had left outside. This was after their futile bid to raid our kitchen.

I was often woken by the head of the troupe, the dominant male, on the roof of my thatched hut a large formidable looking creature that was fierce in appearance and looked incredibly strong. Near-by was his harem of females and offspring. During the day they feed on bugs, shoots, seeds ,fruit or whatever they can get. They spent the rest of the day when they were not eating lounging around grooming each other.

Apparently some troops of baboons reach numbers of over 100 members. Primates which have a large social network have bigger brains than those who live in small troops in the trees. A real sign of this intellect is how they communicate through facial/body expressions and grunts.

A submissive expression or fear expression looks like a broad smile. Anger is the bearing of teeth, a female turning her butt to a male may mean respect or loyalty to the male, or the other!! A female turning her butt to an infant means the infant can get close to her. Turning her butt to another female with an infant means she wants to interact with the baby. Two males who trust one another or are making peace will allow each other touch their genitals as a greeting or sign of good will (call me old fashioned but I’d rather shake hands).

Much of a baboon’s time is spent grooming each other removing ticks and other parasites.

Communication is essential to living in large social groups it has been shown the larger an animal’s social group, friends, acquaintances etc. the higher the intelligence of the species.

I remember once as a child in Portugal some gypsies had a baboon tied to a tree next to their street market with 6ft of thick metal chain, he would sit there bearing his frightening teeth trying to swipe at anyone that went near it, you can imagine what type of a life he had.

The males are terrifyingly strong and aggressive looking creatures muscular and agile. The females are like most other female mammals much softer and less threatening looking.

I was watching a few adolescents from the troop and noticed how similar they were to human teenagers with their gestures and how they played, teased and interacted with each other, you could witness the same behaviour outside any secondary school.

Zebra

2011-05-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

Zebras move around in a herd and are very social creatures. Often seen hanging out with giraffe’s wildebeests and even rhino, they possess excellent colour eye sight, rotating ears which can move in any direction, weigh about 450kg and stand at 4-5 ft at the shoulder.

There are a few theories as to why zebras have stripes. One theory is that lions are colour blind so the black and white act as a camouflage. Another is that when running in a large herd it makes it harder for the predator to single out one individual. It is also thought to confuse insects, as insects recognise larger areas of similar fur as a target not this segmented looking creature, the effect which black and white gives. I suppose another property of the white part of the fur is to deflect the sun’s rays.

One thing for certain is zebra stripes are as unique as are our fingerprints no two are the same, it is thought that this is how they recognise each other as individuals.Another thing I noticed about zebras besides their grace and beauty is that they are always beating off flies. They are always twitching flies from their ears and switching and beating them off their hind with their tails. You would feel irritated just watching them.

Though it could be my misconception but there was a sense of community among the other herbivores as if they knew each other as individuals. Five or six species all intermingled no poking or bugging, just a mutual comradeship and understanding.A safe hub where each member was on constant guard for predators.

In herds of zebras there is a real bond, being social animals like ourselves the herd protects the old and the young, if one gets separated they will find it to bring it back to the fold. If some are slower than the others they will slow to match its pace and not leave it in danger.

Another similarity is that when the males who are close to both parents leave the family bosom at around 4 years (Its lot older for humans) they hang out with the lads (others bachelors) for a while till they are strong enough to take control of their own herd.

African Rock Pythons

2011-04-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

A Young Python just about to be caught by a guy in a stupid hat.

The rock python is the largest most powerful African snake, growing on average to 19ft (it can grow as large as 28ft but this is extremely rare). They are fast agile and extremely strong reptiles who can throw ¾ of their body during an attack. I should know I have been bitten by a 14ft one and lived to tell the tale. They have rows of backward facing teeth which act as a grip on the victim as its immediate reaction is to pull away embedding the teeth further into the flesh giving the snake an even stronger grip. I was fortunate to have a bottle of whisky at hand which I poured into the snake’s mouth which in turn caused it to retreat and loosen its grip. Its victims normally don’t have this luxury and find themselves constricted in a coil of ten thousand muscles tightening around their body while every breath released causes the coil to get tighter and tighter till the prey can no longer take a breath, and dies. The snake despite not having ears can hear through its lower jaw the heart beat of the animal and waits for a few minutes after the life has drained from the body, the heart has stopped by now and is now ready to consume. The python then pokes around its lifeless victim trying to find the optimal part of the animal which is the head and starting at the nose it moves its mouth over the head with this the muscles in the jaw stretch like elastics and the snake pushes over the body like a sock stretches over a foot. The inverted teeth help drag the meal towards the toroth muscles till enough of the animal has been swallowed for the body’s muscles to help in the further swallowing of the creature. Eventually the meal reaches the middle of the snake (the stomach) where digestion takes place.

The digestive juices are very powerful and allow bones and flesh to be easily digested though fur is harder to process so much of it ends up in the excrement. After this they go somewhere safe to sleep and digest their food free from stress.

They Predate on small mammals, rodents, birds, monkeys and even crocodiles, humans are generally not on their list though, not implausible the only problem is that humans are hard to swallow since our bodies are not streamlined as we have shoulders which make us hard to consume.

A large animal meal can last a python many months though if feeding on rodents the snake may feed once or twice weekly. Every six weeks or so as the snake grows it needs to shed its skin and may go off food for two to three weeks as its skin gets tighter and the old layer dies . When the old layer has separated enough from the body the python rubs off rocks to relieve its self of its old skin and now has lovely shiny smooth scales.

Females can lay 20 to 60 eggs in an aardvark den or termite mound. Termite mounds are ideal as they have a constant temperature. After laying the eggs the mom remains with her eggs for ten weeks or so only leaving to drink or bask in the sun to heat her body and in turn wrap around and incubate the eggs. She can also generate heat by vibrating her body. After the young have entered the world she stays with them for the first two days of life till they have shed their skin and then they make their way into the big bad world where if they are lucky they will live to the ripe old age of 30.

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Rhinocerous

2011-04-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

Originally small horse like creatures, they evolved over the last 30 to 50 million years to these huge 1500 kg poor sighted herbivores with an excellent sense of smell. They really look as though they belong in Jurassic park, with their armour like skin 1.5 -5cm thick, huge threatening horns you can only imagine a Brachiosaurs or Triceratops grazing nearby.

In the mid 20^th century there were some 70,000 estimated to be roaming Africa but now numbers are just over 2000 due to the demand for their horns as trophies and for its so called medical values (according to the Chinese medicine). Since the rhino horn is made of keratin (same as your fingernails) it has no chemical or nutritional value what so ever nor is it digestible, you might as well eat your own hair. Even so while I was in Africa a Rhino was killed by tranquilizer dart overdose which was provided to poachers by a veterinarian surgeon in a nearby park. A kilo of rhino horn is worth over €40,000 on the black market that’s more than its weight in gold.

The black Rhino is a browser, with a triangular-shaped upper lip ending in a mobile grasping point. It eats a large variety of vegetation, including leaves, buds and shoots of plants, bushes and trees. The white Rhino, on the other hand, is a grazer feeding on grasses.

During relaxation time they seem to love to sink down into a muddy hole which cools their bodies and gives relief from flies and parasites.

The female Rhino gives birth to a calf after a gestation of around 1 year and 6 months. This calf stays with the mother for normally around 2 years till the next bouncing baby Rhino appears. This seems to be text book, what I witnessed seemed to be family groups, normally a bull, a mother and one or two siblings. One family seemed to have a Rhino equivalent of a pre teen and female teenager and a Mam and Dad out for a walk.

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Wildebeest

2011-04-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

Funny when you are really hungry they look delicious!

Wildebeest

In Mkuze Park SA these wildebeest were everywhere hanging out with zebras, rhino, impalas, giraffes and nyalas all the four hoofed animals gathered and grazed together, I suppose in solidarity. Safety in numbers is a great idea in such a hostile environment with hyenas, dogs, jaguar, cheetahs to name but a few about to pounce at anytime.

I was surprised how compact they are at less than 5ft to the shoulder and weighing around 230 kg on average. These are grazers, both male and females possess horns, the young are able to walk very soon after birth. They have a life expectancy of around 20 - 30 years.

I was fortunate to witness a wild dog hunt on a herd of around thirty wildebeest. The heard first reaction was to circle around the young with their horns pointing in the direction of the dogs. They stood their ground while one dog made a ferocious bite at one of the bulls. You could imagine the adrenaline surges felt by both dog and beast. Unsuccessful the dogs withdrew waiting for them to break the circle and move on before continuing their attack.

The largest population of wildebeest is found around the Serengeti where enormous herds are active 24/7 grazing and watching out for predators while the others rest. Between May and June there is an unbelievable spectacle where as many as 1.5 million wildebeest along with thousands of other animals head north to better pastures. During this time what can only be described as a swarm of animals cross valleys and rivers some get eaten along the way but the heard keeps moving, sometimes at speeds of 60km per hour.

Cheetahs

2011-03-23T10:29:00.000-07:00

I’m not a cat person, I do admire them their physical characteristics the way they hunt their agility and how nice they are as kittens, you are a cat person or not and I’m not. I got very close to cheetahs in Mkuze; KwaZulu-it was a great privilege, amazing creatures with uncanny behaviour and similarities to the common moggy. You spend all your life watching documentaries or reading about African animals but to see them in the fur (in this case) it’s amazing.

Their whole physique is built for speed, they are the Ferrari of cats (jaguar would be confusing), large nostrils, light weight muscular body, high capacity lungs, large liver, flexible spine, a stride in flight of 7- 8 meters and reaching breath taking speeds of over 110 km an hour in around 3 seconds. When in chase only one foot touches the ground at a time and at two points in the stride they don’t touch the ground at all.

When hunting the cat will stalk its prey till it gets within 10 to 30 meters of the victim and may chase it for up to a minute. When they catch it they bite it at the front of the neck to quickly suffocate it. When they are eating or resting they purr.

Females live on their own, they rare their cubs as a single parent with no input from males. They have litters of 2-4 cubs. The first 18 months of a cub's life are important - cubs learn many lessons because survival depends on knowing how to hunt wild prey species and avoid other predators such as leopards, lions, hyenas, and baboons. At 18 months old, the mother leaves the cubs, and they then form a sibling group that will stay together for another 6 months. At about 2 years, the female siblings leave the group, and the young males remain together for life. Males live alone or in coalitions made up of brothers from the same litter. Some coalitions maintain territories in order to find females with which they will mate. Territories are often located in areas where there is a rich supply of wild game and/or water. Fierce fights between male coalitions, resulting in serious injury or death can occur when defending territories.

Hippopotamuses

2011-03-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

You would imagine that a hippo was a relative of perhaps a cow, or maybe a pig or even an elephant, but one of its closest living relatives is in fact the largest creature to have lived on this planet, the whale. Around 55 million years ago the hippo ancestor left the whale ancestor to start its own line which would eventually; around 16 million years ago become the modern hippopotamus.

They spend the hot African days in the cool rivers or mud holes as this is the only way to regulate body temperature, they leave the water at night to feed, covering over 5 kilometres on land to graze on vegetation. They consume about 70 kg of food before returning to the water.

Adult hippos cannot swim (you would think they would learn after 16million years in the water), instead they bounce up to get air as they walk along the river bed; they possess an ability to hold their breaths for about 5 minutes. The young are more buoyant and can swim by kicking their back legs.

At about 6 years the female hippo reaches maturity. When pregnant they give birth after 8 months to a 25 – 45 kg bouncing baby hippo underwater. The offspring then swim underwater to suckle its mother’s milk, in deeper water it will rest on its mothers back.

Hippopotamuses communicate with grunts and large roars which are very powerful if one were to bellow at the other side of a river you would be forgiven for thinking you stepped on its toe as it sounds so close. The vibrations from the grunts travel through the air and water to a form of echo location in the same fashion as a whale or dolphin.

Although very round and heavy weighing in at approximately 1.5 to 3 tonnes they are able to run at around 30km/h. None threatening in appearance they are one of Africa’s most dangerous animals causing a high proportion of human deaths compared with lions or crocks.

The lifespan of a hippo is 40-60 years.

Giraffes

2011-03-05T02:52:00.000-08:00

When you watch giraffes running in TV documentaries they seem to have the cameras slowed down and the giraffes seem to be running in slow motion, the animal’s long strides and gracefulness give this illusion. These creatures are so strange and beautiful. I have to say they would be one animal I would never tire of watching. Their front legs are longer than their rear legs enabling them to run at up to 60km per hour. When they are running at times their hoofs do not the ground.

Their neck’s have 7 vertebrae and can be up to about 2m plus allowing the giraffe to feed from .5 meters to 6 meters high of the ground. There is a special circulatory mechanism that prevents blood rushing to the head as the animal lowers its neck to drink water or feed.

As they are herbivores they tend to prefer leaves from thorny trees, they also eat twigs, grasses and fruit. They eat from around 7kg to 65kg of food daily. When the opportunity arises they drink loads of water to allow for going without for long periods of time.

A common practice among males is called necking where two males assert their dominance by combating in a neck fight, normally the male with the longest and heaviest neck wins. This only lasts a few moments and the winner usually gets the girl. Neck rubbing is used in courtship between males and females but more than often the males get confused and court each other so you might say they are bi-sexual.

Females gestate for around 14 -15 months after which the newborn baby emerges at a height of approximately 1.8 meters and within a short time it is running around on aided. The females in the heard help to look after the young giving the mothers a rest bite.

Wild Dogs of Mkuze Game Reserve SA

2011-03-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

Wild dog pack on the hunt.

My first vision of wild dogs was seven pairs of ears sticking out from the grass surveying the area. Twitching from left to right each ear uses nineteen different muscles. As well as hearing they are also used to cool off and beat off flies. They sat there watching us as we approached, when we got too close a few growls and low barks told us this was far enough. Although great hunters and powerful in their own right they were shy and inclined to move away as we encroached on their territory. Territory is marked by a very distinctive musky scent which seemed to me to be a mixture of urine with a stench of rotting flesh.

Hunting takes place mainly at dusk and at dawn this is when they come into their own. Hunting in a pack they are not concerned with using stealth or surprise. Wild dogs possess amazing endurance and speed, reaching speeds of thirty plus miles an hour over long distances, they communicate by a series of yelps to coordinate the hunt, eventually wearing out their victim and grappling them to the ground for the final kill. They have a bite force greater than that of a lion. With a kill rate of 70 – 90%, they know what they are doing.

It was interesting to watch the pack, only the dominant male and female raised their leg when urinating, it is easy to recognise the dominant dogs by their demeanor

In the pack the males are related to each other and females to one another though the males and females are not related. Most packs contain 7 to 10 adults, only dominant males and females reproduce with litters of 2 -19 pups. Litters are left in dens underground previously dug by aardvarks. Pups are weaned by the males by regurgitating food. As pups grow they are the first to eat after the kill while adults defend the pups from scavengers. The injured and old dogs are left to care for the pups. They are fed by the pack which shows a caring side to these wild animals that is a kin to our domesticated dog. Their complex social structure shows the intelligence they possess.

As I sit here with my 14 year old almost deaf and blind boxer at my feet and as she breaks wind for the umpteenth time. I see how although she possess many of the traits of the wild dogs, even in her prime she would not have survived 5 minutes in the wilderness. She only likes toast with butter and pedigree chum and can neither use a toaster nor a can opener!

A successful hunt and an unlucky impala

On a more sober note we spent a lot of time this January tracking these dogs. They had radio collars which after much searching using an antenna allowed us find and check on the pack twice daily. The pack had eight dogs and each day we took notes on their behaviour and condition. When I arrived back in Ireland I got busy down loading my photos onto the computer and was happy with one particular photo of the alpha male and female dog walking side by side. The next day I was knocked back to find that both had been killed by poachers using snares. Besides the cruelty and complete shock and pointlessness of their death, the amount of time and energy, care and resources the wildlife act group put into these dogs was erased. These people work from 4.30 am till 8 pm seven days a week with little funding and others destroy this work out of pure greed in such a horrible way

The dominant male and female were killed by poachers 1 week after this photo was taken.

Brian one of my snakes eating a mouse.

2011-01-12T09:40:00.000-08:00

Pygmy Shrew (Sorex minutus)

2010-11-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

I have often seen my cat dragging these odd looking little mice with their cartoon like little noses. Often mistaken as mice these are actually no relation to the mouse nor are they rodents. Belonging to the hedgehog/mole family and not too distantly related to the bat they are one of the world’s smallest mammals.
They are territorial mammals found in Ireland & Europe. Their territory can extend to 1500 meters squared with around 30 to 40 shrews in the zone. Here they scurry around in the under growth trying to avoid being eaten by just about every carnivore, or stood on by a wondering cow or sheep.
Having a very small pair of eyes they have poor eyesight but this is made up for by a strong sense of smell and sensitive touch. Prey is mainly insects, woodlice, earwigs, and small worms’ in-fact what ever they can subdue. They emit small squeaks which cannot be heard by adult humans but can be heard by children. These squeaks are a form of echo location not as sensitive as bats but warns of large objects like boulders or tree stumps.
You may have heard the expression live fast die young; this is exactly how shrews live, the rock ‘n roll life style of the animal world. They have super fast metabolism and as their bodies cannot store fat they must consume their bodyweight plus a quarter in food (120%) everyday. Needing very little sleep they zoom around for 13 months eating making more shrews and then die.

Cockroaches

2010-10-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

Cockroaches have been around this planet for around 350 million years.
Can be found all round the world except in Polar Regions and the Antarctic.
There are 3,500 known species and about six different types in Ireland. They like damp humid conditions where there is decaying food.
Seventy five percent of the day cockroaches spend resting and sleeping then the rest of their time scurrying around finding food. They can run at a speed of 3 miles an hour, about human walking speed.
If you were to cut a cockroaches head off he will actually stay alive for a week or more before dying, without a mouth it can’t drink water.
Some females only mate once and remain pregnant for the rest of their lives. They nurture their young for about a week. During a lifetime of 2-4 years a female can produce 1000 young and can you imagine if 500 of those produced 1000 young each, that’s half a million and half of those 1000 young each you could easily have a grandmother with 25 million grand and great grand children in only 2-3 years. So we can take it that these are not an endangered species. Cockroaches play a very important part in the environment as they break down dead material like leaf litter and human and animal waste.

I keep Madagascar hissing cockroaches they are very ancient looking creatures and amazing to watch. Unlike Irish cockroaches they do not stink but are fussy eaters. They hiss as a warning signal and also as a mating signal which is exhaled through breathing holes.

Bees

2010-10-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

Bees

Early bees would have come from the ant/wasp family and would have been predators which fed on other insects.
The first pollinating bees (family Melittidae) appeared about 120 million years ago in Africa and have been around since the time that the first flowering plants came into existence.
There are over 20,000 species of bees in the world with 101 species in Ireland alone. Bees are probably one of the most important insects, without their role in the pollination of plants one third of our diet would be gone. There would be few flowers, fruit or berries and that’s not to mention the amount of species of animal that would be wiped out since their food sources are gone. Bees are worth 18 billion to the American economy per annum.

Many bees live in hives with the Mother (the queen), the daughters (Workers), and the males (Drones).

Queen
The queen bee becomes queen when she is fed by the young workers on a diet of royal jelly which is secreted from their heads, this is protein rich food. This this diet makes her develop stronger and become fertile. If she was not on this diet she would just be a worker. She spends most of her life producing young as many as 2000 eggs per day which is more than her bodyweight. The others feed her and clear away her waste.
Queens have stingers which they use to get rid of rival queens. They live for approximately 2 - 5 years.
When a queen gets to old the workers kill the old queen by cuddling her to death, this is where the workers gather around her tightly till the heat kills her.

Workers
Worker bees are all females that cannot produce young. It is their job to clean and keep the hive at the right temperature. They cool the hive by flapping their wings and heat it by vibrating their bodies. When not looking after the hive workers spend their time gathering pollen into pollen baskets on their back legs and spreading the pollen on their body’s from flower to flower. When collecting nectar they use their long, tube like tongues like straws (called proboscis) to suck the nectar out of the flowers and they store it in their stomachs and carry it to the beehive. After been inside the bee's stomach for about half an hour, the nectar mixes with the proteins and enzymes produced by the bees converting the nectar into honey. It takes roughly two million flowers to make half a kilo gram of honey.

It is estimated that the average honey bee will fly a total of about 500 miles (800 kilometres) in its lifetime which is just over a month.

Drones
Drones are the male wasp they do not possess a sting nor collect pollen or nectar. They serve two main purposes one is to make more bees with the queen bee and the other is to help regulate the temperature by moving its wings to cool, or vibrating its body to create warmth as the workers do. Drones only enjoy a little over a month of life.

Senses
A bee’s sight is very sensitive to UV light, this helps them to see pollen more clearly as it stands out from the flower more.
Bees signal each other by dancing in different directions to signal where the best nectar is. It has recently been discovered that they also do this to warn of danger in an area.
Having a very keen sense of smell and able to detect tiny changes in scent has resulted British customs training bees to detect illegal drugs in luggage by rewarding them with honey. Apparently it is really working!

So next time you are in a British airport be careful not to stand on a bee it may be an undercover customs officer involved in a sting operation. Sorry!!

Sharks

2010-10-11T03:34:00.000-07:00

It was one of the small ones at the back.

I have a shark tooth on a piece of leather around my neck. Kids are always asking me where I got it. I tell them about the time I was diving when suddenly when I looked down to find a shark below me yawning I quickly swam down and yanked out one of his teeth and swam away as fast as I could. “And that’s a true story”. I love the look of amazement on their faces as they picture the scenario in their own imagination.

Generally sharks are the great scavengers of the sea, feeding on dead or dying fish. With their keen sense of smell they can detect minute traces of blood in the ocean, good eye sight great hearing and another sense that few creatures’ possess, the ability to detect electrical currents from the muscles of fish make them terrific hunters.
Their bodies are made up of not bone but cartilage the same substance that your nose is made from. Their jaws are not actually part of their mouth but held in place by muscles and ligaments, this is how their teeth appear to reach out grabbing when attacking prey. Each tooth is the first in a row of knife like cutting teeth. As soon as the shark loses one there is another formed and ready to replace it.

Unlike most fish they do not possess swim bladders to regulate their buoyancy so have to move constantly to avoid sinking.
Most female sharks incubate their eggs inside their bodies for up to six months producing one or two young at a time. Females give birth in shallow waters away from males who may kill their young. When born these young are fully formed versions of their parents and immediately start fending for them-selves. Shark attacks are very rare and are usually a case of mistaken identity or curiosity. We are not programmed into their brains as food

Elephants

2010-10-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

While in Borneo I managed to miss a large herd of elephants by only a short time, I discovered they had left a trail of trampled vegetation, broken branches and puddles from their deep foot- prints, alas they were too far gone for us to have any hope of seeing them.

Known as a pygmy elephant it has a shorter than it's cousin the Asian elephant and supposedly very passive.

They trample through the forest in herds of 10 to as many as 50 or more following the ripening fruit trees which produce fruit all year round.

We met a group of elephant researchers that were measuring footprints and collecting data. We discovered they hadn't seen an elephant for three weeks though the previous night they could hear them in the forest but didn't venture in because it was to dark and too many leeches. I taught what a "bunch of pansies after traveling all that way " ah well.

Elephants are social animals and live in small herds for protection from predators. Each elephant family is led by the dominant female, or matriarch. When threatened, the members of the herd will surround the calves to protect them from danger, and the matriarch will either confront the danger or the group will retreat into a tight unit.

Their trunks are used in many ways, to pick up and examine objects, to smell, as a snorkel when in a deep pool or river, to pull foliage from trees and to suck up water and squirt it into their mouth. Elephants can drink up to 50 gallons of water and eat 250 kg of vegetation a day.

Their huge ears are very important not only for hearing but also as huge fans to fan cool air to cool down their bodies.

The female or cow start to have their first young at about 14 years of age they remain pregnant for about 22 months. The average cow will have 4-6 young in a lifetime.
The young elephant (calf) take milk from their mother until they are ten years old and stay with her into their mid teens. The average life expectancy for an elephant is about 70 years.

Proboscis Monkeys

2010-09-26T13:42:00.000-07:00

While visiting Kota Kinabalu in Sabah Borneo I took a boat to a near island called Palau Gaya. A island
covered in forest and very humid, after a couple of hours hiking I spotted a shape in the trees. Walking carefully, being careful not to break any twigs so as not to make any noise, I couldn’t believe it, a troop of Proboscis Monkeys. I whipped out my camera to get a couple of shots, through the lens I saw mothers minding their young, the big males scratching themselves and eating leaves. The adults all had pot bellies.

These bellies contain a bacterial soup that helps them to digest seeds and green fruits leaves. With all these bacteria for them to eat sweet fruit would be deadly as the sugars would ferment bloat and burst their stomach. Their bellies can weigh one quarter of their total body weight.

Most noticeable of all was the male’s cartoon like bulbous nose, females have more petite noses. The males nose can hang down seven inches or more. It is thought the bigger the nose the more attractive he is to the female.

They are generally found near rivers or mangroves. Being excellent swimmers they have often been found by fisher men a mile out to sea.

I watched through the trees for about ten minutes or so and saw how they related to each other, the mothers feeding their young, while the adolescents played and preened each other.

I decided to move in a bit closer to get a better shot. I stepped on a twig and suddenly like a flash every male, mother and child went crashing down to the forest floor, there was a trashing of branches and they were all gone.

I noticed this on the Kalimantan river banks before you would see or hear a troop of monkeys and this huge commotion of monkeys dropping then trashing through the vegetation.

Of course like any animal story you read and hear about there is always that inevitable story of how man is encroaching on their land and destroying their habitats bla bla bla….. But! when you are there and you can see the miles and miles of palm oil plantations and the flattened rainforest you do feel sad. All you can hope is that the government and people of the country see what they are loosing, or be influenced to change their attitude.

There are currently 8000 living Proboscis Monkeys in Borneo, the only place they exist in the world.

Orangutans

2010-09-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Orangutans

Orang-utan means people of the forest it was believed that they were men who hid in trees so they didn’t have to work. Found in Malaysia Indonesia and Borneo regions, orang-utans are the second most intelligent next to man on this planet, sharing 97% of our DNA. They have a great ability for making tools and solving problems. Making hats out of leaves and even shelters over their sleeping nests to keep off the rain, they use tools as a means of extracting flesh from fruit and they also teach their young these skills. They have their own language and can learn from their mistakes.

Their average life span is around forty years of age. Generally females have their young (normally one) every eight years. The offspring are fed by the mother for around six years, and they may remain with her for a few years after they are weaned. During this time they learn which fruit and leaves they can eat and which not to eat. Developing agility in the trees using their long arms they swing gracefully. Because of their clumsiness and lack of balance on the ground they are rarely seen on the ground. Orang-utans are solitary creatures apart from when females have young, males on the other hand only spend a few days with females during mating and spend the rest of their time alone.

It is reckoned that there are only about 20,000 orang-utans in existence today due to the destruction of their habitats.

Vampire Bats, so cute they make puppies look like slugs!

2010-09-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Vampire Bats
Found in central and south America. They are up to 3.5 inches in length and weigh around 50 grams.
They live on the blood of live animals which they lick from the incisions made by their razor sharp fangs. Their saliva contains a substance which prevents the blood from clotting. They remain feeding on the usually un-aware animal for as long as 20 minutes at a time. They can drink as much as 30 to 40 percent of their own bodyweight in one feed. Vampire Bats normally they feed every night and will sometimes if hungry coax other bats who have recently fed to regurgitate some blood thus sharing a meal they are among the few mammals that actually share food.
There is another cousin of the vampire bat known as the false vampire bat which is very similar in appearance but does not feed on blood, but on creatures such as lizard’s, bird’s, rodents and parrots. It is one of the few bats that actually have very good eyesight (as most are blind) and emit sound as radar in addition to help find their way. None of the bats are of any treat to humans nor will they turn into Dracula.

Bring back Brown Bears ?

2010-09-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

Bears caught on camera trap crusin Joe Brophy's lane-way

Brown Bears
In an interview I heard lately on how the European Beaver has been successfully reintroduced into Scotland, (the first wild born kits for about 150years) the speaker spoke of how he would like to see the reintroduction of other extinct British animals like the Wolf, Lynx and Bear.

This got me thinking of how these predatory animals could exist in a more densely populated island like the UK in this millennium. Wolves and Lynx may kill a few livestock on farmers but with a compensation scheme like the one that exists for the re-introduction of birds of prey, this may be possible. Neither species pose any real harm to humans and co-exist in other European countries with no major problem.

I once had a near encounter with a bear when walking through forests near Medford Oregon USA when out with a friend Joe Brophy who lives in that area. We happened across a fresh mound of bear dung still warm with bits of berries in-cased, walking on another bit we heard a violent crashing of shrubs, thinking we had disturbed a mother bear protecting her cubs, my first reaction was to pick up a rock, I stood still (I read that this was the thing to do though not my instinct). We saw a dark creature in the distance coming towards then stop in its tracks look at us and turn back, we were obviously too close, this was our warning, we headed back towards from where we came, relived after the sheer drama of the possibility of a bear attack.
When reflecting later Joe asked me what I was going to do with the rock I told him “I would have thrown it at the bear if it got to close“. When Joe remarked that it would have bounced off the bear like a ping pong ball would in fact make it more fierce I felt stupid, throwing, a rock at a 250 lb charging bear with the power to knock my head off with one blow of its mighty claw, would have been as dumb as it gets!

In the U.S.A there is approximately one brown bear fatality a year. Victim's are mainly outdoor enthusiasts campers or hikers. Brown bears tend to be shy and avoid human contact but can be get familiar with people and associate them with food. This can mean trouble, when sometimes bears encroach on settlements causing confrontation.

I think to reintroduce bears into the wild in Ireland may not succeed our wild habitats are too small and with the lack of extensive natural forestation may not suit. Scotland I could see working as they still have untouched expanses of forestation.

Wouldn’t it be great to hear the growling of a bear in Wicklow or the howl of a wolf on a full moon in Glendalough on a frosty winters night. If I were to talk about seeing lynx at the sally gap people wouldn’t think I was talking about a discarded men’s deodorant can.

Platypus

2010-09-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

Its a duck and a beaver all in one like a labradoodle!

Duckbill Platypus

I have never actually seen one of these amazing creatures, they are like bits of different animals stuck together.Very strange creatures indeed!

Native to the Australian and Tasmanian riverbanks these are quite unique mammals, who hunt for insects and larva along the muddy riverbeds by stirring up mud. They only emerge from their burrows early in the morning and before night fall.

They have webbed feet and a flat leathery shovel like beak which is used for digging. Sensors on the bill act like a second sight and guide them under water with their eyes closed.

Platypuses have no neck, small eyes, no visible ears and a broad flat tail used for swimming and storing fat. The male possesses a spur or spike on his inner leg which contains poison, used probably as a weapon agents dingo’s and such creatures.The sting is very powerful and sometimes fatal. At mating season males try to impress the female by having digging and pushing competitions with other males.

Females lay around one to three eggs in their long safe burrows. After around ten days the young emerge feeding off the mother’s milk and will do so for three months or so. When old enough they will go away and live a life mostly on their own.

Fossils of the platypus ageing 15 million years old have been found. It is reckoned that they have been around for at least 110 million years. Now thats a long time!

More to come on platypuses at a later date!

Road Runners. Bleep Bleep!

2010-09-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Road Runners of Southwest USA
Like the cartoon, Road Runners can be seen speeding down desert roads at 15 to 20 miles per hour over long distances. Although they do fly they prefer to run as it gives them a greater advantage at catching small reptile’s, birds and insects. They use their scraggly tale to steer like a rudder on a boat. Road Runners are famous for their snake dance, where they will tease a rattle snake with a little dance till they can cease an opportunity to grab the snake behind the neck, then it proceeds to smash its head and body off the nearest rock till the bones and scull are smashed. This makes it easy for our little friend to swallow the snake whole.
Road Runners are specially adapted to their desert environment and they do not need to drink much water. They get most of their liquids from prey and avoid the midday sun. To cool down they pant like a dog.
They mate for life, when they first meet the male offers the female the gift of a small animal which she only eats after the courtship. After mating the male brings food to the female to get her in good condition. There is a high death rate among the young, usually only the first hatched surviving.
Road runners are welcome among human desert dwellers as they keep the venomous snake population under control. They are doing very well as a species.

Bleep Bleep!

2010-09-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

Whales
How amazing in 2010 that these creatures are survived , not some fossil in a museum
but living breathing giants in our oceans.Brilliant!

Whales are warm blooded mammals which took to our seas over 45 million years ago. Being filter feeders, they strain sea water catching small organisms like plankton through a comb-like filter in the mouth called a baleen.
Whales vary in size from the blue whale, the largest mammal ever to exist at 35m 150 tonnes, to small pygmy sperm whale which is 3.5m.

The Blow hole
Whales blow through their blow hole situated on top of the head. When submerged the whale’s blow hole fills with water and is cleared at the surface by blowing a jet of water into the air followed by a intake of breath. Baleen Whales have two blow holes.

Hearing
Whales hear through their mouth, sounds pass from there to into the middle ear.

Sounds
Whales are capable of making various sounds to communicate with other whales and sometimes even man. These sounds are very complex and suggest a language of sorts, which is used to flirt during breeding season, to find out where other whales are to warn them off and I suppose general banter, whale gossip and much more. Marine biologists are constantly studying and coming up with new discoveries regarding their communication.

Latest findings published in nature magazine have found whales vocalise with regional accents, Antarctic blue whales have different accents to blue whales off the coast of Chile.

Brains
Whales have much bigger brains than humans with more neurons although they might think more differently to us. This may be the reason they have not evolved in the same way as us, riding jet- skis or flying to the moon, as they have no limbs, it is hard to throw a spear or invent wheels with fins!!

Socialization
Whales are very social animals capable of communicating over many hundreds of miles equivalent to a human mobile phone network. They teach, learn ,scheme and share emotions and grieve the loss of loved ones.

Sleep
Whales don’t fall asleep because of the dangers of drowning. Instead one side of their brain rests while the other stays awake .

Evolution

Hyenas on the Hunt

2010-09-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hyenas (Africa)

These dog like creatures were once found around Europe and Ireland around 10000 years ago but are now confined to Africa where the live next to lions, scavenging and hunting for food. Although they are similar to dogs they are more closely related to the cat family. Hyenas hang around in packs of as many as eighty. The female hyenas are larger and dominate the males.

Hyenas are powerful hunters their strength and speed allow them to bring down prey many times larger than themselves. Aiming for the stomach disembowelling the poor victim is their favourite method of killing. They are capable of running at speeds of 60kph and will chase their meal for two miles or so until they tire, then they give up as they are more vulnerable to attack themselves. Hyenas usually hunt in packs, all members of which are closely related.

They have an excellent digestive system and can digest bone and teeth anything they are unable to break down is vomited up as pellets. If food is left over it is often buried in a pool of mud to be eaten at a later time.

The name hyena comes from the word hysterical as their cry is like high pitched laughter.

Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication

2010-09-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Dolphins
There are 32 species of dolphin and they are to be found all over the world. Many live in the oceans but some live in rivers.
Dolphins are incredibly clever creatures, humans have 5 senses, sight, sound, smell, touch and taste, Dolphins have these too, but also have a sixth, sending out clicks they can see through objects and catch hiding fish in the same way we use ultrasound to see unborn babies in their mothers womb.
They are very creative working together figuring out different ways of catching fish moving at speeds of 30-40 kilometers per hour rounding up schools of fish, communicating and working as a team helping one another get their share of the bounty.
In captivity bottle nose dolphins have been taught to read sign language from humans to achieve different tasks and communicate back to their handlers. They can recognise 60 or more signs.
Much of their time is spent in their communities playing, nurturing their young and being intimate with each other. In fact much or their lives are spent playing right through adulthood, which is as long as fifty years. Scientists believe that such is a dolphin intelligence that they even have names for each other communicating with different clicks as we do using words.

Using tools
A recent study has shown bottle nosed dolphins in Shark Bay Western Australia use sponges as tools to cover and protect their snout while foraging on the seafloor. Picking the conical shaped ones so they will not fall off their snouts.
It is believed that this is taught by mothers to their daughters and not an instinct.

Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them

2010-09-06T04:37:00.000-07:00

Rats
One female rat can produce and care for an average of 100 plus young a year. They live in holes and burrows, they are territorial and very clever. They are gatherers hording food and have hiding places all over their area stealing from where they can. Short legs and flexible ribs means squeezing through small spaces as small as their head is possible. It is said that we are never more than a few feet from a rat, yet we do not see them that often, this is because they are mostly nocturnal (only come out at night), have excellent smell and hearing and are aware of us long before we are of them. If you see one, there are at least ten of his mates near by.
Rats are carriers of disease, live in our refuse and sewers yet are very clean creatures spending much of their time cleaning their face, fur and each other. The biggest problem humans have with rats is they are constantly peeing as their bladder can’t hold urine. Humans can pick up infections from their pee or insects such as fleas that feed on rats and humans alike. Luckily for us this is not a real problem today but through history rats have spread plagues all over the world wiping out millions of people. In the 14th century 25 million Europeans died of the black death.

Zombie spider maker (Costa Rican parasitoid wasp )

2010-09-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

Before and after webs. (Picture from Nature mag)

The Hymenoepimecis Argyraphaga

There is a very peculiar wasp the Costa Rican parasitoid wasp which uses mind control to incubate and raise it’s young.

As a fairly harmless orb weaver spider spins its large perfectly round web, it is stung by one of these unusual wasps, temporarily paralysed the wasp lays its eggs on the back of the spider. After a while the spider regains movement carrying on with its daily activities, for the next two weeks unaware that the wasp larvae are burrowing tiny holes in the abdomen, sucking it's nutritious juices. Then the mind control begins, the larvae send a message to the brain of the spider to spin a flat hammock type web instead of its usual large round web, and the spider will work frantically to spin the flat hammock web. Once the web is finished the larvae kill the spider. Then form a cocoon in the hammock where they are protected from the tropical rains and insects. What actually happens is that the wasp larvae release a chemical which works very quickly and changes the way the spider's brain works. Scientists have found that if you remove the larvae while the orb spider is still alive the spider will survive and go on to live a normal life.

2010-09-04T13:09:00.000-07:00

The Bearded Dragon Lizard

These Australian lizards are easy going and not aggressive to humans. They live on live insects and vegetation and spend most of their days basking in the sun.

They have a funny way of communicating with each other. When a male sees a female bearded he likes, he does a little dance bobbing his head and puffing out his beard,he will stand on a rock to be higher than the female his beard will also go black just to show her what a handsome reptile he is. If the female likes him, she raises one of her

front legs and then puts it down gently this means he is in luck. A little while later the female may have up to twelve eggs.
When the babies are born they have to avoid being eaten by their parents so they have to make it on their own, this is why they have the instinct to hunt soon after birth.

Green Iguanas

2010-09-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

Eddie the Iguana doing his thing

Green Iguanas

These come mainly from the Americas. They spend a lot of their lives living in trees.

They are herbivores and not aggressive unless frightened. When threatened iguanas don't give up easy though, they raze their heads, open their jaws, their crest stands up and they use their long tails to frighten their attacker by whipping them.

Iguanas have three eyes two normal and one ( parietal eye) on top center part of the skull which looks like a blister, this lets their brain know whether it is day or night also allows to see shadows above. This eye works like a clock, the light effects chemicals in the brain instructing the body when to sleep.

Distribution of the green iguana

2010-09-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

Army Ants of South America

Creating a nest in perhaps an old tree stump many many thousand ants prepare to wreak havoc in their new neighbourhood. The queen ant lays her eggs (as many as 300,000 eggs) while the workers go searching for food literally killing anything that moves. With their huge numbers, insects, snakes, lizards, even small mammals are killed and dismembered for their flesh, broken down into small pieces they are brought back to the nest for consumption. They even enter human dwellings cleaning any edible matter like crumbs, spiders and insects. The newly hatched ants are cared for, fed and cleaned by their fellow ants.

The ants remain in an area for about three weeks and once they have eaten everything that moves scout ants are sent out to find a new site. Once found the ants follow the scouts trail and the entire colony is on the go, protected by the fierce soldier ants with their strong pinchers, keeping an eye out for danger along the way. There are so many ants in fact that the marching army can be a meter wide. On reaching the new site, a new nest is prepared and they begin to wreak havoc all over again.

To See them in action click-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXaaTQztoI0

Leaf-cutter Ants (Costa -Rica South America)

2010-09-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

They must have fun spending so much with a funguy (fungi)

Leaf-cutter Ants (Costa -Rica South America)

Scurrying along forest floors these little ants work together like a highly organised army, each group of ants has a different job some are cleaners, cleaning the nest, some are soldiers, protecting to the death with their ferocious jaws, and most are workers carrying cuttings of leaves many times their own size and weight to the nest. They communicate leaving scents which give instructions of directions. Why do they collect these leaves, believe it or not to make compost for their garden, a garden of fungus which the millions of ants in the nest use as food. There are even some ants that spend their lives gardening caring for their special garden. When a young queen leaves the nest she brings with her a piece of the fungus like a deposit on a new house to start her new nest.

Leaf cutter ants video

Here are some interesting facts about cows.

2010-09-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Lazy Cow!

Here are some interesting facts about cows.

During its lifetime a cow can produce around 200,000 glasses of milk. Each cow eats around 45kg of food a day. They have no top front teeth so they grab the grass and twirl it around their tongues then cut it with their lower teeth. They have 3 stomachs in which the food is fermented and they produce a lot of gas. Unfortunately cows are making a contribution to global warming, as all the gas their stomachs produce is more or less burped out through their mouths and their bums (cows fart a lot!). The gas (methane) is a green house gas which causes the sun to heat the earth more than it should. Each cow makes 20kg of gas each year and considering there are over 1 billion cows on the planet they may do more damage than car fumes to the environment.

Each herd and even cows from different areas have different accents, they have different moo’s depending which part of the country they are from. They have an acute sense of smell and can pick up scents from up to six miles away. Their intelligence is said to be higher than that of cats and comparable to a dog. Cows have good memories and can recognise human faces. They are very curious and like to work out problems. Each cow has a different personality and the happier they are the more milk they produce.

Ants and their counting ability

2010-09-01T02:03:00.000-07:00

Scientists have discovered that desert ants using the sun for positioning actually count their steps in order to return to their nests. They proved this by bonding pig hairs on to their legs as stilts, making their stride 50% longer, ants over shot their destination by 50%.
Short clip- Ants on Stilts

Frank Our Black Throat Monitor Lizard and the Cat yesterday

2010-08-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'm a cat what are you?

2010-08-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Burmese Pythons

Burmese python’s are probably the only snakes to be nurtured by their mother, as they are cared for during the first two weeks of their life. Starting life at only around 40cm in length, within a year they can exceed 3 meters and 40 kg in weight. Feeding on mammals and reptiles, these snakes have been known to attack, kill and even swallow crocodiles.

They can dislocate their jaws, and expand the skin and ribs to accommodate food much larger than their own head. Female Burmese have been known to reach lengths of 8 meters and are capable of swallowing goats or larger animals. They can go without food for many months at a time, shutting down their entire digestive system. In captivity some have been known to go without food for up to a year.

To save water, they excrete urinate a white jelly like substance which is concentrated salts and waste which quickly turns into a powder.

Burmese are known as the gentle giants of the snake world but are surrounded by myths of taking and swallowing children at play around villages. In reality they do not identify humans as food and would find it hard to swallow us because of our shoulders as they have no muscles for opening their mouths to this degree, they depend on swallowing food by moving over it like a sock.

Wasps

2010-08-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

Wasps

Wasps come from the same family as the dragonfly, ant and bee and have adapted very well to their environment. Every spring after hibernation the queen sets about building her nest. First she finds a sheltered place to hang her nest, perhaps in a garden shed. She begins by chewing up dead or flaky wood into a pulp and moulds it into a sphere the size of a golf ball. Here she lays the first of her eggs. These are the first workers of her new colony. The queen feeds the newborn with small insects like green fly, caterpillars and anything else she can catch. The queen herself feeds from the sweet saliva produced from the larvae. When they are old enough, they will continue to build the nest and feed the newly hatched allowing the queen time to concentrate on building up the new colony.

All the workers are in fact females and instead of an ovipositor (used for laying eggs in most insects) they have a sting. According to myth a wasp can only sting once, but they can in reality sting many times. The workers like the queen feed on the saliva of the young. Each generation of wasp only lives for about six weeks.

Before the end of the summer the queen produces males who are sting less and they go out and mate with other potential queens. As the summer ends, the queen stops producing young so the workers have to find a new source of food. They search for sweet things and this is when they become a pest entering our homes occasionally. At this stage the last of the colony is dying off and only the new queens survive hiding away in hibernation till next year.