Strange behaviours in the animal world
It’s Autumn in Laguna, Brazil and the local
fisherman are standing knee deep in the water, holding nets and waiting.
Before long a pod of Bottlenose dolphins appear but they are not
what the nets are for.
The dolphins work together to herd schools of fish,
mostly mullet, towards the men.
Then, when they decide the time is right, the dolphins give a signal by slapping
their heads or tails on the water and at this, the men throw out their nets.
The
fishermen will not move until the dolphins tell them to do so.
As the mullet dart about, the dolphins pick
up any not already captured in the nets.
This symbiotic relationship has been going on for
generations and just as the Laguna men teach their sons the rules of the game,
the dolphins too educate their own offspring in exactly how to help their human
collaborators.
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| Toxic Madagascan Millipede |
In the jungles of Madagascar, Black Lemur gather
highly poisonous millipedes. They don’t eat them, just annoy the heck out of
them so the huge insects exude a toxic substance containing cyanide.
This the lemurs rub on their fur to deter
mosquitoes; cyanide is an effective pesticide.
But that’s not all. In the process of this strange anointing, the
lemurs get high and disorientated and show clear signs of addiction.
Naturalists
have observed this drug habit and the lemurs; desperate need to acquire the
narcotic to get wasted.
It’s not
known if the millipedes, usually discarded unharmed, benefits in any way.
Addicted Vervet monkeys, originally from Africa, live on St Kitts in the
Caribbean.
They’ve developed a taste for alcohol and each
monkey has it’s own preference.
Some go for cocktails, others for the hard stuff
and if there are no tourists around to steal from, they’ll raid the local bars.
For years, scientists have studied the monkeys for
insights into human addictions
But not all are chronic boozers, some monkeys,
despite the majority in their troupe knocking back the vodka, remain teetotal
and won’t drink alcohol even when offered it.
Like humans, the drunken monkeys wobble and fall about and tell their
best mates they love them.
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| This monkey rejected the alcohol in favour of the non-alcoholic drink with the straw |
Hedgehogs are immune to many poisons and have been
known to collect and eat cigarette butts.
This creates strange behaviours - writhing around and
contorting
their bodies and spitting their saliva onto their spines.
As nicotine is an insecticide, scientists assume
the hedgehog has worked this out to keep it free of parasites.
The popularity of aromatherapy is not just
confined to humans who drop lavender oil on their pillows to help sleep.
Starlings collect aromatic herbs for their
nests and cover newly laid eggs with Yarrow, Mint, and Willow.
Research shows this helps the chicks' immune
system as the oil is absorbed through the shell.
Chicks reared with herbs grow faster, weigh more
and cope better with stress when they leave the nest.
