Amazing Animals

[gumboot]

I hope this is a good subforum to put this topic in; I wasn't sure where to put it, but figured "science" is probably the best fit.

I recently stumbled across this (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070913-longest-flight.html) article from National Geographic, with some astonishing information:

The flock's arrival in the U.S. was supposed to mark the end the study, but some of the tags' transmitters continued to send data, giving scientists the unexpected bonus of tracking the birds' return trip.

Scientists found that, on E7's way back south, with the help of tailwinds, she made the epic 7,145-mile (11,500-kilometer) flight to New Zealand uninterrupted.

"This organism is absolutely outstanding," said Rob Schuckard, a team leader at the Ornithological Society of New Zealand, which helped with the migration research.

"It's the equivalent of a human running at 70 kilometers an hour [43.5 miles an hour] for more then seven days."

According to satellite data, E7 flew at an average speed of 34.8 miles an hour (56 kilometers an hour), seeking favorable winds at elevations between 1.85 miles (3 kilometers) and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

Along the way, the bird "slept" by shutting down one side of her brain at a time and burned up the huge stores of fat—more than 50 percent of her body weight—that she had piled on in Alaska.

E7 found her way by analyzing polarized light to get a fix on the sun by day, even in heavy clouds, and by following the stars at night, Battley said.

I love these sort of facts about animals, and thought others here might have uncovered similar startling stories about animals. Please share them for us all.

I'll make one request, this thread is for remarkable feats/facts about animals other than human beings. There's plenty of other threads dedicated to the wonders of homo sapiens sapiens.

[El Greco]

The fascinating reproduction of the anglerfish (from this site (http://www.frogfish.ch/deepsea-anglerfish.html)):

In most species the female deep sea anglerfish is much larger than the male anglerfish, actually they are real dwarfs compared with their mate. For example the largest females of the genus Gigantactis grow to 40cm in length, whereas the largest males only grow to 2cm. Unlike their sluggish partners they have muscular bodies for active swimming. For many years fish biologists were very confused by these differences and misidentified male and female anglers as completely different species.

When they are born, male anglerfishes have no other role than to search out a female. The male has no bioluminescent lure, probably they never even feed. Instead they have larger eyes, presumably for spotting the females flashing lure and a much larger olfactory organ in front of their eyes. This difference in size is probably, because in deep sea sexual pheromones are very important in mate location. Since mature males of anglerfishes greatly outnumber mature females, so heightened sensitivity to female pheromones is an advantage.

After locating a female anglerfish, the small male attaches himself to her body by biting into her belly. His teeth and the jaw recedes, the skin fuses and the blood systems of both animals merge. Effectively the male becomes parasitic and doesn't have to find food by himself anymore, actually the intestine regresses, since it is not used anymore. In fact, about the only important internal organ is a large testis. The female has a guaranteed supply of sperms and the male is taken care of the rest of his life. Presumably the female anglerfish even controls the delivery of sperms with her hormones so it is coordinated with the moment she ejects her eggs from the body. Once fertilized the eggs which contain large oil droplets to give them buoyancy float to the surface of the ocean.

[JJM]

You should get hold of Olivia Judson's "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice for All Creation." She also writes a column in the New York Times.

[Baby Nemesis]

Dog swims 4 km to nurse pups (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2445375.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

A dog swims more than 4km every day to nurse her newborn puppies who are stranded on an island. ...

She gave birth to four pups at Shanhuba, which has become an island in the Changjiang River due to the heavy rains this summer. ...

Each day Huahua does the whole journey twice, once in the morning, around 7 am, and again at 7 pm, at which point she stays with her pups on the island
and returns to the city the next morning. ...

Chihuahua takes on rattesnake (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2430686.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

A Chihuahua has been hailed a hero after taking on a rattlesnake to protect her owner's baby grandson.

Zoey jumped in the way and took the bites after the snake struck at one-year-old Booker West, reports Metro. ...

Horse saves farmer from raging cow (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2462428.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

A Scottish farmer's wife says her horse saved her life after it fought off a cow that was attacking her. ...

She says she survived only because her horse, Kerry, raced to the rescue and kicked the cow until it moved off her. ...

[kerikiwi]

I'll add my own little anecdote.
We had an 11 hand mare, Crystal. One day we were leading her from her paddock to the yard, which involved going through a holding paddock with a cow who had a 3 day old calf.
Crystal got very excited, broke free and proceeded to cut the calf from its mother. (Remember this is a tiny mare, not a cutting horse)
Mother cow got very upset and tried to retrieve her calf. Crystal worked between the two of them, kicking the cow full in the side in her determination to defend her new baby.

It took us a good ten minutes to catch the pony and restore the calf to its rightful owner.

[Anthem]

A favorite...

XXX.youtube.com/watch?v=sU7Ye3wCxyc
A crow prying out a reward from a glass cilinder
(Change 'XXX' into 'www')

[Jeff Corey]

A favorite...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU7Ye3wCxyc
A crow prying out a reward from a glass cilinder


There ya go. The really cool thing is that the crow bends the straight stiff wire, effectively making a tool.

[Anthem]

Ah! Thanks Corey!

It can't go without some background though...
http://www.science.org.au/sats2007/gray.htm
Russell Gray about the tool-manufacturing of the Caleidonian Crow

[Jeff Corey]

Even earlier:
Powell, R. W. & Kelly, W. (1975). A method for the objective study of tool-using behavior.. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,. 24, 249-253. Key pecking for food was shaped in four crows within a conventional operant-conditioning test chamber. When pecking stabilized, a metal screen with openings 2.5 cm high by 1.0 cm wide, was placed over the response key, so that the crow could still see but could no longer peck the key."
They then put some sticks in the chamber and the crows picked the sticks up and poked the key through the screen to get food.

[ElMondoHummus]

I don't remember what channel this was on - PBS maybe, or Discovery (here in the US), but I recall seeing a documentary of a lioness who adopted a gazelle or a gnu, or some baby animal that's normally prey. I remember that animal behaviorists theorized that the lioness, a loner, was psychologically scarred, and her direction of her mothering instinct towards an animal that was normally dinner was a manifestation of that.

If anyone's got any links to this, I'd appreciate it. Also, if anyone remembers this case more clearly - like, what the adopted baby animal was - please clarify or correct me. I only watched the documentary once, and I don't remember it that clearly. But anyway, that was an unusual lioness, at least.

[El Greco]

Tardigrades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Bear), the most resilient life form on the planet:

Tardigrades have been known to withstand the following extremes while in this state:

Temperature — tardigrades can survive being heated for a few minutes to 151 °C, or being chilled for days at –200 °C, or for a few minutes at –272 °C. (absolute zero is −273.15 °C).
Pressure — they can withstand the extremely low pressure of a vacuum and also very high pressures, more than 1200 atmospheric pressure. It has recently been demonstrated that tardigrades can survive the vacuum of open space and solar radiation combined for at least 10 days. Recent research has notched up another feat of endurance: they can withstand 6,000 atmospheres pressure, which is nearly six times the pressure of water in the deepest ocean trench.
Dehydration — tardigrades have been shown to survive nearly one decade in a dry state. Another researcher reported that a tardigrade survived over a period of 120 years in a dehydrated state, but soon died after 2 to 3 minutes. Subsequent research has cast doubt on its accuracy since only small movements in a water bear's leg were detected.
Radiation — as shown by Raul M. May from the University of Paris, tardigrades can withstand 5,700 grays or 570,000 rads of x-ray radiation. (Ten to twenty grays or 1,000–2,000 rads could be fatal to a human). The only explanation thus far for this ability is that their lowered hydration state provides fewer reactants for the ionizing radiation.

[kerikiwi]

I don't remember what channel this was on - PBS maybe, or Discovery (here in the US), but I recall seeing a documentary of a lioness who adopted a gazelle or a gnu, or some baby animal that's normally prey. I remember that animal behaviorists theorized that the lioness, a loner, was psychologically scarred, and her direction of her mothering instinct towards an animal that was normally dinner was a manifestation of that.



And when the lioness had a much needed sleep, other lions who did not share her fantasy ate dinner!

[ElMondoHummus]

And when the lioness had a much needed sleep, other lions who did not share her fantasy ate dinner!

Actually, what I remember from the film was that a lion ambushed the animal while it was wandering. The lioness was looking and calling for it, and when she came across the lion, she was torn between fighting him and keeping her own self safe.

I think I'll start Googlewhacking for that documentary. It was oddly compelling.

[SteveGrenard]

ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2008) — Dogs can feel a simple form of envy, researchers have found.

Experiments with various species have shown that monkeys often express resentful behavior when a partner receives a greater reward for performing an identical task. Monkeys have been shown to stage strikes, refusing to participate and ignoring what they perceive as inferior compensation. Dogs are capable of similar, though less sensitive, discrimination, report Friederike Range and colleagues.


After observing their dog partner get a reward for a trick such as a paw-shake, the other dog is asked to perform a similar trick but doesn't get a reward. The next time the second dog (no reweard dog) is asked to perform the trick it refuses.

More at:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081209091945.htm

[neutrino_cannon]

I always thought grebe courtship displays to be rather impressive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2YfOdWp0pk&feature=related

[gumboot]

Great finds! I'm bumping this thread for more extraordinary animals.

[Zeuzzz]

Whats the biggest organsism on the planet? Blue whale? A type of tree? No. Its bigger than you might think, 2,200 acres to be precise.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/fungus1.html
What is probably the largest living organism on earth has been discovered in the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon. A fungus living three feet underground is estimated to cover 2,200 acres. After testing samples from various locations, scientists say it is all one organism.

One Thousand Football Fields

Officially known as Armillaria ostoyae, or the honey mushroom, the fungus is 3.5 miles across and takes up 1,665 football fields. The small mushrooms visible above ground are only the tip of the iceberg.

Experts estimate that the giant mushroom is at least 2,400 years old, but could be 7,200 years old.


And my second vote goes with the elephant octopus. It doesn't do anything amazing, but merely existing is enough to make it amazing. Especially when you consider the effort that must have been put in by the parent elephant and octopus that spawned this as offspring.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y15/halifax_damortis/dumbo2_hzoom.jpg
http://www.geekologie.com/2007/05/22/dumbo-octopus.jpg

In general most of the weird deep sea creatures are amazing: http://www.who-sucks.com/animals/real-life-sea-monsters-24-bizarre-creatures-of-the-deep

[Zeuzzz]

And I nearly forgot another amazing thing, leopard slug sex hanging upside down from a tree creating a translucent flower like globe between them. You really have to see it to see what I'm talking about. The BBC has some footage of it: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FhVi4Z6CjZk

[arthwollipot]

Alex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot)).

Yes, I know that some of Dr Pepperburg's claims are disputed.

[SteveGrenard]

Howsa about a frog with Green Blood, turquoise bones? It was found found in Cambodia and is called the The Samkos Bush Frog (Chiromantis samkosensis)

12/18/08 (Information from FFI and BBC):

A frog with green blood and turquoise bones has been discovered in Cambodia's remote Cardamom Mountains, international conservation organization Fauna & Flora International (FFI) announced today. The Samkos bush frog (Chiromantis samkosensis) is thought to be extremely rare,
the UK-based charity said in a news statement. "Its strange colored bones and blood are caused by the pigment biliverdin, a waste product usually processed in the liver.

"In this species, the biliverdin is passed back into the blood giving it a green color; a phenomenon also seen in some lizards. The green biliverdin is visible through the frog's thin, translucent skin, making it even better camouflaged and possibly even causing it to taste unpalatable to predators."

Here's a link to one article, of many, that appeared:

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5361493.ece

[Baby Nemesis]

Beavers. Aren't they amazing?

Beavers reported for 'logging' (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3115058.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

Green campaigners called in police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve - only to find it was the work of beavers. ...

A police spokesman said: "The campaigners are feeling pretty stupid. There's nothing more natural than a beaver."

Here's a story about a dog that showed a lot of concern for kittens:

Dog risks life to save kittens (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3063751.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

A dog risked its life to save a litter of newborn kittens from a house fire in Australia.

Leo, a terrier, had to be resuscitated after refusing to leave the kittens during the blaze in Melbourne, reports the Melbourne Herald Sun. ...

"Then we were told there was a box of kittens still in there, and firefighters returned to grab them too," Cdr Brown said.

He said Leo licked the kittens with joy when he saw them. "It was a wonderful sight," he said. ...

And a dog that can do spectacular tricks:

Acrobatic dog steals show (http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2864588.html?menu=news.quirkies.animaltales)

A Chinese dog has performed a breathtaking high wire stunt in front of thousands of spectators. ...

They watched as he climbed to the top of a four metre platform and balanced along two thin steel wires. ...

[Anthem]

"Scientists capture rare insectivore"1,
mentioned a headline of a Dutch newspaper on friday. It concerns a mammal, a primitive insectivore with poisonous fangs, the Solenodon paradoxus or agouta. Cool. I never knew such an animal existed. According to the paper only two known species of mammals with poisonous fangs exist, the forementioned and the Solenodon cubanus or Almiqui. The article featured a Youtube-movie as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCundOPeqE0

The Animal Diversity Web has information and some fine close-ups of the skulls of the agouta:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/skulls/solenodon/s._paradoxus/53657.lincisors.jpg/view.html
even in 3D:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/skulls/solenodon/s._paradoxus/s._paradoxus_movie.mov/view.html

The first picture shows the grooved tooth nicely, for "for injection of toxic saliva"2
even seen in 3D (click and move on the picture to rotate):
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/skulls/solenodon/s._paradoxus/s._paradoxus_movie.mov/view.html

1 http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/article1118857.ece/Wetenschappers_vangen_zeldzame_insecteneter
2 http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/460Insectivora/460.300.html
Props to:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
http://www.palaeos.com/default.htm

[TX50]

This now famous video of a herd of buffalo beating the tar out of a
gang of mangy lions is held to be remarkable by many:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

[Baby Nemesis]

Apparently there are some amazing animals in the deserts of Australia. Australian Desert Animals: (http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/australian-desert-animals.html)

The pretty and delicate bilby once lived across most of the Australian inland deserts. Today its range is a lot more restricted (due to the usual environmental problems that we humans cause). Only small, fragmented populations survive in parts of the Tanami, the Gibson and the Great Sandy deserts. ...

They are so efficient in conserving water that they don't need to drink. They get enough moisture from their food: seeds, bulbs, fungi, spiders and insects, which they find by scratching and digging. ...

[wafonso]

The bilby also plays the part of Easter Bunny in Australia :-)

[Modified]

In general most of the weird deep sea creatures are amazing: http://www.who-sucks.com/animals/real-life-sea-monsters-24-bizarre-creatures-of-the-deep

Some of those are weird shallow sea creatures. I catch sea robins and lizard fish all the time. They are annoying bait-stealers.

[macdoc]

This now famous video of a herd of buffalo beating the tar out of a
gang of mangy lions is held to be remarkable by many:

and the baby buff survives not only the lions but the croc. :boggled:....one tough little critter.

There was a full length National Geo on that - cleaned up sound and image and analysis.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Episodes/Battle-At-Kruger/Images/logo.png
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/caught-on-safari-battle-at-kruger-3568/Overview

BTW this is fun
http://www.africam.com/wildlife/index.php

Live waterhole camera - excellent sound and numerous animals regularly.

[BenBurch]

These guys are always amazing;

http://142.22.58.150/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?resolution=704x480&compression=25&fps=3&dummy=garb

Beluga Whales at the Vancouver BC Aquarium. (Dark when its night there, the pool is not lit.)

[arthwollipot]

The bilby also plays the part of Easter Bunny in Australia :-)No he doesn't. There was a push a few years ago to substitute the bilby for the bunny because the bunny is introduced vermin and the bilby is native and cute. But it never caught on. You can still sometimes find chocolate bilbies in stores around easter time, but the vast majority are still bunnies.

It was a failed coup attempt.

[theneedtoknow]

A few weeks ago I was watching the news, and there was a video that had been captured by a stationary highway camera somewhere in Latin America. A dog had gotten hurt in the middle of the highway and couldn't move, and would have most likely gotten run over pretty soon, when another dog comes out of nowhere, inches his way across a whole bunch of lanes of zooming traffic by waiting patiently for openings between cars and going one lane at a time, then he bit down on the injured dog and dragged it to safety with the same careful waiting for gaps between cars. As soon as it reached the side of the road and the hurt puppy was out of danger, the other dog simply ran off. Watching it made me cry, it was so moving!

Then of course there is camouflaging animals like the octopus, which I always found to be amazing :) http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GRSbC6HAgNE

And Bees counting to 4 - http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49P04V20081026


I also consider my own dog to be an amazing animal! He knows all his toys by name so when you say "yellow chew, blue ball, green elephant..." and so on, he brings exactly what I ask for. :) Sure it's not a big deal, but it is to me ! haha

[Sideroxylon]

A well watched clip, but the lyre bird definately needs a mention here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuFyqzerHS8

[Akhenaten]

These are kewl:

Lord Howe Island stick insect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Howe_Island_stick_insect)


Especially considering where they live:

Ball's Pyramid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball's_Pyramid)

[macdoc]

Here is your dog rescuing dog - it is quite remarkable

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/chiles-hero-dog-pulls-dog-pal-from-traffic/371853113/?icid=VIDURVNWS03

[SteveGrenard]

http://blogs.discovery.com/news_animal/2009/02/see-a-fish-with-a-transparent-head.html

There's a new addition to the "real life is stranger than fiction" category. Check out the fish Macropinna microstoma. It has tubular eyes and a see-through head.

Also here:

http://www.mbari.org/midwater/macropinna/

[Anthem]

A heron fishing with pieces of bread to lure fish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTw7GH325U&feature=related

And some background:
http://www.fosbirds.org/FFN/PDFs/FFNv16n1p8-9Higuchi.pdf
observations by Hiroyoshi Higuchi, concerning the ways of bait-fishing of the green-backed heron in Florida and Japan.

[Ashles]

http://blogs.discovery.com/news_animal/2009/02/see-a-fish-with-a-transparent-head.html

There's a new addition to the "real life is stranger than fiction" category. Check out the fish Macropinna microstoma. It has tubular eyes and a see-through head.

Also here:

http://www.mbari.org/midwater/macropinna/
That is... amazingly weird. I have to keep going back and looking at it again. It just looks wrong.

Would love to have been the first guy to see that. :)

[Dr Adequate]

What the coconut octopus does with its coconut:

LPnd_KzGdHI

[Mr.D]

Actually, what I remember from the film was that a lion ambushed the animal while it was wandering. The lioness was looking and calling for it, and when she came across the lion, she was torn between fighting him and keeping her own self safe.

I think I'll start Googlewhacking for that documentary. It was oddly compelling.

"Heart of a Lioness" IIRC.

There was a different documentary on Nat Geo a couple weeks ago about the migration of a great white from South African waters to Australia. "Great White Odyssey," I think.

Found a link: http://www.whitesharktrust.org/migration.html

[scribbles]

http://www.myspace.com/puppyhudnall :0)

[Dr Adequate]

For those of you who have never seen a giraffe beetle ... behold a giraffe beetle!

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2686/giraffebeetle.jpg

I just think they're cool, is all.

[Soapy Sam]

They developed the long neck to brouse the tops of acacia trees you know.

That coconut octopus is a hoot.

[Morrigan]

The Lyrebird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird) is pretty neat: it can imitate all sorts of sounds, from several other birds to a chainsaw to a camera shutter:

VjE0Kdfos4Y

[Dr Adequate]

And here are some euglenoid algae.

0rNI8Bos_BQ
What's so interesting about them? Well, they're single-celled creatures that swim about with the aid of a flagellum (too fine to see in this film). They swim towards the light (and away from intense light). The way they do this is cool. At the base of the flagellum is a light-sensitive swelling. To one side of this is a "stigma", an opaque body shielding the photoreceptor from the light on one side. The stigma is the red blotch you can see near the front of the algae.

Now, as you can see, the algae rotate as they swim, corkscrewing through the water. This means that the way the light hitting the photoreceptor fluctuates gives them their orientation: the less the difference between maximum and minimum brightness as they swim, the more nearly they are head on to the source of light.

I think that this is most elegant. I wouldn't have thought of that.

[Dr Adequate]

More corvid cleverness ...

BGPGknpq3e0

[UnrepentantSinner]

I don't remember what channel this was on - PBS maybe, or Discovery (here in the US), but I recall seeing a documentary of a lioness who adopted a gazelle or a gnu, or some baby animal that's normally prey. I remember that animal behaviorists theorized that the lioness, a loner, was psychologically scarred, and her direction of her mothering instinct towards an animal that was normally dinner was a manifestation of that.

If anyone's got any links to this, I'd appreciate it. Also, if anyone remembers this case more clearly - like, what the adopted baby animal was - please clarify or correct me. I only watched the documentary once, and I don't remember it that clearly. But anyway, that was an unusual lioness, at least.

There's also the example of Legadema the leopard who, after killing a baboon discovered it's baby and cared for it throughout the night.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-422784/How-leopard-changed-spots---saved-baby-baboon.html

[Prometheus]

There ya go. The really cool thing is that the crow bends the straight stiff wire, effectively making a tool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

Not tool-making per se, but still pretty cool.

[Dr Adequate]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

Not tool-making per se, but still pretty cool. There's a funny echo in here ...

[Prometheus]

There's a funny echo in here ...

I'd actually not read past Jeff's post before responding, so I hadn't noticed yours, but the embedding is disabled anyway. Oh well, I first heard about the Japanese crows when I was teaching there in 1993. There was a story in the news at the time about how it was discovered that crows were responsible for derailing a number of trains by lining up small stones atop the rails.