Tag Archives: animals

Friday Fun: Octopus Juggling Fellow Aquarium Occupants

photo of Otto the Octopus

Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him – and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.

“Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better – much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.”

Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction. The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

Friday Fun: Tortoise and the Cat

Once again the tortoise show persistence can pay off:

a fierce little tortoise that would not allow a cat to invade what it perceived to be its territory. Instead, it actively sets about attacking and ultimately expelling the feline, which at first cannot believe the sheer audacity of this small but spirited creature.
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Ever-encroaching urbanisation is just one of the onslaughts natural spaces around the world are facing. The killer tortoise of Port Elizabeth, South Africa as this little fellow has become known is a small but powerful symbol that some things are worth fighting for.

Virgin Birth for Another Shark Species

Virgin shark birth in Virginia

The first time it happened, scientists thought it might be a fluke. A female hammerhead shark residing at a zoo in Omaha, Neb., had not been in contact with male sharks for at least three years and yet experienced a “virgin birth.” She delivered a single pup.

But it has happened again, according to today’s issue of the Journal of Fish Biology. This time, a blacktip shark… had spent nearly her entire eight years at either the Virginia Aquarium without any male companionship from her kind.

Bonobo Research

Chimps ‘are people, too’

In a private facility just outside Des Moine, Iowa , primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh is conducting an experiment that has lasted 26 years. She’s been rearing a small group of apes as if they are people, to see what happens.

Her results appear to be spectacular, at least to writer Danny Wallace: “Kanzi asked me for a present. I gave him the free toothbrush kit from my flight over. He brushed his teeth. We bonded.”
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Victoria: “This experiment is the first definite evidence that chimpanzees can pass on ideas to each other. That is the basis of culture.”
Danny: “So, are they people then?”
Victoria: “No.”

In Budongo National Park, Uganda. Katie Slocombe from St Andrews University is studying vocalisations with wild chimps…
Katie: “Chimps produce an incredibly wide range of sounds. It appears that they may have a rudimentary language.”
Danny: “So, are they people then?
Katie: “No”

Friday Dog Fun

Bunny and Kittens: Friday Cat Fun #5

Mom cat adopts bunny into her litter of kittens.

Do Dolphins Sleep?

Do dolphins sleep?, MIT:

Dolphins do sleep, but not quite in the same way that people do. They sleep with one half of the brain at a time and with one eye closed. Dolphins rest this way on and off throughout the day, switching which side of the brain they shut down. During these periods, everything inside the dolphin slows down, and the mammal moves very little.

A Journey Into the Human Eye

Zoom into a human eye

The webcast goes into the human eye while describing the microscopic details of the human eye. See more such videos: The Eyes of a Fly – Zoom Into a Fish – Zoom Into a Butterfly

Treadmill Cats: Friday Cat Fun #3

Have a nice day 🙂

Updated to a new treadmill call video as the old one was removed.

Huge Ant Nest

[Google broke the original link when they trashed Google Video in poor way, which has become their habit. There history now shows they create very unreliable web services that are an embarrassment to any engineer. Still YouTube is difficult to avoid, Vimeo while not suffering from being a Google product and therefore unreliable based on Google’s history, Vimeo offers only a small fraction of the content found on YouTube.]

Very cool webcast. The ant nest goes 8 meters into the earth. The nest is engineered with vents to promote the flow of air, bringing in fresh air and expelling carbon dioxide created by the large fungus gardens. The scientists filled the ant next with concrete to excavate it: 10 tons of concrete were needed.