More weird animals and animan traits.

A boxer crab holds an anemone in each claw and uses them like boxing gloves for protection against predators.





http://www.australia-downunder-productions.com/photgalcrittersindex.htm

Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) Range: Atlantic, gulf, and Pacific coasts.

If you happen to be in Florida and see these birds fishing, by all means stop and watch them. As they dive headlong into the water, the water expands their pouches to a huge extent, holding 3 gallons of water and fish. They immediately bob to the surface and tip up their bill as the water drains out of their closed mouth, retaining the small fish and swallowing them.

Alligator bellowing. Adult male alligators and some females bellow to proclaim their territories and possibly in association with mating season.

The alligator raises its head and tail out of the water. Its abdomen vibrates and water dances over its back just prior to the eruption of the bellow, a short, low-frequency exhortation. If within earshot, the rumble of a semi-trailer or a airliner gaining altitude will set the alligators off.

Spotted hyena. The sexual characteristics of this animal is very unusual, and it shares one trait with human mothers, a difficult birth.

Female hyenas have a pseudoscrotal sack and an extremely long clitoris. The erect clitoris is the same length as the erect male penis and is similar in shape. The opening is on the tip of the clitoris through which urination, copulation, and birth occur.

To say that the first birth of a hyena is difficult is a great understatement, for first births involve a 10% motality of the mothers and 60% of the first born. The young are born through the penis-like clitoris, and it involves intense pain and tearing of the clitoris. Hyenas have two young per pregnancy.

To those interested in the natural history of hyenas and lions, watch the National Geographic video entitled, "Lions and Hyenas." These two animals occupy the same niche in nature; both are predators and scavengers and feed on the same prey; therefore, they are virtually at war with one another. The video follows a hyena clan and lion pride and the violently competitive interactions between the two.

This video left me feeling sympathetic with both both species, and it was at times heartrendingly painful to watch.


Mutual admiration: spotted hyena Phoenix, whom Drea hand-raised, gives her a nuzzle bonding with hyenas. photo: Kathy Moorhouse Story:http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/030402/predator.html

Yikes coluber something that ugly deserves a difficult birthing. Hmm, does than make us ugly to them as they are to us, probably.

A fast cat

Here is the web address of the picture of the bellowing alligator, which might be deleted, in an earlier post on this thread.
http://users2.ev1.net/~rickubis/316bell2c1.jpg

Here's a kea having a motorcycle tire for lunch.



Windshield wiper blades are good too.

Top picture: Apple maggot fly.
Bottom picture: Jumping spider.

The apple maggot fly lays its eggs on apples, and the larvae burrow in the fruit, eating their way as they go.

Notice the pattern on the wings. If you cover the head with your hand and squint, the fly looks something like a jumping spider backwards. At any rate, it's close enough to fool an actual jumping spider, which, instead of attacking the fly for food, thinks it's another spider and raises its front legs in display. Male jumping spiders display to female spiders in courtship and do the same thing to threaten other males. In the mean time, the apple maggot fly makes its getaway.

For those of you who grow apples, I'm sure the apple maggot fly is a scourge. Go out with a magnifying glass sometime and watch them on your apples.

homo sapiens:

they have been known to kill their young, or their mates, or their parents, or.....................
just about anyone who gets in their way!

Jumping spiders are real cuties. Anybody who likes spiders at all has a real affection for them, probably because they have faces and react to us so much out of curiosity, like the one in the above picture. There are many species that look a lot different from one another, but all are small, from ¼ to ½ inches.

Occasionally, I'll come across a jumping spider "sleeping bag," a white retreat spun from silk attached to a plant. They're more or less transparent, so you can see the outline of the spider inside, and if you mess with it, the spider will drop out the escape hatch on the bottom and make its escape.

Kiwi (Apteryx spp) Range: New Zealand. There are several species of this ratite bird. All are flightless, nocturnal insectivores. Kiwis have the largest egg-to-body ratio, by weight, of any bird, up to 1/4 the mother's weight.

Pictured:
Three Kiwis with eggs. (Apteryx sp.)—no-wing, species unknown.
Top: x-ray of kiwi one day from laying egg.
Bottom left: skeleton with egg.
Bottom right: Live kiwi with egg. Relative egg size looks smaller because of the bulk of the bird's feathers.

Dung Beetle: Family: Scarabaeidae. There are many species of dung beetles throughout the world. Some of them chew off a chunk of dung, fashion it into a ball, and lay a single egg in the middle of it. They then roll the ball to a suitable location and bury it. The larva feeds on the dung, grows to the point where it pupates and finally emerges as the adult beetle.

Dung beetles are the scarabs that the ancient Egyptians found fascinating to the point of viewing them as sacred, because they seemed to emerge spontaneously out of the soil. The scarab amulets the Egyptians made were modeled after the dung beetle.

Ranchers growing their cattle organically encourage dung beettles on their land, because the burying of the cattle dung greatly fertilizes the soil and also destroys the horn fly, a cattle pest.

Pictured:
Top: Dung beetle rolling ball of dung backwards.
Bottom left: Ball of dung bisected to show larva.
Bottom right: Later instar of larva.
Bottom: Sign in Tembe Elephant Reserve. Kwazulu Natal, South Africa

Tiger beetles (Family Cicindelidae) Range: throughout North America.

Tiger beetles are voracious predators on small insects that they seize with their sickle-like jaws. Most are 1/2—3/4 inch long and are of a varied—according to species—but beautiful metallic color. Tiger beetles are easily identified by their brilliant color, body shape, and large protruding eyes. They are frequently seen on forest trails where they fly off, land facing you, and repeat the process again and again. However, if you stealthily and slowly approach with a low profile you can often approach them close enough to use a magnifying glass, which is neccessary to appreaciate their beauty.

Pictured:
Left: Green tiger beetle (Cicindela sp)
Right: Line drawing of larva in verticle burrow waiting for passing insect. Notice sickle-like jaws.

Nice

If you want to look up what Tiger Beetles live in various states in the United States, look here: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/insects/tigb/chklist/chklist.htm

Right now I am checking my pet spider out. He/she has moved a little bit since last night. I hate spiders but can tolerate them from afar since I know they eat the other more dangerous bugs such as mosquitoes.

Joanne: Thanks for your comments.

Spiders are an aquired taste. They're alien-looking, but the same thing that makes us afraid of them attracts us to them. I guess it's like the Buddhists say, "The difference is the identity."

I found that once I learned to identify some spiders by their shapes or their webs, I grew to like them. The jumping spiders are especially likable because of their faces; they look at you and react to you, and they're so common that you can't walk outside without seeing one.

Hog-nosed skunk, or the German name, Nordamerikanischer ferkelskunk.
(Conepatus mesoleucus) Thank goodness for Latin names.
Range: South Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Latin America.

Hog-nosed skunks are more diurnal than the striped species. In appearance, the hog-nosed skunk has one broad white stripe and an elongated snout that it uses to root for food. Food consists of arthropods and very small animals in leaf litter.

Chuck-Wlill's-Widow. (Caprimulgus carolinensis) Range: Texas to Florida, norh to Maryland.

This is a very vocal, nocturnal bird of the South. Chuck-Will's-Widows are related to other insectivorous goatsuckers of the U.S. like the Whip-Poor-will and the ubiquitous Nighthawk. Unlike the aeriel Nighthawk, the Chuck-will's-Wlidow launches flights from a tree to catch an insect with its huge mouth. The term "goatsucker" derives from old folklore. Farmers finding them asleep in their barns during the day thought they were sucking their goat's dry.

These birds are hardly ever seen, but the call is everpresent in the warm months of the South at night and sounds like its name, the first syllable a mere chick with the accent on the third syllable. The Whip-Poor-Will, another similar bird, has a more northern range, and its three note call has the accent on the last syllable.

Audobon painting of two Chuck-Wlill's-Widows, one showing its huge open mouth. http://www.audubon.org/bird/BoA/images/00064p1.jpg

Chuck-Will's-Widow: