Posts tagged anthropomorphiadotcom

Ethiopian girl guarded from gang rape & assault by three lions.

“The girl had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them. She was beaten repeatedly. Then the lions chased off her captors. The three lions guarded her for about half a day. They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.”

Then, Stuart Williams (the local wildlife ‘expert’) suggests that perhaps the lions mistook the 12 year old girl’s cries for a lion cub. Which seems awfully silly, considering that lions are perfectly capable of telling the apart the gazelles they eat from their own cubs, aren’t they?

For more amazing stories like this, please follow: www.anthropomorphia.tumblr.com !

Dolphin Moms Teach Daughters to Use Tools!

A dolphin mother figured out how to use a marine sponge to protect her snout while fishing around in the seabed in Shark Bay, Western Australia. She taught the technique to her daughter, who then taught her daughter too. This is evidence of a tool-use culture in marine mammals.

A growing body of research suggests that some animal populations invent behaviors that are passed to other generations. Well, we do, so why wouldn’t they?

Click photo for full article.

Pigeons Can Count!

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand reported in the journal Science that pigeons can compare pairs of images and correctly place them in order from lowest to highest number.

So, on behalf of all pigeons… 3, 2, 1 - Happy New Year! :)

Fox stops to smell the daffodils!

It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, don’t YOU like daffodils? Animals are no different.

via: nehalennia.tumblr.com

Elk saves drowning marmot from his drinking trough!

Keepers at Pocatello Zoo, Idaho, were worried when they noticed Shooter, a four-year-old elk, acting strangely at his water trough. They watched as he tried to dip his hooves in, before attempting to dunk his whole head in the water. Then they were amazed as 10ft tall Shooter lifted his head from the trough clutching a tiny marmot - a kind of large squirrel - between his jaws! He spent quite a bit of time planning how to grab it. Way to go Shooter!

Please click photo for full article (just ignore the part where they suggest Shooter’s actions might be just because he didn’t like having something in his way, ok? Obviously we all know that Shooter’s a hero - that’s clearly why he did it!)

Reindeer can see in the ultraviolet spectrum!

This is a photo of the lichen they eat under UV light. It’s quite beautiful and other-worldly, right? Imagine what the Arctic must look like to reindeer! Maybe that’s how they find Santa Claus…

Click photo for full article.

Empathetic Rats Help Each Other Out! (of course they do)

In a new study, laboratory rats repeatedly freed their cage-mates from containers, even though there was no clear reward for doing so. The rodents didn’t bother opening empty containers or those holding stuffed rats. When presented with both a rat-holding container and a one containing chocolate — the rats’ favorite snack — the rodents not only chose to open both containers, but also to share the treats they liberated.

Please click photo for full article.

Crows remember the faces of dangerous humans, with the memories likely lasting for a bird’s lifetime. Crows may scold people who threaten them, bringing in relatives and even strangers to mob the person. The crows within mobs then indirectly learn about the person, so they too associate that individual’s face with danger and react accordingly.

So be nice to crows - or you’ll develop a bad reputation! :)

Click photo for full article.

Housefly surgery!

We recently saw our cat paying an unusual amount of attention to the underside of our radiator. We investigated, and discovered a fly that had become entangled in cobwebs and was about to be killed by a spider! It was buzzing & spinning frantically in tight circles. We managed to get it away from the spider before it got envenomated (Which is stealing the spider’s dinner, we know, we know! The cycle of life sucks, and we know everyone’s got to eat, but we just couldn’t sit there and listen to the terrified death throes of the fly.)

So now we’ve got a fly that’s half cocooned in webbing - it’s wing is stuck to it’s back and it’s back legs are all bundled together. Awful. We can’t leave it like that, but how to get it free without doing even more damage?

So we pulled out the tweezers and got to work. It took three stressful procedures to get it all done, but when the last bit got dislodged the fly’s wings popped into their proper positions in a very glorious ‘I’m all better now’ sort of way, it was finally free of that darned piece of cobwebbing that we’d been holding it in place with, it flew around quite vigorously, and then settled down for a big bath and some of the sugar water we kept it supplied with. Then we set the fly off into a warm, sunny, autumn afternoon!!!

What’s interesting is that the fly became much calmer the instant we got it away from the spider, and throughout the whole ordeal it figured out that we were helping it, because it would progressively let us get closer and closer without trying to evade us - despite our scary tweezers! Many times when it had the opportunity to get away it simply wouldn’t - but rather would take part in helping us help it, like yanking the leg we would be working on to help pry it loose. It was pretty much a symphony of housefly human cooperation - and we’re quite thrilled that it all worked out!

This is not the first time we’ve saved flies from certain doom, and you’d be amazed at the differing personalities they’ve each got - as evidenced by their different reactions to being offered a dish with bit of sugar water-soaked paper towel! Though at first, of course, they worry that you’re a threat, but if you move slowly and calmly they start to get used to the idea that you’re not so much a threat as a source of sweet sweet sugar. Here’s a bit of a history that we’ve enjoyed with a variety of flies that have had the good fortune to get stuck in our our flyswatter-free household:

-Buzzy #1: Learned to land on our outstretched finger because there was honey to be found there!
-Buzzy #2: Wouldn’t land on us, but would visit dish held out.
-Buzzy #3: Wouldn’t come to the dish, but if we brought the dish to him, he’d climb on and have some.
-Buzzy #4 & #5: Both flew away and wanted nothing doing with us or our sugar.
-Buzzy #6: Didn’t run or fly away, but avoided the water/sugar paper towel - unless nudged with a corner of paper towel at which point he’d realize it was wet and sugary and climbed right on. This happened multiple times - he didn’t seem afraid of us, but couldn’t seem to learn that the dish was a source of food and water unless directly shown.

So flies are all different, just like people.

:)

Blind boxer dog Baks has a new lease on life - after being taken under the wing of his friend Buttons the goose. An accident last year left him blind, but Buttons took it upon herself to become his seeing-eye companion. She leads him around by hanging on to him with her neck or honking to him.

Click photo for full article.

Golden Tiger Taj bows before little girl.

Pretty sure he’s letting her know she’s going to grow up to be a warrior princess! ;)

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Ravens use hand gestures (well, beak & wing gestures) to communicate with each other!

They use very sophisticated nonvocal signals to direct the attention of their peers to objects - and this helps them facilitate collaboration. Because ravens are awesome like that!

Click the photo for the full article.

Turtles communicate with each other before hatching!

Scientists believe baby turtles can communicate with each other before they hatch and can arrange to emerge from their eggs at the same time.

Click photo for full article.