7 wild and wondrous animal facts
Upon hearing the call of an unfamiliar hippo in the distance, hippos will spray dung into the air in a dramatic, territorial display, scientists recently discovered. Hippos can tell a familiar hippo from a stranger by listening to their "wheeze honks," the animals' signature call.
Eastern tree frogs with high concentrations of the dark pigment melanin in their skin were more likely to survive the Chernobyl nuclear disaster than their highlighter-yellow counterparts, a recent study suggests. The frogs' dark skin may have helped protect them from the damaging effects of radiation. Today, frog populations within the radioactive contamination zone are significantly darker than those outside the zone.
Burmese pythons can stretch their jaws incredibly wide thanks to an elastic piece of connective tissue that stretches from the snake's braincase, or cranium, to its lower jaw. In a recent study, scientists found that a 130-pound (59 kilogram) python measuring 14 feet (4.3 meters) long could fit a whole 5-gallon bucket in its mouth. They estimate that larger pythons could potentially fit their mouths over objects more than three times larger in diameter.
Researchers found that crows can distinguish paired elements buried in larger sequences, a cognitive ability known as recursion. On tests of the ability, trained crows outperformed monkeys and performed about as well as human toddlers. This result hints that the ability to identify recursive sequences, often considered a defining feature of language, may have initially evolved for other purposes.
After mating, a male orb-weaving spider will launch his body into the air in order to escape the female, who would otherwise make a meal of him. A recent study revealed exactly how the spring-loaded mechanism in the males' legs works, allowing the spiders to spring upwards at speeds up to 2.9 feet per second (88 centimeters per second).
A trap-jaw ant's jaws snap shut at speeds thousands of times faster than the blink of an eye, and recently, scientists discovered why this incredible force doesn't shatter the ant's exoskeleton. To build up power, the ants flex massive muscles in their heads to draw their jaws apart. When the jaws unlatch, forces act on either end of each jaw such that neither encounters much friction as they zing through the air.
Worms with a mere 300 brain cells can engage in complex decision-making, much to scientists' surprise. The predatory worm species Pristionchus pacificus measures about 1 millimeter in length and competes with the similarly-sized Caenorhabditis elegans for food, although it resorts to eating C. elegans when that food is scarce. Evidence suggests that the worms take a number of factors into account when deciding whether to eat C. elegans or simply intimidate the worm with a nonlethal nibble.
Hippos spew poop tornadoes
Upon hearing the call of an unfamiliar hippo in the distance, hippos will spray dung into the air in a dramatic, territorial display, scientists recently discovered. Hippos can tell a familiar hippo from a stranger by listening to their "wheeze honks," the animals' signature call.
Here's some amazing (and somewhat disgusting) animal facts.
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