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Khazar-khum posted:Elephants and a few breeds of horses don't trot. Instead, they do a running walk, an intermediate gait where they're always keeping one foot on the ground so they don't bounce. Power-walking is just as lame when animals do it as it is when humans do. Who knew?
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Mar 7, 2017 17:09
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In 1989 scientists detected an unusual whale call. It's frequency is at 52 hertz while usual whale call is at 20 frequencies. Since 2014 scientists have detected the whale call every year (they have never actually seen it). They have never heard any whale respond to the whale call, Blue 52 (as the scientists calls it) is the loneliest whale in the world.
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Mar 11, 2017 15:24
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Speaking of bees, the Japanese honey bee has an inventive method of defense against giant hornets. The hornets are huge bastards. Their exoskeleton is too thick for bee stringers to penetrate and once they discover a hive, it takes only a handful of the enormous fuckers to decimate it. To cope with the threat, the bees will mob any scouting mega-wasps they encounter and form a compact bee-ball around the intruder. They then hang on and vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat, until the stupid hornet dies from heat stroke. Some of the bees parish as well, but I can only imagine that their heroic deeds live on in story and song because gently caress wasps.
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Mar 11, 2017 16:12
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On the subject of gently caress wasps, Scrub jays are the only new world birds that will eat the loving things. They catch a wasp at the "waist" in their beaks so the wasp can't angle a sting, the Jay then rips the stinger off with a foot, tosses it and eats the rest of the wasp. After eating enough of the adults it'll knock down the nest and eat all the eggs and larvae. I only gas the nests a jay can't get to because I love watching those crazy blue assholes get their wasp murder on.
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Mar 13, 2017 00:29
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Boxer crabs walk around holding sea anemones in their claws so they can gently caress up prey and competition with the anemones' stingers.  Also if they lose one of the anemones they'll rip the remaining one in half, and both halves will grow back into whole anemones. The anemones are cool with this relationship because it offers them protection and mobility / access to food. http://www.popsci.com/boxer-crabs-thieving-cloning-anemones
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Mar 14, 2017 18:42
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Alhazred posted:In 1989 scientists detected an unusual whale call. It's frequency is at 52 hertz while usual whale call is at 20 frequencies. Since 2014 scientists have detected the whale call every year (they have never actually seen it). They have never heard any whale respond to the whale call, Blue 52 (as the scientists calls it) is the loneliest whale in the world. Goon project: We should find it and kill it.
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Mar 14, 2017 22:28
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The Fuzzy Hulk posted:Goon project: We should find it and Slam Whale
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Mar 15, 2017 16:53
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Poor little goon whale.
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Mar 15, 2017 19:13
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Skippy McPants posted:Speaking of bees, the Japanese honey bee has an inventive method of defense against giant hornets. The hornets are huge bastards. Their exoskeleton is too thick for bee stringers to penetrate and once they discover a hive, it takes only a handful of the enormous fuckers to decimate it. To cope with the threat, the bees will mob any scouting mega-wasps they encounter and form a compact bee-ball around the intruder. They then hang on and vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat, until the stupid hornet dies from heat stroke. Some of the bees parish as well, but I can only imagine that their heroic deeds live on in story and song because gently caress wasps. The heat tolerances are really close as well, the bees vibrate their bodies to bring the temperature up to 117 degrees. They can survive up to 118 degrees without being cooked, the wasp can only handle 115.
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Mar 15, 2017 19:48
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nature is metal as gently caress
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Mar 15, 2017 20:00
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:The heat tolerances are really close as well, the bees vibrate their bodies to bring the temperature up to 117 degrees. They can survive up to 118 degrees without being cooked, the wasp can only handle 115. I want this to be true 
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Mar 15, 2017 20:04
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Cannon_Fodder posted:I want this to be true It is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc
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Mar 15, 2017 20:42
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Sociopastry posted:nature is metal as gently caress PYF Cool Animal Facts: Nature is metal as gently caress
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Mar 15, 2017 20:57
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Skippy McPants posted:Speaking of bees, the Japanese honey bee has an inventive method of defense against giant hornets. The hornets are huge bastards. Their exoskeleton is too thick for bee stringers to penetrate and once they discover a hive, it takes only a handful of the enormous fuckers to decimate it. To cope with the threat, the bees will mob any scouting mega-wasps they encounter and form a compact bee-ball around the intruder. They then hang on and vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat, until the stupid hornet dies from heat stroke. Some of the bees parish as well, but I can only imagine that their heroic deeds live on in story and song because gently caress wasps. How the hell does a behavior like this evolve?
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Mar 15, 2017 21:12
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Psycho Society posted:How the hell does a behavior like this evolve? I would posit the defense was about swarming to sting to death but happened to conveniently work in a different way
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Mar 15, 2017 21:15
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Psycho Society posted:How the hell does a behavior like this evolve? You could ask the same for that fungus that releases just the right combination of drugs to make an ant crawl to the top of a blade of grass, bite the end of the blade, and stick its body out, waiting for a cow to eat it and continue the fungal life cycle. Must've taken a whole lot of trial and error to hit on that particular cocktail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGSUU3E9ZoM
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Mar 16, 2017 01:44
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Hairy frogs are wolverines who push their own bones out of their skin to make claws 
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Mar 16, 2017 02:06
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FACT: Bears eat beets. Bears, beets Battlestar Galactica.
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Mar 16, 2017 08:10
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Manatees can maintain their buoyancy by constantly ripping rear end.
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Mar 16, 2017 08:57
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Crows use traffic to crack nuts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0
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Mar 16, 2017 13:08
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Psycho Society posted:How the hell does a behavior like this evolve? Not animals, but today while randomly browsing wikipedia, I learned that plants evolve for mimicry too -- the weeds start to look like the crops in order to avoid getting, well, weeded out, and eventually become crops themselves. Rye and oats, now staple crops themselves, began as weeds in wheatfields, and evolved to look like the wheat because the farmers uprooted everything that didn't look like wheat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjQ3hA9mEA
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Mar 16, 2017 16:17
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Delivery McGee posted:Worker bees are disposable -- evolutionary fitness depends on having more kids, so the sterile worker bees are willing to kamikaze to protect the queen. The bees that overcooked themselves died and the hornet's buddies killed off the colony either that time or on the next attack, the bees that happened to get hot enough to kill the hornets without killing themselves and lived to fight another day saved their hives and so passed on that ability. Oh yeah for sure, I mostly meant how a behavior could evolve that's utility is predicated on a complicated end state, like literally surrounding an armored wasp and shivering until it dies. Intermediary behaviors would have to provide an advantage as well. The other posters also answered this question really well too. It was probably an extention of swarming and stinging a more vulnerable predator. Probably some sort of arms race thing going on too where the colony and the wasps adapt to each other over time. As for oats, that's very badass and it's crazy how farmers literally cultivated new useful crops by accident. Life is crazy
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Mar 16, 2017 19:40
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The stingers of hymenopterans (bees, wasps, etc) are modified ovipositors
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Mar 19, 2017 18:43
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GenericOverusedName posted:The stingers of hymenopterans (bees, wasps, etc) are modified ovipositors Animal genitals in general is just a never ending horror show:  That's the genitals of the male bat bugs which mating ritual has rightfully been referred to as "traumatic insemination".
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Mar 19, 2017 18:52
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platypus mothers bear milk but they don't have nipples so they curl up their bodies in a half circle to squeeze the milk out of their skin and have it run down the wrinkles to where the baby sits with its mouth open
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Mar 19, 2017 21:02
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there was a experiment where tortoises were taught to use touch screens to get food and were pretty successful I think. also there's spiders that are capable of abstract 3d visualization of terrain to climb around behind and over prey to attack from a more favourable angle
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Mar 19, 2017 21:17
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violent sex idiot posted:platypus mothers bear milk but they don't have nipples so they curl up their bodies in a half circle to squeeze the milk out of their skin and have it run down the wrinkles to where the baby sits with its mouth open Platypuses really are nature's practical joke.
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Mar 20, 2017 17:05
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I seriously thought they were made up until way too late, like 15ish or so What a bizarre animal
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Mar 20, 2017 17:28
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Every time I think I pretty much have a handle on platypi, another weird fact that makes no drat sense about them comes to my attention.
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Mar 20, 2017 17:32
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Platypi are often known as "God's strangest and cruelest joke". But the platypi still do their best every single day, and nobody can ask more of them.
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Mar 20, 2017 17:35
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Platypuses are great relics of older mammalian groups.
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Mar 20, 2017 17:40
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A Spider Covets posted:I seriously thought they were made up until way too late, like 15ish or so So did most people when it was discovered.
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Mar 20, 2017 18:01
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A Spider Covets posted:I seriously thought they were made up until way too late, like 15ish or so Like, 15 minutes ago, you mean?
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Mar 20, 2017 18:06
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