No matter what achievements people are proud of, there are animals that can furnish them in something. For example, the material used by humans for sewing body armor – Kevlar – is 10 times inferior in strength to the usual Darwin’s spider web. Moreover, the web itself is also thin and light.
Hummingbirds can fly for 20 hours without a break and spend more fat reserves during this flight than they have.
The ruby-throated hummingbird can fly 800 km in a row without stopping. Since the weight of the bird is small – only 3 g – before the flight, it doubles its fat mass, and during the flight it spends all the excess calories cleaned up.
Penguins are not only white and black but also yellow
It was such an incredibly beautiful royal penguin – however, only one – found on the island of South Georgia by the Belgian photographer Yves Adams. The colorful plumage is thought to be caused by a lack of melanin in the bird.
The “language” of prairie dogs is so developed that they can explain to their relatives which enemy they will have to deal with: a coyote, a hawk, or a man.
Prairie dogs will behave differently depending on which of the predators you have to deal with. At the sight of a domestic dog, they simply rise on their hind legs and make sure that it does not come close to them. Coyotes look out at the edges of burrows, and from people and hawks, they hide in the depths of the burrow.
Chimpanzees are able to create and emulate “fashion”
Once, in a Zambian reserve, a female chimpanzee named Julie took a blade of grass and stuffed it into her ear. Perhaps she so wanted to stand out from the crowd of other monkeys, since chimpanzees are self-aware. When a blade of grass was lost, it replaced it with another. But soon an even more perplexing thing happened: her son and friends followed suit. And the fashion for wearing “earrings” did not disappear even after Julie was gone.
The sea sponge is the only living creature that can literally be turned into minced meat by passing it through a sieve, and it will be able to “reassemble” itself piece by piece
Not only do people have caring grandmothers, but also sperm whales and elephants
While elderly female sperm whales look after their grandchildren, young and energetic mothers go in search of food. Matriarchy generally reigns in elephant herds: the herd is headed by an elderly female, whose age can reach 80 years. And if the elephants live not only with their mother but also with their grandmother, their probability of survival increases 8 times. The fact is that young mothers do not always know how to help a cub who, for example, has fallen into a mud pit, but a wise elderly grandma can easily solve this problem.
Female elephants themselves cause labor
To do this, they eat the branches and leaves of certain trees. As it turned out, Kenyan women brew tea from the bark and leaves of the same trees when it is necessary to stimulate labor.
The octopuses, of course, will not open the safe, but a can of pills with protection from children is easy. And the source of light will be found even with a blindfold
A female giant Pacific octopus named Billy, seeing food inside the jar opened the push-and-turn cover in just 5 minutes. There is a simple explanation for this amazing skill: octopuses often have to open the shells of their clams before eating them.
It is curious that octopuses can see light not only with their eyes but also with their tentacles – scientists suggest that this saves the animal from other predators who could mistake the tentacle for a small fish or worm.
The octopuses, of course, will not open the safe, but a can of pills with protection from children is easy. And the source of light will be found even with a blindfold