Red-winged Blackbirds often war with Marsh Wrens who share the same territiories and food supply. Both species will eat each other's eggs.
Mice are choosy—they like variety, too, and enjoy picking around in their food, eating the tastiest parts first, and separating out what they dislike. Female mice with litters will vigorously defend their nests and young.
If not forced to live in a dirty cage, a rat’s skin has a very pleasant perfume-like scent.
After engaging in sex, male rats sing at frequencies beyond the hearing of humans, around 20 to 22 KHz.
Mice and rats are fastidiously clean animals, grooming themselves several times a day. In fact, rats and mice are less likely than dogs or cats to catch and transmit parasites and viruses.
Mice and rats are highly social animals—they communicate with each other at high-frequency sounds that you can’t hear without instrumentation, play together, wrestle, and love sleeping curled up together. Much like us, if they do not have companionship, they can become lonely, anxious, epressed, and stressed.
Burrowing mice loosen soil with incisor teeth, carrying a load of debris in their mouths and piling it outside the burrow entrance or sometimes stacking loose soil inside the burrow and then pushing the pile out with its hind feet
Molerats use their protruding teeth to dig networks of underground tunnels. They live in complex societies, like termites and honeybees do.
The Molerat colony of as many as 300 members has one queen, and she mates with only one to three males. The queen prevents other females from reproducing.
In Damaraland mole rats colonies, 65% of the colony workers do all the daily work while the rest lie around , eat , sleep and do nothing and are fatter than their hard-working colleagues. But , as soon as it rains the lazy ones become active in building new tunnels . In fact they save up energy the rest of the year for this.
Most mammals use lots of brainpower to see, smell, or hear. But mole rats are different. They use most of their brainpower to get feedback from their teeth. They use their teeth to feel, dig, and sense the environment.
Female mole rats grow in length when they become queens and start having babies. No other animal change form so dramatically .
Male wasps die shortly after mating. Females die after laying all of their eggs.
When a Carpenter Ant worker finds food, she will leave a scent trail on her way back to the colony. When she arrives, she will wiggle her abdomen to let other workers know she found food. They will then go out and follow her trail to the food source.
A Hornet nest is started by one female queen who begins the nest by making a few little round rooms and lays an egg in each cell. When young female wasp larvae hatch, the queen feeds them with chewed up insects. They become workers and take over all nest duties, and the queen's only job now is to lay more eggs.
Eastern Blood-sucking Conenoses are insects that drink blood from sleeping mammals. They can fly but not just after they have eaten..
The male Eastern Dobsonfly has two long jaws which are half the length of its body. They are for grasping the female while mating and to take apart their prey.
Termites have three castes. When eggs hatch, some will grow into workers, others will be soldiers, and some will be reproductives. Workers and soldiers are blind, and reproductives have not only eyes, but wings.
Eastern Tent Caterpillar larvae, as soon as they are hatched from their eggs, climb up a tree to a crotch of branches and build a silk tent. They use the tent for protection. They leave the tent during the day to feed and return to it at night. As the caterpillars eat and grow larger, the tent grows larger also. It can get to be about two feet long.
Only female Yellow Jackets wasps can sting .A colony can have up to 5,000 members, ruled over by a queen. Female workers will go out looking for food for the larvae (baby yellow jackets). Adult yellow jackets drink nectar from flowers, but the workers will kill other insects to feed to the larvae.Once the female has captured and killed her prey, she will cut it into pieces and carry each piece back to the nest. Then she will chew the piece into a paste. The worker will next "tickle" the larva which will begin salivating. The worker will drink the saliva, at the same time delivering the paste to the larva.
Large Diving Beetles spend most of their lives under water. They swim with strong back legs that they use like oars on a rowboat. They eat small fish, frogs, toads, salamanders, tadpoles, and larvae of other insects and when they find the prey has diminished they leave the water to fly to another pond.
Meadow Spittlebugs lay eggs on stems of plants. When the nymphs hatch from eggs and start eating. As they eat, nymphs cover themselves in a froth of tiny bubbles. This "bubble house" protects nymphs from drying out. It also makes it hard for predators and parasites to find them.Nymphs can move slowly around their host plant, keeping covered by their spittle.
Bushbabies are small, nocturnal primates found in the forests of Africa. Weighing around seven ounces, the lesser bushbaby’s fur is dense, longish, and slightly wavy. Their large ears can be independently and simultaneously bent back and forth and wrinkled downward from the tips at will. This furling and unfurling of the ears is occurring constantly when the animals are investigating something
The Jaguar is the largest, most powerful wild cat in South America , weighing more than 350 pounds. Its only predator is the anaconda snake The Giant Otter can grow up to seven feet long and weight up to 70 pounds.. Though primarily feeding on fish, it can attack and devour Anaconda snakes and alligators..
The Giant Anteater is a toothless mammal that feeds on ants.It smells out ant nests and rips themt open with its sharp fore claws , catching the ants by flicking its 2 foot long sticky tongue in and out of the nest. To protect its claws, this creature walks with its front feet turned on their sides Freshwater fish Helostoma temminckii, of South-East Asia are called kiss guru. If two of these put in one aquarium, they come up against each other and join lips swimming forwards and backwards for some time. Eventually the fishes break loose and swim away. This is not affection but aggressiveness, a fight with mouths - strength testing like arm-wrestling for humans to test who is stronger.
Dolphins can recognize children they have met in the water after months
Birds, specially crows have their own parliaments. They form a circle of 80-100 birds with one bird in the middle. Often at the end of a large amount of cawing, the bird in the middle is attacked and the feathers pulled out. Ornithologists think that birds parliaments are devised to sentence disobedient member of the crowd.
The Aye Aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate. It has a middle finger which is used as a sensory organ. It locates insect larvae inside trees by walking along a branch and continuously tapping it with the middle finger. The aye-aye listens to the echoing sounds coming from the tapped tree. When the sound indicates they are above an insect tunnel, the animal tears off enormous chunks of the outer bark and inserts its slender and highly flexible third finger into the hole. Once the prey is located, it is hooked with the tip of the finger and removed.
Trapjaw ants have the fastest bite in the world and use their incredibly strong jaws for jumping .The ant's jaws accelerate at 100,000 times the force of gravity. This means they can snap shut 2,300 times faster than a blink of the eye to reach speeds up to 145 mph, exerting forces 300 to 500 times the ant's body weight.
Ants emit alarm pheromones from a gland in their mouth if something disturbs their nest.It is a cue for ants to grab their larvae and run below ground to safety. Defenders of the nest start running around with their mandibles open ready to bite and sting .
Bushbabies are small, nocturnal primates found in the forests of Africa. Weighing around seven ounces, the lesser bushbaby’s fur is dense, longish, and slightly wavy. Their large ears can be independently and simultaneously bent back and forth and wrinkled downward from the tips at will. This furling and unfurling of the ears is occurring constantly when the animals are investigating something.
The Jaguar is the largest, most powerful wild cat in South America , weighing more than 350 pounds. Its only predator is the anaconda snake The Giant Otter can grow up to seven feet long and weight up to 70 pounds.. Though primarily feeding on fish, it can attack and devour Anaconda snakes and alligators..
The Giant Anteater is a toothless mammal that feeds on ants.It smells out ant nests and rips themt open with its sharp fore claws , catching the ants by flicking its 2 foot long sticky tongue in and out of the nest. To protect its claws, this creature walks with its front feet turned on their sides Freshwater fish Helostoma temminckii, of South-East Asia are called kiss guru. If two of these put in one aquarium, they come up against each other and join lips swimming forwards and backwards for some time. Eventually the fishes break loose and swim away. This is not affection but aggressiveness, a fight with mouths - strength testing like arm-wrestling for humans to test who is stronger.
Dolphins can recognize children they have met in the water after months.
Birds, specially crows have their own parliaments. They form a circle of 80-100 birds with one bird in the middle. Often at the end of a large amount of cawing, the bird in the middle is attacked and the feathers pulled out. Ornithologists think that birds parliaments are devised to sentence disobedient member of the crowd.
The Aye Aye is the world's largest nocturnal primate. It has a middle finger which is used as a sensory organ. It locates insect larvae inside trees by walking along a branch and continuously tapping it with the middle finger. The aye-aye listens to the echoing sounds coming from the tapped tree. When the sound indicates they are above an insect tunnel, the animal tears off enormous chunks of the outer bark and inserts its slender and highly flexible third finger into the hole. Once the prey is located, it is hooked with the tip of the finger and removed.
Trapjaw ants have the fastest bite in the world and use their incredibly strong jaws for jumping .The ant's jaws accelerate at 100,000 times the force of gravity. This means they can snap shut 2,300 times faster than a blink of the eye to reach speeds up to 145 mph, exerting forces 300 to 500 times the ant's body weight.
Ants emit alarm pheromones from a gland in their mouth if something disturbs their nest.It is a cue for ants to grab their larvae and run below ground to safety. Defenders of the nest start running around with their mandibles open ready to bite and sting .
Bee flies are flies that look like bees. They have long beak-like mouthparts and are able to hover perfectly still in front of a flower while they probe for the nectar.
The small fly known as Midge is responsible for the pollination of the cocoa tree, without which there would be no chocolate.
Robber flies are capable of immobilizing bees, wasps and other insects larger than themselves. They catch their prey in mid air and stab them with their sharp mouths.
Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars ave a retractable "Y" shaped fleshy protrusion called an osmetorium which releases a stink when disturbed.
Leafwing butterfly caterpillars form chains at the ends of leaves. They bind particles of their droppings together with silk into walls which provide protection from ants as the caterpillars rest .
The adult Leafwing butterfly look exactly like dried leaves.
The Buckeye Butterfly adult males patrol a territory and wait for females to fly overhead. They fly after any insect to investigate only to return to their post if the passer by is not a female Buckeye.
The Helicniid Mimic Butterfly drinks the salt minerals from the sweat left by humans wherever they place their hands or feet.
The Heliconids are butterflies that birds and insects do not eat because they do not taste good. The butterfly has a characteristic orange and black warning coloration. Other groups of butterflies that are more tasty mimic this butterfly by adopting the same colouring and staying close to them.
The Eresia butterflies find their food alone during the day but congregate at night.
The male Blanket Octopus which is 2.4 centimeters (0.9 inches) long mates with females of the species which are two meters (6.6 feet) long.
Cupid Garden snails use "love darts" to get their point across. Courtship, which could take anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours, consists of circling one another to get in the best position to shoot a love dart but not be shot. Once the love darts are fired—and about one-third of the time they miss—the snails transfer sperm to one another in a process that lasts as long as six hours.
The Marine Flatworm is a hermaphrodite with two penises. The mating ritual consists of dueling penises, each flatworm trying to pierce the skin of the other with its sharp-tipped organ. The winner—the stabber—transfers its sperm. The loser gets the burden of motherhood: the considerable energy of caring for the developing eggs.
Madagascar's Giant Jumping Rats can launch themselves three feet (a meter) into the air with their kangaroolike hind legs.
Worker Fire Ants can distinguish who their closest relatives are and kill their more distant relations in order to manipulate the composition of the nest to suit themselves.
Epaulette shark walk on their find when they tire of swimming.
Songbirds are unique, in that their eggs sport a variety of pigmentation patterns and are often covered in striking spots or speckles. speckling may be a unique solution to the engineering problem of how to strengthen unusually fragile shells. Pigment chemicals that create the speckles act as a kind of glue, supporting thin areas of shell and protecting them from breakage during incubation in the nest.
Porpoises often break away from their group to go to the bottom to tickle their fins with kelp and scratch their backs against sea-bottom pebbles.
Birds usually bathe by dipping their heads into the water first. Then they lower their abdomens into the water and start shaking.
The scrub jay drinks by lapping up the water and then tilting his head back in order to swallow.
Bees recycle the air in their hives every three minutes and never sleep, so they can provide 24-hour air monitoring.
Spiders that eat other insects purposely seek a balanced diet to maintain their health. If they have eaten an insect that has a large fat content then they will eat one that has protein in it to make up the difference.
Men sometimes experience "sympathy pains"—signs of pregnancy, such as body aches, nausea, and altered food preferences—when their partner is expecting. So do marmoset and tamarin monkey dads . As their mates' pregnancies progress, they gain weight. Tamarins and marmosets, both small monkeys of Brazil, are devoted to their wives.Monkey fathers gain, on average, about 10 percent of their body weight by the time their mates give birth. During the last half of pregnancy, the female puts off high levels of cortisol"—a stress-fighting hormone.Right after she shows that increase, the male has a spike in his cortisol level too.
When female bethylid wasps are losing a vicious fight – they fight each other over prey-, they squirt an insect version of pepper spray from their heads before running away.
A species of spidermite has an all female world where all newborns are clones of their mothers and any incidental males immediately undergo sex changes to restore the all-female population.
The strongest biters alive among mammals aren't lions, tigers, wolves or crocodiles but the Australian Tasmanian Devil , a wolfsized marsupial Male tree-hole frogs found in the rain forests of Borneo tune the pitch of their calls to resonate inside hollow tree cavities so that they sound louder and echo more so that they sound closer, louder, and more attractive to prospective female mates.
Female Prairie Gall wasps which are a tiny parasitic wasp species are able to induce the plants they live in to produce a chemical perfume that attracts the males of the species,. The ability helps the flea-sized prairie-living gall wasp males to locate a partner, despite the fact that the female is totally enclosed within a plant stem.
Just as people living in different places within the same country have different accents , Japanese macaques can acquire different accents based on where they live. The red-faced monkeys frequently utter calls to maintain vocal contact with one another. But their calls while meaning the same thing, are accented differently depending on where they live.
Like Spider-Man, who shoots webs from his wrists to swing through the city, tarantulas spin silk from their feet to walk on slippery surfaces. zebra tarantulas secrete tiny bits of silk from nozzlelike structures in their feet. These tethers allow the arachnids to scale vertical surfaces. no other animals use silk for locomotion.
Wild chimpanzees in Africa fashion sticks into "spears" to hunt small primates called Lesser Bushbabies. They break branchs and use their teeth to sharpen the stick , then jab the spear into hollows in tree trunks where bushbabies sleep
Birds living in major cities sing shorter, faster songs that are higher-pitched than those sung by their brethren in the forests . They adjust their songs to allow themselves to be heard over the din of the city, especially the traffic noise.
Male loons have characteristic calls that remain relatively stable from year to year. However when a male loon changes his territory to find a new mate, he changes his call
The yodel is an important signal from one male loon to another. The yodel shows the size of the loon—the bigger the loon, the lower pitched the yodel. As the loon loses weight over the years, the pitch changes and goes up. The loon is effectively advertising how susceptible he may be to a takeover of his territory
Reindeer have a different set of eyes for summer and winter. They change their eye color and structure with the seasons in Arctic regions where permanent summer sunlight is replaced by 24-hour darkness in winter to match the light conditions,
Spider Monkeys use embraces to ease group tension. The monkeys use hugs—plus the occasional French-style cheek-to-cheek touch and a bit of mutual armpit sniffing—at the start of a large meeting, presumably to keep things from getting aggressive in the first place. Spider monkey groups continually split apart into subgroups and then later come together again. Even among monkeys that know each other, these reunions can be full of tension and the gatherings sometimes escalate into aggression which they try and prevent through hugging.
Honeybees change their buzz in the presence of toxins and diseases. Bees make their buzzing sounds by vibrating their wings and bodies and pushing air through tiny airways they use for respiration. When they come into contact with chemical poisons they change their buzz to inform other bees. The different sounds bees produce can actually signal what chemicals they're sensing.
Albatrosses take an 18-month break between mating seasons in which they fly around the world once. Others twice
The giant centipede Scolopendra gigantean grows up to 10 inches
The Spittlebug insect which coats plants with foamy spit is the insect world's greatest leaper. It has more jumping prowess than fleas, out hops the springiest grasshoppers, and clears the high bar more quickly than bush crickets. It is a mere 0.2 inches (6 millimeters) long, but can jump 28 inches (70 centimeters) into the air.
Tiger beetle larvae, also known as "chicken chokers," wait in burrows in the ground. When an insect walks over their camouflaged heads, they grab the prey with their long jaws.
The female Twig-girdler Beetlelays an egg at the end of a branch on a living tree. Then, the female chews the stem to cut off the water supply. The tip of the branch dies and falls to the ground. The larva of the twig-girdler then feeds inside the dead branch.
Ambrosia beetles make tunnels in the ground and grow fungus in them which they feed on .
Worker bees, ants, wasps, and termites collectively raise their colonies' young. Rank-and-file workers, who are the queen's daughters, usually don't lay eggs, even though they have ovaries, because outside the royal chamber, reproduction is forbidden, and unauthorized eggs are terminated.
In insect societies like the Asian Paper Wsp, the queen personally kills and consumes eggs that her daughters lay.
Loyal Honeybee workers assist the queen by eating the eggs of insubordinate workers who attempted to spawn.
Gulf Sturgeons leap six feet out of the water and crash back into the river. The jumping is a form of communication that sturgeons use to announce to the larger group the presence and position of individuals .This sound of the falling body travels long distances.
Dung Beetles scavenge for droppings of various animals and suck out the liquid. Then they roll the remains to a favorable spot, where they bury it and lay their eggs inside, providing a home and food for their larvae. But not just any dung will do - they prefer horse dung, then the sheep, and then the camel .
Central Bearded Dragon Lizards develop into males or females depending on the sex chromosomes they inherit. But turning up the heat during incubation caused unborn lizards to switch sex inside their eggs showing that temperature can override genes that trigger male development.
When they get hungry Paper Wasp queens beg their young for a meal by wagging their abdomens across their nests, creating vibrations that "ask" for a saliva snack.
In addition to capturing their own prey, birds like Peregrine Falcons and Bald Eagles steal prey from other birds.
Once the prey is subdued eagles usually spread its wings out and over the prey to shield it from theft by other birds. Many bird-eating birds pluck the larger feathers before tearing and consuming the prey.
Vultures dine on the same carcass, but they arrive and feed at different times. The Whiteheaded Vultures usually arrive first and tear open the tough hide. They're joined by Whitebacked Vultures that assist in exposing the carcass' entrails. Ruppell's Griffon Vultures arrive next to obtain pieces of soft flesh. Lappetfaced Vultures feed last, eating the remaining skin, tendons, and ligaments.
'When plants are grown in conditions of higher carbon dioxide, they produce increased levels of chemicals like tannins and phenolics . Songbirds like Blackcapped Chickadees avoid eating caterpillars that consume leaves exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide.
Oystercatchers are birds that have tough, long, reinforced bill allows for chiseling and hammering. They either break the oyster shell with a series of rapid, well-placed blows or they wait till the oysters are feeding and ram their bill quickly through the open valve, severing the muscle.
The Semipalmated Plover is found along wet sand and mud where it stabs worms with its slender bill.
Sandpipers have sensory organs in the bill allow them to detect prey within the sand and to grasp by opening the bill tip without opening the bill base.
Small fish protect themselves from being eaten by staying close together in large groups Fish such as Gunts band together during the day for protection. At night, when most fish-eating predators sleep, grunts become predators themselves. They swim out over the sand singly and hunt for little crabs and shrimp hiding in the sand
The 3-ft Arawana , a freshwater fish of South America, can leap entirely out of the water to seize small birds.
Stag beetles don't eat They drink the juice of rotting fruit.
African weaver ants fight fiercely and frequently and they produce colony-specific chemicals which help to identify intruders through smell so that they can be killed and eaten
Oystercatchers feed in flocks on mussel beds in winter. But a large part of their times goes in attacking each other , stabbing itheir bills or grabbing wings and tails and then stealing each others’ mussels.
Red-eyed tree frogs mate 30 f) off the ground in trees in tropical jungles. When a male finds a female, he climbs onto her back and she carries him to a special place for mating - a leaf that overhangs some water. She lays her eggs on the leaf and he immediately fertilizes them with his sperm. Within a couple of days, the tiny tadpoles hatch and drop into the water below where they develop into frogs.
Robber Flies have strong legs which can catch flying insects in flight. They have a beard of sharp hair around their faces to protect them from damage by their prey.
Looper moth caterpillars move with curving their bodies into loops. They are also known as Inch Worms because they measure off one inch at a time as they move.
Several jumping spiders try to look like their hosts the ants so that they can live in the same nest.
Bird Dung Spiders look like bird-dropping. They sit motionlessly on the leaf on day time and are active at night.
The insect called planthopper has markings on its body in which its tail looks like its head . When it moves, it moves backwards so that predators are attracted to a less vulnerable part of the body.
The caddisfly is an aquatic insect which build nets in streams to trap their prey. Some nets are several inches across and others are flat and quarter of an inch long. They come out at the bottom of the trap to prey on what is caught in the net.
Elephants have poor vision capable of seeing clearly only at very short distances up to about 10 metres.
Some species of male animals gather at one place every mating season in order to have competitions so that the females can choose their mates. These places are called leks and they become traditional places. The males either fight each other or put on extravagant visual or aural displays (mating "dances" or gymnastics, plumage displays, vocal challenges.
The Cyrtocara eucinostomus male fish build sand castles. The male with the tallest mound of sand - almost a meter wide at the base - wins the females. These sandcastles take this four inch long fish two weeks to build.
Peacocks also form leks to display their tails. The peacock with the longest tail gets the ladies.
Some leks rely on vocal signals. Male hammer-headed bats have a voice box that occupies more than half their body cavities; during breeding season, they gather for several hours at dawn and dusk to honk for females.
a prairie chicken lek can be approximately the size of a football field and contains about 20 males. As soon as dawn breaks , dozens of males gather and begin to all display in unison. A female will begin to walk slowly through the lek. Each male defends an area about ten, fifteen meters across and as the female saunters across the lek each male begins displaying furiously and accompanying the female through the lek and up to the edges of the territories where she will cross into yet another male's territory. At these boundaries, often fights, punctuated by loud alarm calls, will frequently break out among neighboring males. The female will visit the lek a number of times before she chooses a mate and after she chooses a mate, mating is very quick and she leaves the lek and goes off and raises the young on her own.
Redshank birds are extremely vigilant when in small groups to protect themselves from larger bird predators. But when the flock size reaches 30 then the birds stop being vigilant.
Adelie Penguins are predated on by Leopard seals who lie in wait under the water in order to ambush them . Adelie Penguins wait till the are a good number before plunging in so that the odds of being killed are less.
The female African cichlid fish will deposit eggs in an empty snail shell, then follows them inside to guard them until they are ready to leave. The male will scavenge for extra shells, add them to his collection, and defend his area.
The Jerboa is a mouse-sized rodent that can can leap ten feet in a single bound. The Pufferfish when threatened, puffs up to twice its normal size by gulping water. Anemones are beautiful fish-eating animals that look like undersea flowers and have hundreds of poisonous tentacles. When a fish comes near them thinking them to be plants , they sting and paralyse it and then eat it.
The Siamese cat has a defective gene, affecting the connection of the eye with the brain - the optic nerve causing a double vision. Siamese cats try to correct that double vision by crossing their eyes.
The easiest way to differentiate a carnivorous (meateating)animal from a herbivore is to look at their eyes. The carnivores possess eyes in the head's front part, which facilitates the location of food. The herbivores possess eyes on the side of the head to notice the approach of a predator.
A female flea consumes 15 times its weight in blood in one day. Sheep don't drink running water. Koalas don't drink water, they absorb the liquids of the eucalyptus leaves.
Before hibernating an Australian Desert Frog fills himself up with water till he is completely spherical
King Crabs and the Tuatara Lizard of New Zealand have a third eye : on top of a long stalk on the head. This eye was used like a periscope to look above the water while the creature hid below it.
Ants maintain a temperature of 77 degrees in the nursery where the ant eggs are developing.
When boring a tunnel , ants divide into two groups , start from opposite directions and meet exactly halfway.
Ants put water traps outside and inside their nests to keep out the rain.
Ants are capable of finding shortest path from a food source to the nest.
Also, they are capable of adapting to changes in the environment, for example finding a new shortest path once the old one is no longer feasible due to a new obstacle.
Ants often hold meetings. When an ant wants to attract the attention of another ant, it taps that ant on the head with its antennas/feelers. Ants communicate by chemical, touch, sound, smell, and sight.
Ants clean themselves by moving their legs through their mandibles and get saliva on them and rub them on their body. Ants also lick and clean each other.
A large anthill accumulates about 2,400 insects per day. Most of these are fed to the larvae.
Ants develop wings for mating and mate when the weather is hot and humid after rain and there is almost no wind, by flying into the sky in couples and mating while flying.
When it become cold outside in late fall, the ants move deep into the nest looking for a warm place. The exit of the anthill is closed with soil and sands during this period.
Ants use out-of-the-way chambers in their nests as bathrooms. They also deposit trash in the same chambers.
Salmon can jump as high as six feet out of the water. Every year they swim up rivers to lakes to lay their eggs, and jumping out of the water helps them to swim against the strong current.
The Water Beetle keeps its air under its wings and then dives into the pond to catch its prey. It breathes by putting its head into the bubbles created by releasing the air.
The water scorpion has a long tube on its head through which it breathes. While the bug remains at the bottom of the water, the respiratory tube reaches up to the surface, renewing its supply of air.
Dragonfly males guard the female, chasing off other potential mates so that she can finish laying the eggs fertilized with his sperm. Some species go to extremes in mate guarding - the male doesn't release the female, but remains attached until she has laid at least some eggs.
When Coyotes want to play with each other they make a strange squirming roll.
When Foxes want to play they run on the spot with their back legs,
When Brown Bears want to play they make a kind of head-wobbling motion.
When Dogs want to play they crouch low with their front legs, while keeping their rear in the air. This is directed towards their companions (or owner) in an attempt to persuade them to play. Originally in the wild it was a fleeing intention movement and gave the message 'if you chase me I will run away' - not so different from humans that chase each other when playing. If the food source is small and the temperature of the water higher with more ammonia in it, fish realise that they are too many in population and stop growing.
Giraffe tongues are 18-21 inches long. The first 12 inches of the inner tongue are pink , the last 6 inches of the tongue which is exposed to sunshine the whole day becaue they feed by wrapping their tongue around leaves , is black. This is to protect the tongue from sunburn.
Toad have short back legs and prefer to walk rather than hop.Frogs have longer back legs and prefer to long jump
The Japanese Ant Koronaga-ari ant makes the deepest nest in the world – about 4 metres down . The nest is comfortable because it is cool in summer and warm in winter. Grass seeds collected in the fall are stored in chambers of the nest. Woodlice have pale blue blood .
Insects get stuck to a spider's web, yet the spider does not because the spider's feet secrete oil. If a spider slips or falls, it can get trapped in
its own web.
Ants living in bamboo stems in Malaysian rain forests keep their nests dry by drinking any water that seeps in, then exiting the nest, urinating, then
returning to the nest, repeating the process over and over until the nest is dry.
The Decoy fish of Hawaii ,when hunting for other fish to eat, remains motionless except for its dorsal fin which it waves. The fin is transparent
but has markings on it like a mouth and eyes and looks like a small separate fish. When another comes to eat this small fish it suddenly finds itself
inside the jaws of the decoy fish.
A female kangaroo is continuously pregnant. A few days after her first tiny new born crawls into her pouch, the mother breeds again. This second foetus remains in suspended animation so long as the first baby remains in her pouch. If the pouch baby dies, the foetus rapidly develops and takes its place in the pouch.
The Short-nosed Bat selects large-leafed plants like palms, bananas and chews the leaf veins at precise spots so the leaf droops like an umbrella
to form a shelter under which the group of bats roosts! The tents provide shelter from sun and rain.and the narrow tent opening is easily defended
from other flying predators.
The Ornate horned frog has a mouth that is more than half its fat, squat body. Too fat to run after its prey, it burrows into fallen leaves or mud
with only its eyes sticking out and remains motionless in ambush.
Large birds that eat snakes usually get the better of a snake by making it tired. A snake cannot keep up active movements for long . So predators
circle and irritate the snake into making frenzied defence postures. When the snake becomes tired, the predator kill it with a bite to its neck.
Hens cackle after they lay an egg to signal to roosters that they are available for mating.
Beavers use their front teeth (two on the top and two on the bottom) to gnaw through bark, branches, and tree trunks. These teeth have an extremely tough orange coating that protects them from being broken or chipped while cutting wood. It takes them only 30 seconds to gnaw through a branch the size of a rolling pin.
The Desert Ant ‘s eyes can read 'compass' information from the blue sky, using the pattern of light in the sky as a compass cue; the ants find their way back to their nest by using this cue".
Sharks are masters at detecting molecules and vibrations in the water. They use their sense of smell to detect 1 part/ billion of blood in the water and their bodies can detect minor changes in pressure waves or sound waves in the water. This enables them to detect a creature in distress.
Mallard Ducks flash a particularly bright patch of feathers at their male rivals . the dispute is settled on who had the brighter patch of feathers, or is more persistent in flashing them.
The Gray Bat weighs 7 grams but can eat up to 3000 insects in a single feeding.
When Cows sense it is going to rain , they gather together to protect their young and provide safety to the herd.
Dogs bring their noses down and rub them from side to side on their paws to emphasise that they wish to play.
If a Bee is injured it will give off an alarm smell that will call the other bees to help defend the nest. If the bee is trapped but not hurt she will not give off an alarm signal.
Lobsters use teeth in their stomach, which is very near their mouth, to break down food.
The wolf has a loose-limbed trot that is so effective and economical of energy that it can cover 50 miles in 24 hours, and do so for day after day.
Wolves' paws are splayed so that they act like snowshoes, moving over the top of crusted snow in places where other animals would sink.
A mother wolf stays close to her pups the first 2 months, while the other pack member bring food for her.
Wolf packs will always leave some of their prey – so that other animals in the ecosystem can benefit.
A grown male wolf can only eat about 20 pounds of meat before he needs to lie down and rest. The wolf has 42 teeth. The wolf has extremely powerful jaws capable of generating 1,500 pounds per square inch pressure Wolves’ canine teeth "interlock" so the wolf can grip and hang on to struggling prey.
The wolf's sense of smell is more than 100 times greater than a human In the winter, the wolf's tail helps keep the face warm.
The Soapberry Bug while mating, holds the record for staying in its mate’s embrace for up to 11 days!
Velvet ants are are solitary wasps who attack bees and place their eggs in the cells of the host. When the eggs hatch , the velvet ant young feed on the immature bee in its cell or cocoon .
Bumblebees usually nest in cavities below rats’ nests in the ground.
The Churchyard beetle lives in cellars and old churches. If it is touched it releases an oily substance that smells of asfoetida.
The Bloody Nosed Beetle found on grassland releases large amounts of unpleasant smelling oil from its nose to deter its foes from molesting it.
Bees attempt to kill moths that enter their nests by simultaneously stinging it and pushing it out of their hive.If the bees cannot eject the intruder they dispose of its body by entombing it in wax.
The larva of the Green Tortoise beetle cover themselves with their own excrement so that they are not eaten before they become adults.
The larva of the Lace-winged fly feeds upon Aphids, and makes itself a coat out of their dead bodies.
Sand wasps nest in the ground in open, sandy areas along rivers. Females capture and line their nests with houseflies and deer flies. Adults wasps often catch flies as they hover close to humans for the purpose of catching flies attracted to them., It is possible to feed them out of your hand by presenting them with a living fly.
Mud daubers are solitary wasps whose nests are found in garages .The Organ Pipe Mud dauber, makes a nest of vertical, parallel row of cells. The Male stands guard while the female carries mud balls from a puddle to the nest site and then collects paralysed spiders to place in the cells. Mating occurs frequently on her returns to the nest.
No birds chew their food though they will use their bill to tear chunks off or to crush lumpy items before swallowing them.
Birds' bills continue to grow throughout their lives, this is necessary to replace the wearing that inevitably occurs at the tips.
Most birds have tongues though ,unlike ours, a bird's tongue has 5 bones in it Curlews can open the tips of their bills deep in the mud without getting a mouthful of mud.
The bills of some fish-eating birds have spikes along the edge to help them hold slippery fish. The Sword-billed Hummingbird has a bill longer than the rest of its body.
Skimmers have their lower beaks larger than the top ones. They fly with the lower beak in the water and use it to flip fish up into the air where they can catch them.
The Black Woodpecker strikes with its bill against a tree between 8 and 12 thousand times a day. In some fish-eating birds such as Penguins the whole tongue is covered in backwardly pointing spikes which help in swallowing the fish.
Woodpeckers' tongues have a sharp pointed top to spear wood-boring insect larvae. The end of the tongue has backwardly directed barbs to help in drawing their food out of holes in the wood.
Only domestic animals have floppy ears. In the wild all animals except the elephant have erect ears.
The Little Brown Bat can eat up to 50 kg (110 lb) of insects in a single summer. A single bat of this species can eat 900 insects in an hour.
The Hen Harrier of Scotland, flies about with a sprig of heather clutched in her talons in order to advertise herself as "available" during mating season.
A bite from a baby Rattlesnake is far more dangerous than that of an adult. Rattlesnakes have a full supply of venom at birth.
The adult snake can control the amount of venom it injects, and often it injects only part of the venom it has. The baby snake is more likely to inject all of its venom when it bites.
Snails leave information for their colleagues through The slimey mucous trail that snails and slugs leave behind when they slide from one place to another . When a snail is being pecked at by a bird it leaves a stress signal in its slime . Another snail sliding upon the trail of the snail that had been stressed moves away as quickly as possible to avoid danger the bird is still around.
The Stagnant Pond Snail lives at the bottom of ponds. As they walk they leave a trail of slime .
Tiny organisms get trapped in the slime and the snail comes back the same way to munch the things stuck in it.
Stagnant Pond Snails need air to survive. They get to the surface by letting its mucus slime out of its body in an upwards direction and then climb the
slime rope up to the surface. It looks like the snail has a sort of magic rope that comes out of its body and goes straight up for it to climb. Snail use the slime "rope" to go up and down. Snails even use other snails' ropes until they break.
The Water Measurer is a wingless insect found on the water surface who can walk slowly and gracefully on the water surface using his long legs.
The Water Beetle which lives in ponds catches prey with its sickle-shaped jaws which have holes at their tips through which it secretes digestive enzymes when it catches its prey. It first digests its prey and then eats it.
The Water Backswimmer spends most of its time in water but can fly from pond to pond and has very well -developed wings. It swims on it's back. The hindlegs are modified for "rowing" through the water. In the water, back swimmers seem to be surrounded by a silvery-looking sub stance as though the body has been dipped in mercury. Actually this is an air bubble that the animal has captured and is held in place by little "hairs" covering the body. As the air in the bubble is used up, the back swimmer rises to the surface and with a quick, somersaulting motion, captures a new bubble.
A unique Snail that has metal-plated armor on its body has been found in the Indian Ocean living at the base of underwater mineral "geysers".
Maneka Gandhi
