The first fossil of Archaeopteryx was a single feather–the one that Carney has turned into a tattoo. It was discovered in 1861 in a limestone quarry near the town of Solnhofen and brought to Hermann von Meyer, one of Germany’s leading paleontologists at the time. As scientists would later determine, this exceptional feather was 145 million years old. Despite its antiquity, the feather looked much like the feathers on the wings of living birds.

The fossil was so extraordinary that Von Meyer wondered if some forger had etched it. After all, Solnhofen limestone was prized for making finely detailed lithographic prints. But then von Meyer compared the slab and the counterslab and found them to be identical.

Now 150 years later, we know a lot more about the Archaeopteryx and how it fits in the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. Read how many of these discoveries came about at The Loom. Link

by Stephen L. Richey

The author was witness to a case of probable spatial disorientation with flight into terrain in a gull that was feeding upon a discarded bag of microwave popcorn. Spatial disorientation with flight into terrain is a well-documented phenomenon amongst human pilots. Here I discuss it as a possible explanation for some cases of injury and death in birds. I also discuss the risks inherent in attempting to aid what you might believe to be an injured gull—a gull that, in turn, might think you are attempting to take away its hard-earned food.

Flying Garbage Disposal
The ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis) is among the most adaptable foragers in the animal kingdom. To phrase it more bluntly, they are basically flying garbage disposals that can and will eat nearly any item they can get their beaks around.

Gulls are among the birds most readily adapted to coexistence with human developments. They have learned to utilize human refuse as a food source.

The Scene Seen in Saginaw
The campus of Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, which the author previously attended, is home to a healthy population of ring-billed gulls (fig. 1). The relatively brazen nature of their feeding behaviors leads to the opportunity for close observation of mishaps related to this activity. The events described took place during an early afternoon in August 2007 as the author, an avid bird watcher and student pilot, was returning home from class to the university’s apartments.

A bag of burned generic microwave popcorn (fig. 2) was thrown out the door of a university apartment building. Immediately several gulls, all presumably L. delawarensis, descended upon the scene.

A squabble over the bag and its contents ensued. One of the birds grasped the bag in its bill, and took off. The weather at the time was observed to be generally clear; visibility was well beyond that which would allow for visual flight rules operations by a human pilot.

Figure 1: A ring-billed gull (Larus delawarensis).

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Mdf)

Aerodynamics Details: The Popcorn-Bag and the Gull
The point by which the bag was held was the lower edge (in arbitrary reference to the direction of the ground as the bag landed after being discarded) of the open end. Approximately three seconds after takeoff, the airflow associated with flight blew the bag over the gull’s head. Almost immediately, the bird was observed to go into a steep (~80 degrees angle of attack) climb until approximately 250–300 feet off the ground. At this altitude, the gull, still flapping its wings, experienced an aerodynamic stall which resulted in its nose swinging to the left until it dropped below the horizon, placing the bird into an extreme nose-down attitude. When performed by a pilot in an aircraft, this maneuver is referred to as a “hammerhead stall.”

The gull rapidly accelerated towards the ground, due to the force of gravity and the continued flapping of the wings, with the bag still in place over its head. Presumably the bird still was holding onto the bag at this point. The bird was noted to spiral to its right several times prior to impact with a grassy strip between two buildings, which occurred in a slightly less than vertical attitude (angle of attack: ~-70 degrees). The gull made no attempt to assume the normal landing posture that the author had noted previously while observing this species of gull, with regards to lessening the steep approach angle, extension of the legs, or flaring of the wings to slow the descent. The bird appeared motionless after the impact. The author believed that the animal was likely deceased but decided to investigate to be certain there was nothing that could be done to aid it.

Figure 2: A stock image of a microwave popcorn bag.

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Howcheng)

After the Crash
The author and two other bystanders approached the bird as it lay prostrate on the ground. Upon reaching the gull, the author removed the bag from its head. The gull promptly attacked the author, flapping its wings and attempting to peck him about the hands, head, face, and neck until he dropped the bag and retreated to a safe distance. The other two witnesses—both unknown to the author—had a far quicker reaction time with regard to getting away from the gull, and were not subjected to its wrath.

The bird proceeded to feed upon the popcorn with no outward signs of distress or injury. It flew out of sight uneventfully after a few minutes.

Post-Crash Analysis
Based upon the circumstances and the position of the bag over the bird’s head during the flight, I conclude that the crash was due to spatial disorientation, which is most simply defined as loss of or confusion about one’s position with regard to roll, pitch, and yaw relative to the force of gravity.

Among human pilots, flight in situations where the horizon  is not visible or discernable due to obscuration as a result of fog, dark night, clouds, or other factors predisposes to the occurrence of disorientation. It accounts for a significant percentage of fatal general aviation crashes annually.1

Birds, however, have been documented as being capable of flight in conditions (referred to as “instrument meteorological conditions”) that would require human pilots to use instruments. Some of these cases were observed via radar2. Other cases, reported to the National Wildlife Strike Database, involve aircraft making physical contact with birds.3 while flying in clouds, fog, or rain. European starlings (Sternus vulgaris) have been experimentally demonstrated to be able to maintain straight and level flight in complete darkness within a wind tunnel for durations as long as one minute.4

Disorientation in Other Bird Species
To the knowledge of the author, this is the first instance of spatial disorientation in any of the gull species to be reported in the literature. It has previously been reported in association with conditions manifesting limited visibility—but not involving popcorn bags—in other birds, including Canada geese (Branta canadensis), lesser snow geese (Anser caerulescens caerulescens)5, and king eiders (Somateria spectablis).6

The deaths of several hundred blackbirds in Beebe Arkansas on New Year’s Day 2011 also have several factors (dark night, birds with poor night vision, events that startle a flock into flight, etc.) common to the prior events attributed to spatial disorientation. Nearly all of these cases have involved flocking birds, although there might be a selection bias at work since 5,000 dead blackbirds tends to warrant mention more of an investigation and report than a single dead bird. However, there may be some behavioral issues that predispose flocking birds to mass fatality events due to spatial disorientation. The tendency to “follow the leader” may lead to a flock of birds crashing into the ground in an avian version of the infamous 1982 “diamond crash” of four T-38 jets flown by the United States Air Force Thunderbirds Air Demonstration Team, which impacted the ground during a training mission to practice a formation loop.

(Image credit: Flickr user Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL))

Pigeons and Blindfolds, and Humans
Spatial disorientation has also been experimentally demonstrated among racing pigeons fitted with blindfolds and placed into a small centrifuge prior to release for flight.7 It was noted that covering the birds’ eyes alone was not sufficient to induce spatial disorientation. No spinning or other abnormal flight attitudes were noted in the case reported here prior to removal of visual cues.

However, given that in humans it is possible to induce spatial disorientation through rotation of the head about the horizontal axis in absence o a fixed visual reference point, the author postulates that the final triggering event in the apparent disorientation demonstrated by the gull in this case might have been the bird turning its head within the bag in an effort to orient itself to the ground. There is no definitive proof of this at present, and attempts at testing this and other possible explanations for the behaviors witnessed under experimental conditions should be considered.

Implications, Possibly
The previously mentioned examples of mortality associated with collisions with terrain or water among flocking birds is distinct from the case reported here in that in this case, the entire sequence was directly witnessed by a researcher. Beyond raising the question of the potential utility of the species involved in this case as a research model for spatial disorientation research, this case revives the potential role of disorientation as an explanation for otherwise unexplained incidents of avian mortality, both involving lone individuals and flocks. This is despite the fact that the bird in this case seemed to not have been significantly injured after apparently impacting with what appeared to be a substantial degree of force.

In the setting of a mass avian fatality event that is otherwise without obvious explanation, the need for a complete investigation—both on scene and otherwise—cannot be understated. Necropsies are essential to whatever degree is necessary to establish the cause of death and to rule out potential foul play (such as poisoning) as well as to ensure that a communicable disease with either veterinary or human public health implications is either identified or ruled out. In the event of trauma without a clear explanation, such as the cases previously described in the literature, further investigation into the weather and lighting conditions (both natural and artificial in nature) in the hours or days leading up to the discovery of the birds is warranted to ascertain whether the conditions might have led to a spatial disorientation incident.

Other weather-related factors that must be considered if the conditions support their presence include lightning-related mortality8, hailstone trauma9, and the possibility of birds encountering exceedingly strong updrafts, downdrafts, or microbursts while in flight.10 Finally, the potential role of a popcorn bag must be considered in all unexplained bird deaths.

(Image credit: Flickr user Quinn Dombrowski)

Notes
1 Collins W.E., Dollar C.S. Fatal General Aviation Accidents Involving Spatial Disorientation, 1976-1992. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office; 1996.

2 Bellrose F.C., Graber R.R. “A Radar Study of the Flight Directions of Nocturnal Migrants” in Proceedings of the XIII International Ornithological Congress, 17-24 June 1962, Ithaca, NY, pp. 362–89. Baton Rouge: American Ornithologist’s Union, 1963.

3 Heppner F.H., Gabel J.E., March K. “Avian Flight Without Visual Reference: Preflight Spinning Produces Spatial Disorientation.” Aviat Space Environ Med 2007;78:43–7.

4 Moyle R.G., Heppner F.H. “Flight Without Horizon Reference In European Starlings.” Auk 1998;115:771–4.

5 Wobeser G., Gillespie M., Wyatt T. “Mortality of Geese as a Result of Collision with the Ground.” J Wildlife Diseases 2005;41(2):463–6.

6 Mallory M.L., Gilchrist H.G., Jamieson S.E., Robertson G., Campbell D.G. “Unusual Migration Mortality of king Eiders in Central Baffin Island.” Waterbirds 2001;24:453–6.

7 Heppner 2007.

8 Bye W. “Cooked geese.” Nature Canada 1998;27(2):6.

9 Duff JP. “Suspected Wild Bird Mortality Due to Stormy Weather and Hailstones.” Vet Record 2007;160(25):884.

10 Thrower W. Norfolk Bird Report, 1980;25:102–4.

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This article is republished with permission from the September-October 2011 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

Need a toucan? There are plenty of them reprinted from the 1806 publication Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et des Rolliers, Suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus (Natural History of the Birds of Paradise and Rolliers, Followed by the Toucans and the Bearded Ones) at BibliOdyssey. But no Froot Loops! Link

The early bird catches the worm, and mother birds are up early to catch the worm, or insect, or other foods that baby birds need. Envitonmental Graffiti has a gallery of baby birds of many species clamoring to be fed. In the picture shown, a reed warbler is feeding a relatively huge baby cuckoo whose mother laid an egg in the warbler’s nest. Link

(Image credit: Per Harald Olsen)

These bird sculptures look as if you could wind them up and watch them take off! Created by Jim and Tori Mullan, these marvelous pieces were crafted using found objects attached to wooden bird statues. These would have fit right in during the Victorian era, and you can’t get much more steampunk than that!

Link

A collection of starlings is called a murmuration. Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive unexpectedly caught a rather large and exquisitely balletic murmuration on video while canoeing on the River Shannon in Ireland. -via Metafilter

Admit it, we’ve all wondered what kind of birds the angry birds actually are. Finally, someone has caught pictures of the animals in their wild habitats where it is a lot easier to tell their actual species.

Link Via Laughing Squid

Albino hummingbirds may be pretty rare, but for that matter, seeing someone walking around with shorts filled with hummingbirds isn’t an every day sight either. It seems that releasing their birds from their bonds and putting them back in the man’s pants might just be the best punishment for the smuggler.

Link Via BoingBoing

(Video Link)

Plenty of people have pet guard dogs, but not many can say their pet bird is also a guard animal. Fortunately, Jack Dukes does because Charlie, his parrot, managed to rescue him from burglars trying to get their hands on his prescription drugs.

Link

Perhaps the most interesting effect of this is that in large Australian cities, the cockatoos keep their vocabulary sharp through frequent interactions with humans. As a result, apparently, if you say hello to a crowd of cockatoos, it’s not unlikely that you’ll get a relatively articulate answer.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’d love to have a conversation with a wild cockatoo, even if it is just a step away from taking over human civilization.

Link Via Geekosystem Image Via rggoldie [Flickr]

The Little Hen Rescue is a chicken rescue group in Norfolk, England. Because many of their chicks are missing feathers and get cold in the winter months, the group uses jumpers to help keep the birds nice and warm. You can help by knitting an adorable jumper and sending it to the group or by donating funds to them. For those interested in donating jumpers, the pattern can be found over at the link.

Link

An active windshield wiper may not seem like a good place to perch, but this bird isn’t choosy. That, or he’s not going to let the humans push him off. -via Blame It on the Voices

Link Image via parl [Flickr]

For years scientists have known that each parrot has a unique call that other birds use to address them, but now they’ve discovered that the parents of the species are responsible for naming their chicks. They observed the parent birds using a different call for each chick long before the babies can communicate.

Link Image via TJL23 [Fllickr]

A new study shows that crows remember people’s faces and will recruit other crows to attack those that have wronged them. Even weirder -the crows that joined in the mobbing will also remember that person and may lead an attack on their own later on, despite the fact that the individual may never have done anything to them.

Link Image via Lucina M [Flickr]

The lyre bird attracts its mates by doing accurate impressions of the other birds in the forest. When they are put an urban setting though, they quickly start copying the other noises they hear instead though, whether that means cars, construction equipment or camera noises. Here’s one doing its thing at the Adelaide Zoo.

On an interesting side note, a group of lyrebirds is known as a musket. For more cool animal grouping names, this Environmental Graffiti article may prove useful.

Video link

Did I miss a meme? Apparently so, as there seem to be quite a lot of photo manipulations of birds with human arms floating around on the Internet. Some of them are cute, like the one above, but ‘shop some arms on a bird eating from a person’s hand and it gets weird pretty quickly. There’s a massive gallery of just this sort of thing over on DamnHot. Link

This video is for the birds! A delightful animated music video for “Jubilation Day” by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. The music is great, but the last sequence is priceless! -via Laughing Squid

The revolutionary movements of the Middle East, explained by the cast of the game Angry Birds in a retro-animation cartoon set to the tune of the Three Little Pigs. Does that make it all clear now? Of course, the real story isn’t over yet. -via Buzzfeed

It’s one thing to teach your parrot a few words, but to teach him to sing -that’s impressive.

Video link

Sculptor and nature lover Aimée Baldwin creates realistic stuffed birds without any bird parts! These are made with

hand-cut crepe paper feathers over individually-shaped foam and paper-mâché body, with wire legs, sculpted claws and beaks, and taxidermy glass eyes*

*(glass eyes are the only pre-fabricated part of the birds)

Her gallery of works includes extinct birds, which a regular taxidermy artist cannot pull off. Link -via Boing Boing

The Enchanted Tiki Room is kind of like It’s A Small World –people either love it or hate it and no matter how you actually feel about it, you’re guaranteed to have the songs stuck in your head after you leave. Personally, I’m one of those people who loves the show–not least of all because it means getting to sit in a nice air conditioned room while eating pineapple soft serve while the temperature outside exceeds 90 degrees.

Image via CarterHawk [Wikipedia]

Dinner Theater Is For The Birds

When Walt originally started work on the Tiki Room, he envisioned it as a restaurant where guests would be entertained by animatronic birds performing for the diners. It was intended to share a kitchen with the Plaza Pavilion and Tahitian Terrace. Interestingly, now none of these locations operates as a restaurant, the Plaza Pavilion is now used as an Annual Passport processing center and the Tahitian Terrace is now Aladdin’s Oasis, which mostly serves as a meet and greet area for those looking to take pictures with Aladdin and Jasmine.

Image via Loren Javier [Flickr]

There are still aspects of the building that give away its original nature. For one, it is the only attraction to include its own restrooms. Another mark of the planned restaurant, the magic fountain in the center of the room was originally planned to be a coffee station –which is why there is a storage compartment build into the base.

Of course, Walt and his crew soon realized the property would be too popular and was too small to seat all of the people who would want to see the show. Rather than scrapping the idea, the design was altered to accommodate rows of benches for guests to sit and watch the show.

Entertaining Through Animatronics

The Tiki Room was the first Disney attraction to feature Audio-Animatronics and since it required the use of computers (the operations room is located under the attraction), this also meant that it was the first ride to offer air conditioning –a factor that has continued to add to its popularity during hot Southern California summers.

Image via Loren Javier [Wikipedia]

In order to make the birds look as realistic as possible, designers opted to use real feathers on their bodies. They didn’t think the feathers looked quite right on the bird’s chests through, so they continued to brainstorm on what to use until imaginer Harriet Burns had lunch with Walt one day. He was wearing a cashmere sweater and Harriet noticed that the fabric moved on his elbows the exact way the team had envisioned the bird’s chests to move.

When the attraction opened, the four host birds all had the same colored feathers, white, green, yellow and blue. But as time progressed, the designers decided that each bird’s coloring should represent his country of origin. Jose is red, white and green. Michael is white and green. Pierre is blue, white and red. And Fritz is black, red and white.

If you’ve ever wondered about the breakdown of birds to flowers to tiki carvings, there are over 150 animatronic “actors” in the show, including:

• 54 singing orchids
• 12 toucans
• 12 tiki drummers
• 8 macaws (including the four hosts)
• 7 bird of paradise flowers
• 6 cockatoos

Opening A Classic

Strangely, Walt decided to put ownership of the attraction under his own company, WED Enterprises, rather than the Walt Disney Company, which owned the rest of the park. This meant guests had to pay a small admission fee of $.75 when the ride opened in June of 1963.

When the attraction opened, Hawaii had only recently become a state and America was obsessed with anything featuring a tropical island theme. Unsurprisingly, the Tiki Room was an instant success. In fact, the show was so popular that crowds would block up the entire entrance of Adventureland just to catch  glimpse of the talking bird outside the attraction –he was soon removed.

Inside The Show

Image via Loren Javier [Flickr]

Before entering, guests are entertained by talking tiki statutes that each represent Polynesian gods. There is also a Dole-sponsored video about pineapples. Eventually, the doors open and you are invited inside. Once everyone is seated, the cast member taps on Jose’s perch with a bamboo cane and the show begins. While it is not common knowledge, the show doesn’t have to be started by a cast member, so if you ask if you can wake up Jose as the audience filters in, you just might get to kick off the festivities.

The show kicks off with a little banter and then the birds and flowers start to sing “The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room,” which was written by the Sherman Brothers, who also wrote a number of other Disney classics including “It’s A Small World,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” The fountain then opens up, revealing a chorus line of beautiful cockatoos, the birds then perform “Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing.”

Image via Loren Javier [Flickr]

The next song is the “Hawaiian War Chant,” stars the tiki carvings who sing and play drums. Interestingly, the song wasn’t actually written as a war chant, but as a love song.

The chant suddenly results in thunder, lightning and rain appearing on the windows. The host birds promise to show guests a magic trick by making the audience “disappear.” While everyone leaves, they sing a modified version of Heigh-Ho, that exclaims, “Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s out the door you go.”

Behind The Birds

If certain voices from the Tiki Room sound familiar, there’s a reason for that. Fritz and the Hawaiian god Tangaroa are both voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft –the same man who voiced Tony The Tiger, sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” and performed the lead vocals for “Grim Grinning Ghosts” in the Haunted Mansion.

As for some of the lesser known voice talents in the attraction, Jose is voiced by Wally Boag, who was the star actor in the Golden Horseshoe Revue all the way up until 1986. Boag also helped write a lot of the script for the Haunted Mansion. Wally was honored as a Disney Legend in 1995 and was even given his own window on Main Street that reads, “Theatrical Agency – Golden Vaudeville Routines – Wally Boag, Prop.”

Image via Loren Javier [Flickr]

Michael is voiced by Fulton Burley who also worked on the Golden Horseshoe Revue. Pierre was performed by Ernie Newton who also did the singing vocals for Boo-Boo Bear in “Hey There It’s Yogi Bear.” Most of the other bird’s vocals were done by Purvis Pullen, aka Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath, who was best known for his work with the satirical band Spike Jones and his City Slickers.

The Benefits of Sponsorship

If you don’t like the idea of Disney attractions being sponsored, you may want to reconsider your position when it comes to The Tiki Room. While the original sponsor, United Airlines, didn’t do anything to particularly hurt or help the attraction, Dole did when it took over as a sponsor in 1976. Not only did Dole enhance the show by offering delicious pineapple treats like the Dole Whip (I personally consider these an important aspect of the entire experience), they also put a stipulation in their contract that the attraction remain unchanged. When you consider what happened to the other park’s Tiki Rooms, this can certainly be interpreted as a major victory for the attraction’s fans.

Changes At Other Parks

When the Magic Kingdom opened, they offered a show that was pretty much the exact same, only called the “Tropical Serenade.” This attraction was replaced in 1998 by The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management). This new show started out similar to the original, but was soon interrupted by Iago from Aladdin –voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. Iago yells at the birds and insists they update their act when Zazu from the Lion King enters and tells him to leave the other birds alone and warns him against upsetting the tiki gods. Iago continues and then directly insults the gods, resulting in the tiki goddess Uh-Oa waking up and zapping him with her powers.

When a small fire broke out in the attraction on January 12 of this year, a number of Disney fans expressed the hope that the ride will be “under old management” when it reopens.

The Japanese version also started out like the original, but it was changed to have a Vegas-styled theme with Lounge-styled songs in 1999. Then in 2008 it was changed again, returning to a Hawaiian theme, but this time incorporating Stitch from Lilo and Stitch into the mix. I have to admit that as much as I hate the idea of changing these classic attractions, I’m a huge sucker for Stitch and really want to see this show.

Do you like the Tiki Room or do you find it a little too dull? Also, if you’ve been to the other versions of the attraction, what do you think about the modifications?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, Little Known Facts About Well Known Places: Disneyland

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Disneyland fans! See more Neatorama Facts:

Neatorama Facts: Haunted Mansion

Neatorama Facts: Sleeping Beauty Castle

Neatorama Facts: Pirates of the Caribbean

Neatorama Facts: The Jungle Cruise

Neatorama Facts: Space Mountain

Albatrosses

If you’re looking for the animal mating ritual that most closely resembles human dating, don’t look to primates, even mammals, instead, check out the albatross. These massive seabirds take a long time to reach sexual maturity –up to 10 years in some species, but they certainly don’t make up for it by rushing into a relationship. When they first start coming to the breeding colonies, young birds sit back and learn from their elders, observing the specie’s elaborate mating rituals that include dancing, preening, staring, pointing, and vocalizations. After years of trial and error, the birds learn to participate in these mating rituals. They will then start dancing with many partners, but year after year, they will trim down their dance card until they have selected the one partner they want to be with for the rest of their lives.

Once the partner is chosen, the pair will develop their own unique language comprised of bits of their mating ritual. Interestingly, once they have mated, they will never use most of the ritual again. While it seems like a massive undertaking, egg laying and chick rearing is a major time investment for albatrosses and the couples do everything they can to ensure they will be a successful mating pair.

Source

Great Hornbills

While most birds are monogamous, few are quite as dependent on their mates as the female hornbill is on the male. The couple gets in the mood by singing duets together. The male starts the tune, then the female jumps in and the calls then join in unison. The pair will occupy a large nest inside the hollow of a massive tree. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the female will then seal herself in the nest. The male will then provide food for her and her chicks through a small hole in the nest. This goes on for about two months, then the female will leave the nest, sealing up the chicks inside. The mother and father will then take turns bringing the chicks food until they are grown enough to break the seal and survive on their own.

Source

Lovebirds

Of course lovebirds belong on this list, just look at their name. But what makes this specific parrot species so darn romantic that they are often given as wedding presents to symbolize the couple’s lifelong commitment to one another? Like most birds, lovebirds are monogamous, but its their habit of sitting beside another and cuddling that has made them such a strong image of love. Their tight pairings led the ancient Greeks to believe the birds would die if they lost their mates.

The peach-faced lovebirds find a partner when they are two months old. The female fluffs up her feathers to tell the male that she is interested and he then starts to perform a courtship dance that involves bobbing his head and scratching her head.

Once the couple lays eggs, the female will incubate the nest while the male goes out to get her food. When the chicks hatch, the dad gets the food, feeds it to the mother who then regurgitates the meal for the chicks.

Sources: #1 and #2

Brolgas

All cranes are monogamous and they all have their own intricate mating dances, but the brogla’s are particularly fascinating. They mate with their partners every year, often in the same nesting area, but no matter how long they’ve been together, they always keep the passion flowing, performing their intricate mating dance every year. Just how complex is this ritual? Well, there is a reason it is considered the most elaborate mating dance in the animal kingdom.

The dances generally start with a bird picking up a clump of grass and tossing it in the air and catching it in its mouth. Then the dance starts to involve jumping, extending wings, stretching bowing, walking calling and head bobbing. Sometimes only one bird will dance, sometimes a pair will dance together, in other situations, the whole colony will jump in, starting up a massive brogla dance club.

Sources: #1 and #2

Seahorses

You may already know that male seahorses are the ones who carry the litter, but did you know they go through an intimate courtship first? They hold tails, swim snout to snout and change colors to show one another that they are ready for romance. This process can last for days before the pair engages in a courtship dance that lasts up to eight hours.

Once the male is pregnant, the female sticks around until he gives birth. She visits him every morning, holding his tail, changing colors and flirting with him to ensure that he will continue to nurture the eggs until they hatch.

Source Image via San Diego Shooter [Flickr]

Garden Snails

These slimy garden pests may not seem too romantic, particularly when you consider the fact that they are hermaphrodites, but they just may have inspired the Greek tales of cupid. Although snails are hermaphrodites, they require another partner to lay eggs. Their courtship process largely comes down to the animals circling one another and firing off “love darts” at each other, one third of which miss the target. The mucus-covered darts stimulate the animal’s female reproductive organs so they can hold more sperm. Once the darts are in place, the partners trade sperm cells for as long as six hours.

Next time you hear stories of the arrow-shooting cherub, just imagine a giant snail shooting darts before copulation. For some reason it’s just not as good of a Valentine’s Day card though.

Source Image via nutmeg66 [Flickr]

Prairie Voles

Most rodents are far from romantic, but the prairie vole is one of a handful of monogamous creatures that fall under the title. The male voles will move in with their first girlfriend and stick with her for the rest of their lives. During mating season, they will mark their territory and defend it from any trespassers by chattering its teeth and raising its arms. The male is particularly aggressive towards females who attempt to enter the territory and will even attack potential home wreckers. The happy couple will not only share pup-raising, but also groom each other and huddle together for warmth.

Sources: #1 and #2

Bonobos

While the other animals on this list are romantic in their monogamous relationships, bonobos are romantic in an entirely different manner. These primates copulate while facing each other and to participate in open mouth kissing. If the other creatures represent our ideal life-long bond of romance, bonobos personify our most popular forms of physical intimacy. I think it’s important we look at these factors too. After all, we don’t just fall in love, we also “make love.”

Source Image via CourtneyBolton [Flickr]

I don’t know about all of you, but this article sure put me in a romantic mood. Who needs wine and roses when you can dance like a crane, sing like an albatross and shoot love darts like a snail?

Even today I am saddened whenever I learn about a species becoming extinct, but the worst part is when you know it was caused by human activity. Here are seven such animals that are no longer on earth thanks to mankind.

Thylacine

Also known as the Tasmanian tiger, this carnivore wasn’t related to dogs, tigers or hyenas, as many people believe. It was actually a marsupial, closer related to kangaroos and wallabies than any of those other animals. It was originally found in Australia and New Zealand, but its was essentially extinct in those areas long before Europeans discovered it. Even so, it thrived on the island of Tasmania until European settlers issued began fearing that the animals were eating their livestock. Like wolves, the Tasmanian tiger was often accused of slaughtering sheep in the fields. As a result, the Van Dieman’s Land Company issued a bounty on the creature, offering one pound per adult and ten shillings for each pup.

Scientists have still not been able to verify accusations of the animals eating livestock, but it would be too late to help the thylacines anyway, as the last known individual was captured in 1933 and died in a zoo in 1936. That’s her in the video. Sadly, she died two months before the Tasmanian government enacted a law dedicated to protecting the animals.

Source Video link

Quagga

While it looks like a strange cross between a horse and a zebra, a quagga was actually a subspecies of a typical plains zebra with a brown rear end and a striped head. It was once found in great numbers in southern Africa until Europeans started hunting the animals for their meat and their hides. It is believed that the last wild quagga was shot in the late 1870s. A number were sent to zoos before that point though and the last captive individual was killed in 1883. At the time, people still believed these were the same as other zebra species, the individuals just had different markings. It wasn’t until after the subspecies was eradicated that people realized the animal had become extinct. Some historians have noted, the story is particularly sad because if the same thing happened in modern times, the breeding programs of zoos could help rebuild the population of the animal and release them back into the wild.

Interestingly, because the animal was so closely related to other subspecies of zebra, South African researchers have attempted a selective breeding program to create a new stock of the animals. The third and forth generation animals created through this project do look similar to the extinct creatures, but scientists debate whether or not looks are enough to declare these animals quaggas.

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Steller’s Sea Cow

As a slow-swimming marine mammal that never completely submerged itself and was loaded with blubber, the Steller’s sea cow was doomed from the beginning. These massive herbivores were once abundant in the North Pacific, but aboriginal peoples hunted them until their population was limited to only the Commander Islands. Unfortunately for the sea cow, they were then discovered in 1751 by George Wilhelm Steller on an expedition led by Vitus Bering.

The Stellar sea cows were over 25 feet long. They were slow swimmers who couldn’t submerge themselves. There were only about 1,500 when Europeans first laid eyes on them and it wasn’t long before those remaining were hunted down for food, pelts and blubber, which could be used in oil lamps. Within 27 years of Steller’s discovery, the animals were extinct.

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Dodo

The dodo is probably one of the only animals to be famous because it went extinct. In fact, the bird inspired two expressions related to its eradication, both “dead as a dodo” and “to go the way of the dodo” are commonly used 300 years after the birds disappeared.

The dodo was related to pigeons and doves, but was flightless and much larger than either of these groups of birds. They weighed over forty pounds and stood more than three feet tall. They were native the island of Mauritius and first discovered by Dutch travelers in 1598. The birds weren’t afraid of people, which made them easy targets for hunters, but the importation of dogs, cats, pigs, rats and crab-eating macaques is what really killed the species. Some of the animals brought diseases to the birds, others ate them, but the worst were the macaques, which ate the eggs of the dodos. Within one hundred years of their discovery, the bird was wiped off the earth.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until the 19^th century that the general populace actually took notice of the animal’s disappearance. Up until that time, many people believed that the animal was a myth, but then the first set of dodo bones were discovered in the Mauritian swamp. After the find, a schoolmaster named George Clarke wrote a report on the bird. The public soon gained interest and the bird quickly became a symbol for the human impact on animals.

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Great Auk

Like the dodo, the great auk was a large, flightless bird. In fact, they were close to the same height and weight, but the auk was a little smaller. While the auk might not have been too coordinated on land, it was an excellent swimmer and could even dive down to 3000 feet under the water, while holding its breath for up to fifteen minutes.

As a black and white sea bird that was an excellent swimmer, the great auk seems to be related to penguins, but the two are not genetically similar. Interestingly though, the auk was responsible for the naming of the penguins. The Spanish and Portuguese called the auks pingüinos and the Welsh called it pengwyn, meaning “little wing.” When European sailors discovered penguins, they thought they were related to auks and thus, gave them the same name.

While auks were relatively widespread throughout the North Atlantic, spreading all the way from New England to Iceland to Norway to Spain, they only had a handful of nesting spots due to their demanding breeding needs. Their breeding areas had to be rocky and isolated with easy access to the ocean and a large population of their favorite fish had to be close by. All of these needs ended up leaving them with no more than 20 breeding colonies, even when they had a massive population. To make matters worse, they only laid one egg per year, so when their numbers did start to dwindle, it took a long while for them to increase their population.

Despite these risks, the great auk was hunted by Native American cultures for over 100,000 years without any problems. The bird was more than just a food source, it was a status symbol. Archeologists even found one native buried with a cloak made from over 200 auk skins –he was certainly a revered member of the tribe while alive.

While many other species were wiped out shortly after being discovered by European explorers, the great auk was used as a source of down feathers in Europe since at least the 8^th century. Early explorers also used them as an easy source of food and bait since they often ran low on provisions. Even so, the bird managed to survive off of the European coasts until the mid-16^th century. When these populations were wiped out, scientists realized the great auk was in danger and the bird became one of the first animals to receive legal protection in an attempt to prevent its extinction.

Unfortunately, the fact that the bird was acknowledged to be rare garnered intense interest from museums and private collectors who wanted specimens for their collections. They offered high rewards to people who could bring them eggs or skins of the birds. Eggers would collect eggs from the nests, keeping those that were unfertilized and throwing away the rest.

The last colony of auks was located on the island of Eldey off of Iceland. As soon as it was discovered, museums started hiring people to collect the birds from the colony. The last pair was found incubating an egg on July 3, 1844. The parents were strangled by two of the collectors and just to ensure there would never be another great auk, a third man made sure to stomp on their egg.

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Passenger Pigeon

When Europeans first arrived in America, the passenger pigeons were present in such great numbers that it was said to take several hours for a flock to fly overhead. The flocks were often more than a mile wide and 300 miles long and made up of more than two billion birds. The birds went from being one of the most abundant animals on earth in the 19^th century to being completely extinct by the 20^th century.

The bird’s population started to decrease as Europeans started chopping down forests to make way for civilization, but even this didn’t thin their population too much. But by the 1800’s, people realized they could feed their slaves and servants passenger pigeon for practically nothing. Whole boxcars of pigeons were shipped to the cities, where a pair of pigeons would go for two cents.

If the passenger pigeons were like most other birds, they wouldn’t have been so easy to wipe out. Unfortunately, they were incredibly social and could not breed unless they were in a communal breeding area, which would stretch hundreds of miles –each tree could contain up to one hundred nests. Some nesting sites were estimated to hold more than 100 million individuals. This meant that hunters could go to the nesting sites and wipe out the birds at record numbers. At one of the last major nesting sites, there was a five-month long hunt that would generally result in the deaths of about 50,000 birds per day.

By the 1890s, it was obvious that the passenger pigeon was seriously endangered. The Michigan legislature enacted a law outlawing the killing of the birds within two miles of a nesting area, but authorities rarely enforced the rule. By this time, it was already too late anyway. The birds had to have massive nesting colonies in order to successfully breed and there were too few pigeons left. Some people even tried to help the population through captive breeding programs, but there were just too few birds to coax the animals into mating. The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.

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Tecopa Pupfish

It might not be as exciting as a Tasmanian tiger, but the Tecopa Pupfish has an important role in the history of extinction, as it was the first animal to be officially declared extinct according to the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Tecopa Pupfish was endemic only to the Tecoopa Hot Springs of the Mojave Desert. They were first discovered in 1942 and completely wiped out within a few decades after the hot springs were canalized into bath houses. It was officially delisted from the endangered species list in 1981.

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As an animal lover, this was a really hard article to write, but I do think it is important to learn from our history so we can help protect animals that are currently at risk. This is only a small sampling of the many animals that humans have brought to extinction, but with any luck, we can help stop that number from increasing in the future.

Cave animals just might be some of the strangest animals on Earth. Adapted to living somewhere with little to no light and practically no vegetation, these animals have evolved to survive in extreme environments and the results are often unbelievable.

A troglobite is an animal that exclusively live in caves and has adapted to its dark surroundings. Most troglobites cannot survive outside of the cave environment. Interestingly, while they never leave the cave environments, their lives are dependent on the world outside of the cave. Roots growing from plants above the surface, streams flowing from outside the cave and trogloxenes, and animals that use caves for shelter but travel outside the cave for nourishment are the only things that make life inside of caves possible. Roots allow nutrients to drip into the caves, streams bring in fresh food and dead animals and trogloxenes provide nutrient-rich feces and corpses that feed bacteria, insects and fungi that serve as the base of the cave’s food chain.

Because caves provide such a stable environment, many troglobites have lost the ability to adapt to temperature and humidity changes, which means most of these animals can only live in specific parts of their caves and many of them are endangered because they cannot branch out of their territory. Most troglobites survive in caves with humidity levels between 95 to 100 percent, but those that live in tropical areas deal with higher temperatures that result in more evaporation, thus, lower humidity levels.

There are currently 7,700 known species of trilobites, but because scientists estimate that 90% of caves are still undiscovered due to a lack of visible entrances, many animals living in caves have yet to be discovered. Just recently, scientists discovered 225 new caves and 30 new species in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California.

Because there are so many cool cave animals, this article is really long, resulting in a two part series. This is part one, so if you’re hunting for part two, you can find it on my blog, Rue The Day.

Images via Arne Hodalic [Wikipedia] and pfulton [Flickr]

Bats

While they may not spend their entire lives in caves, bats are one of the most important supporters of cave ecosystems. Their feces, dropped food and dead bodies provide food for insects, bacteria and fungi that support the carnivores in the cave. In some caves, the bat droppings pile up as high as one hundred feet. The guano is incredibly nutritious, making it a good cornerstone of any cave diet. In fact, a quarter-pound of it has more nutrients and protein than a Big Mac.

Bats are the only mammals in the world that can fly, but there are so many types that they actually represent twenty percent of all mammal species. Their ability to fly has enabled them to become some of the most widely distributed mammal groups in the world. They live everywhere on earth except a few isolated islands, the Arctic and the Antarctic.

While the stereotypes says all bats are blind, none are actually blind. Their small, underdeveloped eyes provide enough visual cues to help the bats navigate their routes beyond the area their echolocation can reach. Some species can even see ultraviolet light.

If you don’t like bats, consider the fact that humans might not exist without their help. Seventy percent of bats are insectivores and without them, the world could be overtaken with insects and our crops would quickly be eaten by bugs. Most other bats survive on fruit and nectar and there are many plants, particularly in tropical areas, that could not survive without the pollination and seed transportation of bats.

Unfortunately, bats of the US are at serious risk right now thanks to the recent spread of the deadly white nose syndrome. This is a deadly fungus that grows on the noses of bats and has been known to kill more than 90% of certain colonies. It has so far been discovered in more than 115 caves and mines from Tennessee to Ontario and has killed millions of bats. Alan Hicks with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has described the impact as “the gravest threat to bats … ever seen.”

Image via HankPlank [Flickr]

Mexican Free-Tailed Bats

The Mexican Free-tailed bats are one of the most common mammal species in North America. They live in caves stretched out from the Southwest US all the way down to Argentina. In Austin, there is a colony of these bats that lives near the state capital during the summer months. With 1.5 million bats, it is the largest urban animal colony in the U.S. Each night, the bats eat between 10 and 30 thousand pounds of insects.

In the winter, they have been known to live in colonies that have as many as 50 million individuals, meaning they have to start their nightly evacuation in the mid-afternoon to ensure everyone has a chance to get out by nightfall. The nursing roosts are so crowded that there are over 1500 babies per square foot. Interestingly, the mothers only feed their own babies and they know exactly which is their own thanks to their baby’s unique sounds and scents. The females conceive while hibernating as the males caress them. The sperm stays alive inside the female until she wakes up in spring and the egg is then released and fertilized.

Cave Nectar Bat

The cave nectar bat plays a huge role in the economies of the Southeast Asian countries in which they reside, as they are the only pollinator of the durian fruit, a crop that contributes $120 million to the economy every year. They are spread throughout Southeast Asia, inhabiting caves in India, China, Southeast Asia, Philippines, Sumatra, Java and Borneo.

These bats spend the whole year inhabiting caves and live in small colonies, flying long distances each night to look for enough pollen and nectar to sustain them.

Ghost Bats

These bats are unique for being lighter colored than most species and having thin membrane on their wings that make them appear translucent and ghostly. Aside from these major differences, they also have no tails, large ears and very sharp teeth. The ghost bat is the only carnivorous bat in Australia, eating mostly insects, but also snacking on frogs, lizards, even other bats.

Their colonies are usually fairly small, with fewer than one hundred individuals in each roost. Each female gives birth to only one baby each year. These bats are also fairly rare, as there are only about 5,000 in the wild.

Ozark Big-Eared Bats

True to its name, the Ozark Big-Eared Bats do have pretty massive ears, shooting about an inch above their heads.  They tend to live in limestone caves near oak-hickory forests and eat insects of all varieties, particularly enjoying moths. Their mating ritual is pretty cute and involves nuzzling heads. Interestingly, most mating occurs before hibernation in fall and the females hold on to the sperm. The egg isn’t fertilized until she wakes up in spring.

Vampire Bats

Vampire bats are one of the most famous bat species, but they are also some of the least common. It makes sense too. While blood is fairly easy to find, it is also incredibly low in energy. In fact, if they do not eat for two consecutive nights, they will die. To deal with this problem, the bats will help feed one another as needed. They even remember who fed them in the past and help these bats first. That’s not the only way bats are altruistic. They also are the only species of bat to adopt the babies of another bat if something happens to the mother. They live in colonies of all kinds of sizes, but there is only one reproducing male in any colony and the rest are all females.

Contrary to popular belief, they don’t go around sucking on the necks of humans. Most vampire bats instead survive off of cows, goats, horses, tapirs and birds. When they drink blood, they don’t suck from their wounds either. Instead, they approach the animal from the ground, make a wound and then lick about two tablespoons of blood, which continues flowing due to an anti-coagulant found in their saliva. They do occasionally bite humans, but when they do, they generally nibble on the toe. Most people who have been bit don’t even realize it because the bites are painless. Unfortunately, the bats who bite humans are more likely to have rabies because these animals are unable to fly and are easily disoriented.

Vampire bats are specially adapted to their lifestyle and they are even able to use their sense of hearing to detect whether or not a potential food source is asleep.

Image via WikedKentaur [Wikipedia]

Birds

Like bats, cave-dwelling birds aren’t troglobites, but they are still a critical part of the cave ecosystem providing food with their droppings and dead bodies. While there are more than a few birds that take residence in caves, most stay towards the entrances, making them less important to cave life and less interesting then the swiftlet.

Image via YTK23 [Flickr]

Swiftlets

If you’re familiar with bird nest soup than you know a little about swiftlets already. These are the birds that provide the saliva-based nests  used in the Chinese delicacy, but they are far more interesting than being just a simple ingredient source.

Swiftlets choose to live in caves and to deal with the dark environment, many species have adapted by using echolocation like bats. Their method of echolocation is different from the bats as it is actually audible to humans. They use two clicking noises separated by a slight pause. When approaching the nests, they add in a regular bird call to help warn nearby birds of their approach so they will not collide with one another.

The birds have much shorter legs than most species, which make them unable to perch, but allow them to cling to nearly vertical surfaces of their homes. The birds leave the cave during the day so they can forage for insects, but always return home by night.

Most of the birds are monogamous and each take part in caring for the babies. The birds will make a nest from saliva and then the male will impress the female by doing aerial displays. Most of the birds will have no more than one or two eggs at a time. While many scientists worried that that collecting their nests would put the animals at risk of population loss, a recent study showed that modern, competent techniques of nest collection can actually increase the bird’s population.

Image via Lip Kee [Flickr]

Amphibians

Olms

The Olm is one of the weirdest and most famous cave animals around. It was also the first troglobite to be discovered way back in 1689. Heavy rains in Slovenia washed them to the surface, where people believed them to be baby dragons that lived below the earth’s surface. At over a foot long, it’s also the largest troglobite –many are tiny and under an inch long. One of their most unique traits is their bright red external gills. While many amphibians have these as juveniles, they generally lose them as they get older. The olm has lungs, but these are completely secondary to their gills. Unlike most amphibians, they are exclusively aquatic. They also differ by having only three toes on their front legs and two on their back.

Olms live in the waters of underground limestone caves that stretch from the western border of Italy through Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina. They survive by feeding on small crabs, snails and insects. They don’t chew their food, but instead swallow it whole using their tiny teeth as a sieve to keep the larger particles in their mouth. Because food can be scarce underground, the olms are great at storing nutrients in their liver, they can even reabsorb their own tissues in some cases and they can survive up to ten years without eating. The animals have an amazing lifespan and can live an average of seventy years, even up to a century.

The olms have regressed eyes (they’re born with them but their skin grows over them later) and their skin lacks pigmentation, which is why they have been nicknamed the “human fish.” The skin is also to sense light and maintains the ability to produce melanin, so they turn dark if they are exposed to light long enough. While they are blind, they can still perceive light and their other senses, particularly those involving smell and sound, are beefed up to compensate. Olms can sense very low quantities of organic compounds in water and can detect prey more efficiently by smell than other amphibians. They have a special sensory organ that allows them to register weak electric fields which they use to orient themselves.

There is only one subspecies of olm, the black olm that is native to only one small area in Slovenia that is smaller than 39 square miles. The black olm has fairly normal eyes although they are smaller than most amphibians. This indicates that the black olm started evolving later than their flesh-colored cousins.

Slovenian culture reveres the olm and they even issued a coin featuring the animal before switching over to the Euro.

Images via Arne Hodalic #1, #2 [Wikipedia]

Texas Blind Salamanders

While the Texas Blind Salamander resembles the olm, it is not directly related. They do have quite a few similarities though. The blind salamander has external gills and feeds on insects, shrimp and snails. It is much smaller than the olm, growing to only about 5 inches long. As the name implies, the salamander is native to Texas, specifically Hays County’s Edwards Aquifer, and they are very popular in the state.

Image via SteveSims [Wikipedia]

There are plenty more crazy cave animals, but as you can tell, this article has gotten mighty long, so be sure to check out part two of the series over on my blog, Rue The Day. It covers a variety of other creatures including arachnids, insects, snakes, fish and more.

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, National Geographic and The Book Of Animal Ignorance

The events of January 15, 2009, gave new meaning to the fear of flying. At 3:27PM, a flock of Canada geese struck an outbound plane leaving LaGuardia, blowing out both engines and sending the aircraft plummeting to the ground. The incident made a hero of Captain Chesley Sullenberger, who safely piloted the plane into the Hudson River, but it also made Canada geese out to be small, feathered suicide bombers.

The truth is, Canada geese populations in the United States have skyrocketed since 1960. Today, America is home to more than 4 million of the birds. Why the sudden spike in numbers? The geese thrive on trash. Landfills and estuaries provide them with so much food they can live in one place year-round, instead of migrating. And because there’s lot of garbage surrounding New York’s airports, many geese call the Big Apple home. During the past two years, there have been more than 200 instances of Canada geese flocks colliding with airplanes that were landing or taking off near JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark.

Following the “Miracle on the Hudson”, state and federal authorities have worked to deter the birds from nearby flight paths. They even enlisted the help of wildlife biologists, who’ve tried all sorts of tricks. They’ve cut the grass near the runways to undesirable lengths and played goose distress calls over the airport loudspeakers. More aggressively, they’ve trapped geese by the hundreds and euthanized them. So far, the geese have not counterattacked. Not yet.

(Image credit: Flickr user Alanna@VanIsle)

MIKE THE HEADLESS CHICKEN

When a Colorado farmer named Lloyd Olsen botched the decapitation of his rooster in 1945, he didn’t realize he’d given birth to a legend. For the next 18 months, Mike the Headless Chicken ran around with his head cut off. Operating with only one ear and most of his brain stem, Mike made the best of the situation. Before long, he was earning his owner thousands of dollars a month touring as a sideshow. The rooster’s only real handicap was that he didn’t have a mouth, so he had to be fed through an eyedropper directly into his neck. Sadly, while being fed one night, Mike choked to death. His legacy lives on, however. In his hometown of Fruita, Colorado, “Mike’s Festival” is held every third weekend in May. Events in his honor include the “Run Like a Chicken with Your Head Cut Off” 5K and a “Pin the Head on the Chicken” contest.

(Image Source: Mike the Headless Chicken)

DUCK, DUCK, SHUTTLECOCK

In 2006, professional badminton players noticed something strange. Their shuttlecocks, which routinely whiz around the courts at speeds of 150 mph, weren’t moving so fast. The phenomenon was especially strange because the process of making a shuttlecock is highly controlled. Each feather in a premium shuttlecock is hand-selected from the left wing of a goose, and each goose can supply only two quality feathers, at most!

So what caused the change? The avian flu. When geese began transmitting the disease, Chinese manufacturers switched to using duck feathers. Luckily, our fine feathered friends have been on the mend, returning smiles to the faces of badminton players everywhere.

__________________________

The above article by David Goldenberg is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

Remember Meowmania, the site that make our cats go crazy? The creator, Jacqueline Steck, is back with Birdmania, which you can click and click to make your home or office sound like an aviary. Link -via Metafilter

These parakeets belong to Inner Huckleberry, who submitted this rad photo to Cute Overload, where you can get a closer look. Link

Perhaps 100 millions birds die every year in the United States due to collisions with glass. Ornilux, a new type of glass made by the German company Arnold Glas, may provide a solution. It has an ultraviolet coating that birds can see, but humans can’t under normal conditions.

The latest version of the glass, called Ornilux Mikado, received the “red dot” award this year from the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany. Judges noted that the glass uses the same techniques that spiders use to keep birds from flying through and destroying their webs.

Link via Geekosystem | Photos: Arnold Glas

Birds do it, bees do it … but did they ever do it together? From the twisted imagination of Mike Jacobsen of See Mike Draw, here’s The Birds and the Bees T-Shirt over at the NeatoShop: Link

More T-shirts by Mike | Other artist designed T-shirts | More Funny T-Shirts

See also: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits

You know how your Mom always said, “If your friends all jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?” Apparently, the dinosaurs did just that. The Film Board of Canada presents this charming 1995 film by Munro Ferguson. Not intended for use as a science lesson. -via Everlasting Blort

“Kill, don’t clean,” recommends Silvia Gaus, a biologist at NationalPark Wattenmeer (Wadden Sea National Park) in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Unfortunately, despite some short-term success in cleaning birds and releasing them into the wild, few, if any, have a chance of surviving even for a few months, reports Ms Gaus, who has worked as a biologist for 20 years.

“According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent,” Ms Gaus explained. “We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds.”

Blogger and evolutionary biologist GrrlScientist took a closer look at those serious studies and found the survival rate of oiled birds depends on a number of factors, and can be as high as 100% among some populations. She advocates making the effort to clean and release birds.

I disagree with Ms Gaus’s gloomy policy. Because all people use oil or oil-related products in some form, I maintain that it is both ethical and responsible to try to save as many oiled birds and other wildlife as we can. Some wildlife management professionals argue that cleaning oiled birds isn’t worth the monetary cost and effort since little or no impact can be made on a species level. But actually, we don’t know this to be true. Additionally, I ask you; what amount of money and effort is too much, and who should be making those decisions anyway? Further, what do we, as scientists and as a society, gain by trying to save these unfortunate animals? Certainly, I think it is imperative to develop our technology to the best level possible so we can use it to help all birds, whether their populations are doing fine or they are threatened or endangered, so we are capable of helping them in the sad event that they are impacted by an oil spill. This requires that we continually refine and improve our techniques and equipment to do the job properly.

There is much more information on previous spills and bird survival rates at Living the Scientific Life. What do you think? Should we leave oiled birds to their fate, euthanize them, or wash and rehabilitate them one by one? Link

(Image credit: Paul Buck/EPA)

Personally, I can’t think of anyway to celebrate my favorite birds in all their formal-wearing glory then to go into a little detail about the birds and their fascinating lives. While the holiday marks the migration period of Antarctic penguins, we at Neatorama don’t like to discriminate, so we’ll be talking about all penguins in general rather than focusing on just those from the very far south.

They’re Almost All Southerners

Almost every wild penguin lives somewhere in the southern hemisphere with the exception of the Galapagos Penguin, which lives in the area it is named for. While many people envision penguins living in frigid conditions, only a few actually live so far south and many live in rather temperate zones. For the most part, the larger penguins live in cooler areas and smaller ones live closer to the equator.

Rock Hopper Penguin image via Ben Tubby [Flickr]

Back In The Day

That’s not how it’s always been though. Prehistoric species of penguins were sprawled across the southern hemisphere with no distribution based on size. One giant penguin species lived only 1250 miles south of the equator. Prehistoric Penguins were so different in size that there was even a 6 foot tall penguin called the Nordenskjoeld’s Giant Penguin and a 173 pound species called the New Zealand Giant Penguin.

They’re Just Big Boned

These days though, the largest species of penguin is Emperor Penguin, which grows to around 3 and a half feet tall and 75 pounds. These are arguably the most famous penguins around as they are not only the largest, but some of the small handful of penguins that live in Antarctica. You may remember these guys as the stars of March of the Penguins.

The species is also unique for being the only penguin to breed in the middle of the harsh Antarctic winter at temperatures as low as -40 degrees. They are also the only penguins that leave the incubation duties to only one sex and one of only two species to lay only one egg at a time –most deliver two at a time. The females lay an egg and then the males incubate the egg on their feet while the females return to the sea over the next two months to feed. The males huddle in a large circle and rotate each individual’s time in the center.

When the eggs hatch, the males have normally fasted for over 115 days. When the mom’s return, the males leave the new-born chick with their partner and take their turn to go feed. When the chicks are strong enough, they huddle amongst themselves for warmth while the mothers and fathers feed and eventually they begin to grow their adult feathers and join the feeding process around the summer time.

While all penguin species have a somewhat high mortality rate amongst the young, Emperor Penguins have the highest rate of death during the chick’s first year. In fact, 90% of all of the chicks will die during this time.

Image via ianduffy [Flickr]

Don’t Count Out The Tinier Species

On the other side of the spectrum is the Little Blue Penguin (a.k.a. the Fairy Penguin), which grows only 16 inches tall and weighs a little over 2 pounds. These little ones are much less famous than their massive Emperor cousins, even so, you may recognize these little ones as the inspiration for the Linux logo –the creator of Linux was bitten by a Little Penguin while in Australia and the memory stayed with him through his life.

Because they are so small, they are not well adapted to frigid weather and they instead live in Australia and New Zealand and do better in areas free from cats and foxes. They have also been spotted in Chile and South Africa, but researchers aren’t sure if they are part of a colony or somehow ended up in the countries.

Little Blue Penguin image via CrazyCh3m [Flickr]. Linux image via Larry Ewing

They Stay Faithful…To Some Extent

Penguins tend to be monogamous each year, but they will often find a new mate each consecutive year. In species such as the Emperor Penguin, the lack of year-to-year monogamy (only a 15% rate) is believed to be due to environmental pressures that limit the amount of time they have to search for their past partners. Some of the penguins in warmer climates, like the Little Blue Penguin, do stay loyal to their partners until one of the mates dies.

Females are the ones who select their mating partner and in many cases, females will compete for an attractive male partner.

As for the eggs themselves, penguins have some o the smallest proportioned eggs of all birds when compared with the size of the parents. The Little Blue Penguin lays eggs that are only 4.7% of its weight and the Emperor Penguin’s eggs are only 2.3% of their total weight. The eggs also have some of the thickest shells, which weigh between 10-16% of the egg’s weight (it takes the Emperor Penguin chicks about 2-3 days to hatch out of their shells) and they have some of the largest yolk ratios of all birds –the yolk takes up 22-31% of the egg volume.

Image via Jerzy Strzelecki [Wikipedia]

They’ve Got Each Other’s Backs

Aside from mating, penguins have a very high level of social interaction and all penguins communicate through visual and vocal displays. Their vocal calls not only help the penguins choose mates, but also lets them find their mate and their nest when they come back from feeding. The penguin females often show a great level of empathy for one another; when one mother loses a chick, she will often attempt to take one from another’s nest, but many of the nearby females will usually help defend the mother.

Humans Also Have Their Backs

Penguins have a lot of human friends and all species are protected even though some species are at no risk of extinction in the near future. Perhaps part of the reason we connect with the birds, besides their inherent adorableness, is the fact that they are rarely afraid of humans.

Many species of penguins, particularly those from the Antarctic, have no fear of humans at all because they have so few predators on land. While seals attack by the water, the few air and land predators penguins sea will only eat chicks and eggs. For this reason, people who visit penguin habitats are often surprised to see the birds will often approach them out of pure curiosity.

This comes in handy in zoo and research facilities because the researchers can often get close to the birds without having to worry about throwing off the animal’s natural behavior patterns.

For one specific African penguin living at the California Academy of Sciences, this met an additional benefit when he started to go bald, which left him shivering in his tank. The keepers first tried to warm Pierre up with a heat lamp, but he still couldn’t enter the water, which is a major part of any penguins life (most species spend anywhere from 50-70% of their lives in the water). Eventually, one of the biologists, Pam Schaller, realized that if wet suits keep humans warm in frigid temperatures, it might just work for little Pierre. The modified suit worked brilliantly and Pierre was quite happy to have his life back as he frolicked with his 19 friends in the tank’s pool.

Image via Roux [Wikipedia]

They Love To Get Wet

The reason poor Pierre was so cold when he started losing his feathers comes down to a unique aspect of penguin anatomy. The birds aren’t kept warm with a layer of blubber (although the Emperor Penguins are benefited by being so large), but mostly by their waterproof feathers. The feathers trap air, which insulates their body and helps them to float.

While they can’t use their wings to fly, they instead work as flippers and penguins are great swimmers accordingly. Their style of swimming looks surprisingly like flight in other birds and they can reach speeds of 17 miles per hour, although most stay closer to 5 miles per hour during their swims. Most penguins do not swim very deeply and only dive for a minute or two, but the Emperor Penguin has been recorded going as deep as 1,800 feet for up to 22 minutes. No matter how deep they swim though, penguins have to return to the surface to breathe and most of the smaller species will leap in and out of the water like porpoises to breathe.

While underwater, penguins occasionally play, but they mostly swim to eat. Their main sources of food are krill, fish and squid. While it seems like their stark color contrasts would make them an easy target for underwater predators, since they largely stay near the top of the water surface, all the underwater predators (like orcas, seals, sea lions and sharks) can see is a white belly, which blends in with the water surface. From above, their dark backs help them blend in with the depths of the sea.

Penguin’s eyes are well adapted for seeing under water as, well as the rest of their bodies. In fact, a supraorbital gland allows them to filter excess salt from their blood stream and release it from their nasal passages.

In a way, it’s quite fortunate that penguins have so few predators in the land and air. When they cruise on the land, their wings and tails help them keep balance, but they waddle quite a bit. Many penguins will also toboggan along the snow to help them move quickly and with minimal energy.

Image via ken2754@Yokohama [Flickr]

Sources: Discovery, Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Seaworld

A variety of birds may use their crests and protruberant feathers to feel their surroundings.  Studies were conducted on auklets, who breed in dark, rocky crevices.

The researchers placed individual auklets into a dark experimental maze, designed to resemble a natural crevice, and recorded how often they bumped into things.  Both crested and whiskered auklets bumped their heads 2.5 times more often if their feathers on their heads had been artificially flattened.

When the ornithologists then compared the lifestyles of birds with their feather patterns, they found that “Birds that live in complex, cluttered habitats and are active at night tend to have a greater probability to express such facial feathers.”

Cat owners will not be surprised by this news, since whiskers serve an equivalent purpose.

Coincidentally, this week National Geographic is reporting the existence of a tentacled snake whose head appendages are used to find prey in murky lakes at night.

Link.

If you have a serious phobia of frogs, rats, bees or snakes, you probably shouldn’t read WebEcoist’s article on the most invasive species in the world. On the other hand, if you don’t have any phobias, it’s fascinating to know just how devastating a pair of bunnies ended up being to Australia and how Florida and other areas of the South are being taken over by released and escaped Burmese pythons.

Link

BIRD film from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

To help promote his illustrated book, Bird, Andrew Zuckerman directed this short video of birds from around the world.  Shot against a glorious white background, the film captures the beauty of our feathered friends, mirroring the photos in his book.  A must-see for bird lovers.

Andrew Zuckerman’s Site

Possibly the most beautiful pigeon too, the Victoria Crowned is not at all what you might expect when used to the hordes that haunt our towns and cities.  Thanks to the Dodo becoming defunct, these turkey sized blue niceys are the largest pigeon on the planet.  They have a rather odd secret too.  Birds don’t produce milk to feed their young, right? Well, these do! Unfortunately, these birds seem to be dying out in the wild for several reasons. The facts that they 1. aren’t afraid of people and 2. taste good do not bode well for their survival.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

“It’s all very amusing, of course. Unless it’s your campsite.”

It is not my campsite, and you will most likely find it as amusing as I did. Link -via Digg

See more adventures from National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles.

This picture of birds on wires by photographer Paulo Pinto looks like music notation. So Jarbas Agnelli naturally wanted to find out what that music sounded like.

Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn’t the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.

-via Bits and Pieces

The Maleo bird of Sulawesi has a unique way of looking after its young – if looking after is how it could be described.  It buries its eggs and abandons them, having nothing more to do with their rearing.  The chicks, however, have a trick up their sleeve.  As soon as they hatch and emerge in to the sunlight they are, amazingly, able to fly.

Beneath the red hot sand of an Indonesian island’s beach something stirs. A large egg is hatching and soon the newborn creature will dig its way out to the surface and take its first gulps of fresh air. This sounds as if it should be a young turtle, thrusting its flippers sideways as it makes its desperate lurch towards the ocean. It is not, however. This is a bird. More remarkable still is that when it emerges the chick will already be able to fly.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

So, we all knew about Mentos and Coke (thanks, Jamie and Adam), but I didn’t know that Alka-Seltzer could, in fact, kill a bird or that apple seeds have cyanide!  See for yourself!

As we get older, it’s easier to logically dismiss some of the outlandish claims we heard as kids—never really needing to investigate if there’s any truth behind them. But some of these assertions—like whether eating too many carrots will turn you orange or if rice really does harm birds when ingested—tend to keep us guessing far into adulthood. To satisfy our curiosity (and yours) we’ve done research that debunks or confirms common food-related fables.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ahammel.

The remarkable Rainbow Finch is found in Australia yet there are only around two thousand of them left in the wild.  Although conservation attempts are ongoing the question now seems to be whether or not this beautiful species will persevere for very much longer in its own original habitat. 

There is something about the Rainbow Finch that makes it look like an animal made up, using Photoshop, for an April Fool joke. The colors seem too bright to be real and each garish hue ends abruptly to be replaced by one equally as preposterous for a wild animal. The main part of its body looks like some psychedelic Neapolitan ice cream.

Link – via webphemera

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

This traffic-sign yellow birdhouse includes an entrance in each “light,” three shelves for nesting and openings at the back for easy cleaning. Bird-safe paint. Hanging wire included.

The product is available from Uncommon Goods for $40.

Link