Nerd Animal Thread (Animal Facts you Know and Love)

If the honey badger doesn't give a fuck about venom and specializes in eating snakes, I can't see the mamba beating it.

I do however doubt that it could deal with a python.
 

The Avalanches

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This guy right here is the Greenland Shark. They have a few things that set them apart from other sharks which make it cooler in my opinion.

The Greenland Shark is only species of shark that lives in the Arctic. They live in the Northern Atlantic Ocean, around Iceland, Canada and Greenland, and are one of the largest shark species in the world, growing up to 6.4 metres and weighing up to 1000 kg. However, as data is limited, it's estimated they can reach 7.3 metres and 1400 kg.

Although the Greenland shark is among the slowest swimmers of sharks, it is still an apex predator, eating seals, fish, and eels. Some were even found with remains of polar bears, horses, reindeer and moose in their stomach.

The Greenland shark has the most toxic flesh of any shark. Presence of triethylamine oxide breaks down to triethylamine which can produce an effect of drunkenness.

Lastly, which might be the coolest thing of all, based on the growth rate of the Greenland shark, it is estimated they can live for as long as 200 years making them one of the longest-lived vertebrates on the planet.
 

Chou Toshio

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If the honey badger doesn't give a fuck about venom and specializes in eating snakes, I can't see the mamba beating it.

I do however doubt that it could deal with a python.
Realistically speaking, while the Honey Badger is tough, has some snake immunity, and even some ability to "revive" from near death venomation, it CAN be killed by the venom of snakes, and even of much lesser snakes than the Black Mamba.

The real life questions I guess would be:
-Are Black Mambas snakes that honey badgers try to eat, or are they just generally not worth it?
-Is a Black Mamba fast enough to outrun a honey badger?
-Do Black Mambas even bother to run from honey badgers, or do they go right for it as their aggressive reputation would suggest?



The Avalanches yeah, and vast majority of them do it without even having eyes.


Most greenland sharks are affected by parasites on one or both eyes. These parasites completely eat out the eyes and attach for life.
 
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First animal I thought of when I saw this thread, it's Pallas's cat, or manul. They inhabit the steppes in central Asia and some regions in Russia. They are solitary and make their homes in small caves. When hunting, they have to sneak up on their prey since they are not fast runners. (Also, they eat Pikachu's >:D)
In captivity they tend to get viruses they wouldn't normally get because their immune system is weakened due to living in a different altitude. So breeding them in captivity can be difficult since they have lower survival rates out of their natural environment. Poor babies.


Derp!

Also...

 

Esmeya

There's nothing left. Goodbye.
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Armadillos always give birth to identical quadruplets. So always exactly four babies and all the same gender.
Not all genus of Armadillos do this, but yes that's true in some cases.

As for my addition here is a Honeypot ant:


There are species that have adapted this style of storage native to Australia, North and South Africa, North America (Prenolepis only and they don't get as gorged as this) and Melanesia (Papua New Guinea). This one has gorged on so much food, water and fat that it became a stationary supply of food because it is unable to support it's weight anymore. They either hang from the ceiling in the lower parts of the colony or get sanctioned to cubby holes (sort of like a pantry). When the colony is in need of food the worker ants who pass by will rub their antennae to get them to vomit up am meal, delicious. They can also change a couple of different colors and I'd imagine you could make an arbitrary painting from them. These stationary food supplies often get stolen by rival ant colonies who raid each other endlessly, kept as POW's and sometimes force fed more food than they can handle. The colonies who get their 'honeypots' stolen starve to death or have inadequate feed when member numbers swell.

Humans also eat them as a snack or candy of sorts because they're rather sweet. However, only three or four of the available false Honeypot ants are edible. Myrmecocystus are available in arid parts of the US (you can try them if you were interested). I guess we're technically speeding up the widespread Honeypot ant war.

[Edited for clarity]
 
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Giant-Freshwater-Stingray.jpg This is a giant freshwater stingray. It lives in rivers in Thailand. It is probably the world's largest freshwater fish, surpassing even sturgeons. These guys way up to 1,300 pounds and reach about 16.5 feet long. They are most likely the cause of Steve Irwin's death. They are camouflaged so well in the bottom of murky rivers unsuspecting people in the rivers accidentally step on it and it stings them with its poisonous barbs on its tail, sometimes the tail can be lodged in there so it swims a bunch and it can drown you because the pain of its tail being stuck inside you is so painful. So if you ever go into Thailand, beware of these guys. Don't worry too much though, they are quite peaceful if not threatened.
 

Chou Toshio

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There was a really cool documentary (really well done) about honey pot ants living near a ranch in Texas on Youtube... can't find it any more :(

That stingray is really cool. I've known there were freshwater rays from my aquarium hobby, as they are highly prized collected pets by many European hobbyists (especially in the UK) but I had no idea there was a species that grew so huge!

BTW Steve Irwin died in Australia, so... yeah, no there.
 

Esmeya

There's nothing left. Goodbye.
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There was a really cool documentary (really well done) about honey pot ants living near a ranch in Texas on Youtube... can't find it any more :(

That stingray is really cool. I've known there were freshwater rays from my aquarium hobby, as they are highly prized collected pets by many European hobbyists (especially in the UK) but I had no idea there was a species that grew so huge!

BTW Steve Irwin died in Australia, so... yeah, no there.
I'm not quite sure which one you're referring to since there's too many to keep up with by name now-a-days, but maybe you can find some enjoyment in one of the ones I enjoyed:


(I'm also unsure just how I'm supposed to share animals since I don't want to double-post or anything unless that's allowed in this instance)
 

Chou Toshio

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I'm not quite sure which one you're referring to since there's too many to keep up with by name now-a-days, but maybe you can find some enjoyment in one of the ones I enjoyed:


(I'm also unsure just how I'm supposed to share animals since I don't want to double-post or anything unless that's allowed in this instance)
Double posting is cool in this thread-- we keeping it casual.

And actually that is the documentary I was thinking about! It was Arizona, not Texas I guess though. lol
 
You better be scared of this one:
4a7fc441_vbattach243674.jpg This is a goonch catfish, and it is scary.(Even more so than the candiru) It can get up to 6.6 feet long and weigh up to 300 pounds. They are found around the Kali River in India. They are scary because they have learned to like the taste of human flesh. They probably learned to like the taste after eating floating dead bodies in the river. They have teeth that if they bite you, you're dead, because their teeth are pointed backwards so you can'y escape from them. So, stay away from this BAMF.
 
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Cresselia~~

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Not all things in nature are actually advantageous.




Stalk-eye fly males have stalk eyes that are getting longer, and longer with each generation-- but actually, the males' eyes are ALREADY so long that it interferes with their flying ability (their vision sucks), weighs them down and... well, the long eye stalk is just connected to higher mortality in the flies in general.

Why then are the stalks getting longer?

It's because chicks dig long eye-stalks.

But this "must have a bigger penis" is hardly something reserved to flies (in terms of sexual demorphism). There's a whole species of European deer that went extinct basically because the males had horns that got too big over generations to even lift their head up properly.

Meanwhile, humans are getting taller and taller in recent generations-- and taller still. This despite the fact that height has literally nothing to do with our survival ability/functionality in everyday life, and in fact is related to health problems (once you pass the 7 ft mark). All because chicks dig tall guys.

Just proves how-- in every place, in every time, in every species-- women manage to fuck things up.
(Sorry for replying so late, but...)

Sometimes I wonder whether male Elephant Seals are an evolutionary fail due to female selection as well. (I mean, I'm not sure)
The males are so ridiculously big, that they crush their pups to death often.
I'm not being comfortable with this fact, but I want to know the answer as to why the males happen to kill the pups so often, and why do they have to be so big, etc.
The mortality of elephant seal pups die of being crushed is probably a lot higher than even the Walrus. (which is rarely mentioned, and even if mentioned, the walrus had to be set into panic for this to happen.)
 

dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
Roaches are among the fastest things alive, able to survive almost anything.
They see with antennae and are among the few insects with a protective shell. There are even current testings done toward research on robotic roach's for solving real-world problems.
Okay look I kno it's an INSECT but...
That counts. Insects are animals. However, a couple of corrections need to be made here.
1. Cockroaches don't see with antennae, exactly; the antennae provide the roach's sense of smell, as with any insect, and contribute somewhat to its sense of touch.
2. Cockroaches are by no means among the "few" insects with a protective shell. A chitinous exoskeleton serves as armor in a limited capacity for all arthropods, and cockroaches aren't unique in having heavier armor in the form of elytra. Cockroaches and beetles both evolved such that the front pair of wings developed into a hard, leathery covering (the elytra) used to protect the membranous hindwings (which are used for flight) from abrasion as the animals burrow into the soil, and beetles comprise the most species-rich order in the animal kingdom.

Speaking of cockroaches...
-The oldest known cockroach fossils date back to the Carboniferous period.
-The closest extant relatives of the cockroach are termites, and mantids are a little more distantly related.
-If you cut off a cockroach's head, it will be able to survive for a little while and escape from any danger it senses. The head will also survive for a little while, and is able to wave its antennae for several hours after decapitation.
-Cockroaches are incredibly hardy; some species are able to remain active without eating for a month and go without air for up to 45 minutes. However, the popular notion that cockroaches would inherit the Earth in the event of a nuclear holocaust doesn't hold much water. While cockroaches are easily able to survive radiation bursts that would be lethal to a vertebrate, they're not that much more radiation-resistant than most other insects, including fruit flies, and are significantly less radiation-resistant than the flour beetle and certain other insects. They're also still vulnerable to lingering radioactive fallout; it's only the short bursts that are unlikely to harm them.
 
Hi guys! I'd love to see more facts, but can you please make sure they're not myths before posting? If I can find a countersource for your fact as the first result on Google, please provide current evidence for any such bold statements. If clarifications are necessary, include them.
 
Only one genus of armadillo can curl up into a ball.
Lemurs only live on Madagascar.
 
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dwarfstar

mindless philosopher
Today on "weird things insects do"...

Stridulation refers to the process of rubbing body parts together to produce sounds, and it's pretty common in insects (think of a cricket's chirp). One interesting case is that of the European water boatman (Micronecta scholtzi), which can emit sound at a volume of 99 decibels - for reference, that's about as much as you'd get listening to a full orchestra from a front-row seat. What's weird about all this is that it produces these sounds by rubbing its penis against ridges on its abdomen as a mating call.



"Come, my love, and we will make beautiful music together."
 

Chou Toshio

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Today on "weird things insects do"...

Stridulation refers to the process of rubbing body parts together to produce sounds, and it's pretty common in insects (think of a cricket's chirp). One interesting case is that of the European water boatman (Micronecta scholtzi), which can emit sound at a volume of 99 decibels - for reference, that's about as much as you'd get listening to a full orchestra from a front-row seat. What's weird about all this is that it produces these sounds by rubbing its penis against ridges on its abdomen as a mating call.



"Come, my love, and we will make beautiful music together."
Loudest masturbating in the world?
 

This little guy is a Fennec fox. Their gigantic ears not only release heat to keep them cool, but they're so sensitive that they can hear insects crawling around underground.
 
Some types of butterflies have brilliantly coloured wings when the wings have no colour pigment themselves. In fact the wings have very small grooves that interfere with light so that wavelength of a certain colours interfere constructively and are reflected more than others (similar to how compact discs have the rainbow colours )
this is one of such butterflies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho_rhetenor#mediaviewer/File:Morpho_rhetenor_rhetenor_MHNT_dos.jpg

Also some moths require certain temperatures in order to fly. This moth cannot fly if the temperature of its muscles is below 29 degrees Celsius because the proteins used in flying cannot work efficiently below that temperature (sucks to be that moth :( )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manduc...File:Manduca_quinquemaculata_adult_female.JPG
 
The Asian Palm Civet is used to make a type of coffee. The animal eats the coffee beans, then the waste product is used to make the coffee. Apparently it's one of the most expensive types of coffee in the world.
 

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life

Adorable, right?

Did you know that Koala are one of the nastiest animals on earth?

The eucalyptus leaves they eat are very poisonous and make them extremely lazy, sleeping up to 18 hours a day.
Because the leaves are too hard to consume for baby Koala, the young just eat a semi viscous fluid that emanates from the anal region of the parent. Also, a good portion of all Koalas carry the STD Chlamydia.

Still think they are adorable?
 
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