by Kim Doner
Greetings, nerdy readers! I’m back, tickled to pieces that the magazine has accepted my begging — I mean, my suggestion — for a second article of cool critter facts. Let’s go!
Hey, There, Babe!
A DAZZLE OF ZEBRAS. Zebra stripes are more than fashion statements. Foals imprint on their mother’s unique pattern, so they immediately recognize Mama in any
group. Zookeepers trade off wearing the same striped coat when feeding orphaned zebras so the little one believes it’s the same mother.
When several zebras are together, the constant repatterning of stripes is confusing for predators — they don’t know which end is which. It’s possible, though, that the stripes protect zebras from insect bites. A study showed fewer bug bites on similarly patterned cattle compared to solid-colored cattle.
This could lead to a whole new business of professional cow painting as an alternative to pesticides.
A PADDLE OF PLATYPUSES. (Too cute to omit: Babies are called puggles.) OK, I’m SO cheating here. Everyone pretty much knows that platypuses are really weird mammals. They lay eggs and have leathery bills instead of mouths, for starters. My challenge is to expand this list. Fortunately, I’m totally up to the task.
Male platypuses have venomous claws on their back feet. The venom is being studied as a treatment for diabetes because its hormone triggers insulin production. Once mating is successful and puggles are hatched, their mother’s milk has potent antibiotics (also being studied for human benefit) that babies lap as it oozes from milk ducts found in Mom’s skin folds.
Babies are born with teeth that are replaced by grinding plates in adulthood. Their bills have electromagnetic sensors to help find shellfish buried in the mud, which are sucked up like a vacuum cleaner. A digestive gland produces fluid as those grinding plates smush food, which is a good thing because … (here comes the freakiest part)….
Platypuses don’t have stomachs.
Who Else Nose about This?
A PACK OF DOGS. Dogs prefer their right nostrils. Canines use their nostrils independently when processing scents. The right nostril is the first one employed, and
if the smell is nonthreatening (or promising), the dog shifts to the left nostril to continue interpretation. However, if the smell is not so great, it triggers adrenaline surges, and the dog continues to use the right nostril.
Dogs can catch colds similar to humans, only it’s usually a much more serious problem — so if Fido has the sniffles, he needs his vet!
A HERD OF ELEPHANTS is common, but a memory of elephants is also acceptable…. There are plenty of massive animals out there, but none of them owns a trunk. Although we puny humans can claim only 900 muscles in our bodies, an elephant’s trunk alone boasts about 150,000. An elephant’s sense of smell is better than that of a bomb-sniffing dog, the bellow — blowing air through the trunk — can be heard for several miles, and the coordination with the tip of the trunks is such that the elephant can pick up a Dorito — and eat it — without breaking it.
I have trunk envy now.
Elephants can store nearly six quarts of water for travel across dry terrain. They suck it up 30 times as fast as we sneeze.
They would not be cheap dates if they liked beer, would they?
Incoming!
A TROOP OF GORILLAS. It isn’t kidding to say we share 90 percent of our DNA with other primates, notably gorillas and chimps. Gorillas hum when they’re eating something tasty. I’m not joking — there’s even a recording you can listen to on the New Scientist website for free. Primatologist Eva Luef has identified two kinds of tones that she believes are gorillas’ own “little food songs.” (I think my dad was a gorilla.)
Although these guys can be enormous — a silverback can weigh in at 450 pounds — they are gentle giants, love their babies to pieces, and are vegetarians. But if you trek through any African countries to see gorillas, be sure to never, ever look them in the eye — it’s considered threatening in gorilla culture and might earn you unwanted attention.
And Outgoing!
A CETE OF HONEY BADGERS. Listed by Guinness as the most fearless creature in the world, the honey badger isn’t a badger at all. These guys are related to weasels, and their thick, loose skin protects them from arrows, bee stings, and even machete slices.
Known for their fierceness, honey badgers are also very intelligent and can make tools to benefit their whims — mostly dragging and leaning large branches as makeshift ladders for raiding beehives. They find hives with the help of a little bird called a honey guide. Following this partner, the badgers open the hive, eat the honey and larvae, and leave the beeswax to the birds.
The honey badger’s secret weapon is, well, flatulence. A honey badger’s poot is so noxious that when it is released, bees will faint.
BINTURONGS. For the life of me, I cannot find a collective term for this unique
Asian animal. However, these “bearcats” are one of the few mammals other than primates that have prehensile tails. They truly LOOK like a bear crossed with a cat, and their young are called binlets.
The most intriguing fact about binturongs that inspired me to include them is that their anal glands secrete a scent to
mark territory, and we with human noses translate the scent to that of buttered popcorn. Look out, Orville Redenbacher!
A CLUSTER OF BEETLES. The female Indian “lac” bug spends her whole life sucking tree sap and exuding a sticky goo. This goo, when gathered from 100,000 lady beetles, produces a pound of resin that we call shellac. It’s food safe and is used to coat candies and as a preservative to protect from humidity for many things we eat — and it makes many treats attractively shiny.
Shellac isn’t limited to food aesthetics, though; it has been used in hair sprays and phonograph records and as a wood finish.
And that, dear reader, is the unvarnished truth.
Getting Ahead of Oneself
A CONSORTIUM OF OCTOPUSES. So much is left to learn about these fascinating animals! Octopuses are boneless,
which allowed a 600-pound fella to squish himself through a plastic tube no wider than a quarter, and I’m not lying. National Geographic has it online.
Octopuses can solve mazes, use tools, and unscrew jars from the inside. Their kind of intelligence and its source are very different from ours, but oddly, they kinda like us. There are plenty of recorded incidents, particularly in aquarium parks, when an octopus wants attention, stimulation, and play from a human it recognizes.
As for the love of camo fashion, the octopus is a master. An octopus can shift colors to blend seamlessly into any underwater setting, avoiding predators while
waiting for prey to appear. Not only do they handle color well, a species exists at 3,000 feet called a glass octopus, and it is transparent.
Watching footage of this rare creature is eye candy, and I highly recommend taking a few minutes that you might usually use to scroll through TikTok and expand your horizons instead. Translucent and luminous, octopuses are some of nature’s most unique works of art.
But then again, nature IS art. Animals, plants, landscapes — even farting honey badgers.
OK, maybe not the honey badgers. Sometimes I get carried away.
