Best of the internet - May (Animal Edition)
Last week I visited a museum of natural history with a friend of mine, who is passionate about zooarchaeology. We spent about four hours just looking at bones, with her excitedly telling me about the different bone structures of each animal and me looking at the scientific names of every last animal to see if I could translate it out of Greek or Latin. In honor of that fond memory, this blog post is dedicated to animals.
Corvids (ravens and crows) are able to mimic human speech -- A friend of mine showed me this video of a raven that had been trained to caw, "Nevermore." Initially I was incredulous, but there have been several news articles about crows mimicking human speech too -- sometimes inadvertently teaching elementary school students profanity.
Frogs can pollinate, too! I just learned about how bees and other insects aren't the only type of pollinator -- frogs jump from flower to flower too. It's so cute to imagine them leaping around, nestled in the petals of a flower. https://www.science.org/content/article/brazilian-frog-might-be-first-pollinating-amphibian-known-science
Marine life is found in the Great Garbage Patch, mostly floating organisms like jellyfish (particualarly the man-o-war), sea snails and other creatures that already float on the surface and are brightly colorful. What I find particularly interesting is that one of these animals, violet snails, cannot swim at all --- but they live on the open ocean, floating upside-down, and keep from drowning by constantly producing a "life raft" of snail slime. Imagine what it must be like to be unable to swim, but live on the surface of the sea...
Also – in the 19th century, a pre-Raphaelite artist became obsessed with wombats, writing poems and depicting them frequently in his work. He referred to them as “the most beautiful of all God’s creatures.”
Wikipedia rabbit holes
There is a type of reptile called the tuatara that has a rudimentary third eye (called a parietal eye) on the top of its head. It also has a second eyelid under the regular one (called a nictitating membrane---it helps keep the eye moist). Waterfowl have this nictitating membrane too, as it's important when they dive.
Speaking of eyes, flounder are born with an eye on either side of their head (same as rabbits or cows), but as they age they "pick a side" and their eye begins to migrate to that side of their body. The flounder will then start swimming with its body tilted sideways, so that its eyes are always facing up. It stays close to the bottom so it can always keep an eye on where predators are likely to be.
Etymology fun fact
The scientific name for brown bear, Ursus arctos, just means "bear bear" --- first in Latin, then in Greek.
ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ