I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t give shrimp much thought. Sure, they’re an essential part of ocean ecosystems, but I don’t even enjoy eating them, and I certainly don’t want them anywhere near my cocktails, so for the most part they’re not even on my radar, so to speak. If I’m thinking about the oceans I’m usually pondering the terrifying threat of jellyfish, so shrimp don’t even rate a mention. This was clearly an oversight on my part; I’ve been learning lately about a few sorts of shrimp that are packing some deadly firepower. (They may be useful allies when the jellyfish come for us, let us all take note.)
Still from BBC’s “Invisible World”
The Alpheidae are a family of shrimp commonly known as “snapping shrimp,” and the Pistol Shrimp is perhaps the family’s most famous member. It’s a tiny animal, only a few inches long, but it’s packing some serious firepower in the form of a claw with a specialized snapping mechanism that allows it to “shoot” a high-velocity air bubble through the water. That might not sound so intimidating, coming from a tiny shrimp, but trust me when I tell you it’s seriously bad-ass. The Pistol Shrimp’s claw has a jointed “hammer” mechanism which snaps shut with such force that it vaporizes the water in front of it, forming a bubble. The bubble doesn’t go far, only about 4 centimeters, but it travels at speeds up to 60 miles per hour, generating enough force to kill fish, break glass, and knock well-armored opponents on their proverbial asses. The bubble’s real power, though, is in its collapse; in a process known as cavitation, the bubble essentially implodes under the pressure of the water around it, and that implosion not only produces sonoluminescence — a short burst of light which in the Pistol Shrimp’s case is invisible to the human eye — but also generates temperatures nearly as hot as the surface of the sun. The Pistol Shrimp was the first animal that was ever demonstrated to produce sonoluminescence (in a future featured creature we’ll take a look at the Mantis Shrimp — not actually a shrimp — which packs a similar punch and has also been found to generate sonoluminescence).
Still from BBC’s “Invisible World”
The noise of the Pistol Shrimp’s bubble collapsing is brief, less than a millisecond, but the sound produced can reach a staggering 218 decibels; when there are a lot of them in one place, the cacophony is loud enough to interfere with underwater communications and submarine sonar. (The voiceover narration on this video is completely terrible, but it gives you a great sense of exactly how noisy the ocean really is — skip to about 6:00 for some great audio — and snapping shrimp are a major contributor to the noise.)
The Pistol Shrimp uses its awesome firepower to stun, disable, or even outright kill its prey, which it usually hunts from the comfort of its own burrow; it detects passing meals with its antennae, stuns its meal with a bubble blast, and then drags it into the burrow to devour. Lazy bastard. It can also use its pistol-claw in self defense and to communicate with its fellow shrimp. Not quite cool enough for you? Okay, how about this: if a Pistol Shrimp’s gun-claw is torn off, not only will it grow a new limb to replace the missing one, its other claw — which is typically smaller, while its shooting arm is half the size of its body — will grow to become its new shooting hand. It can grow back missing parts and it’s ambidextrous. If you don’t seriously love this shrimp right now, I can only assume it’s because you’re jealous.
Some varieties of Pistol Shrimp have also learned to live cooperatively with another species, which is more than I can even say for me and my dog. Pistol Shrimp build their own burrows, but they’ve been known to share their space with goby fish, which have superior eyesight and act like watchdogs for the shrimp. The fish alerts the shrimp to danger, and then they both retreat into the burrow together. Presumably they also snuggle. I’m guessing the fish is the little spoon.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about motivation and its many forms. It’s a timely topic, of course, because this is the general time of year when people are already beginning to give up on their New Year’s resolutions, which often seem to involve unused gym memberships and anti-chocolate sentiments that are frankly unnatural. (This video blog by danisnotonfire is a terrifyingly accurate summary of same.) Personally, I don’t go in for New Year’s resolutions; I like to make resolutions and completely fail at them year-round, because I feel like with any skill it’s important to keep in practice. So my struggle with motivation is more or less perpetual.
This face right here is pretty motivating, too. If I don’t take this dog outside, how is he supposed to frolic joyfully and cover himself in snow?
It’s not that I don’t want to do the things I should be doing, it’s mostly just a matter of overcoming inertia. If it’s a choice between staying on my computer or running the dog, the choice is obvious because one of them’s entertaining and the other one’s going to leave me gasping like a landed fish. And then once I’ve dragged myself away from whatever is fascinating me on my computer screen to take the dog for a run, I have to spend the entire duration of our exercise making myself keep going when I’d really rather walk or stop or possibly collapse into a heap in the nearest pile of snow. (Trudeau does it all the time, it seems like fun.)
Still, I’m pretty serious about the running, I want to improve, I want to keep going, and it makes the dog so happy that he has like joy-seizures, so I drag myself out of the house for it. Plus, in cold weather like we’re having, it’s easier to keep warm at a run than at a walk. (Usually I can’t feel my face, but you don’t need your face for running, anyway.) I also motivate myself with a solid rewards system: I have a few good audiobooks on my MP3 player, most of them read by either by Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston, and which I am only allowed to listen to if I’m running. (As it turns out, beautiful voices murmuring in your ears while you exercise is really motivating and also kind of distracting. Not that I’ve jogged face-first into any lampposts or anything. Yet.)
Today was finally the breaking point of our long cold snap; I’d been pondering a movie matinee but I didn’t want to waste the weather, so I resolved to at least take the dog for a short run. Between my hectic holiday work schedule and my traditional end of year being-sick-a-thon, I hadn’t gone running in at least a month. Trudeau was absolutely beside himself when we headed for our usual running route, but I wasn’t doing so awesome. I managed to turn my ankle just crossing the street before we even got to the park, which is probably why as soon as I started carefully picking up the pace, my knee started making its own contributions of weakness and shooting pain. I ran it off like every one of my gym teachers ever have wisely advised, and for most of our run — which really I should call a “slow meander” because I was trying to ease back into it — I was doing pretty good. Around the halfway point, everything started to hurt and I really, really wanted to stop running.
And then I found my motivation.
There hadn’t been anybody at all out and about on the walking path, but suddenly Trudeau started craning his neck back behind us and generally acting like a psycho, which is usually a sign that somebody in the vicinity has a dog and Trudeau thinks he needs to fight it. I looked back and there was nothing there. So I urged Trudeau on, but I don’t know if you realize this, it’s really difficult to keep up a steady pace when there’s a 110-lb jackass on the other end of the leash displaying behavior that’s usually only seen on Jersey Shore. So I turned to look again, and this time I saw what Trudeau was so worried about: a big black lab sprinting after us through the snowy field beside the trail, right across the frozen pond.
I found my second wind, dropped a few dog biscuits on the trail in hopes that our follower would get distracted, and we ran for it. Every time I thought we’d lost him, the little bastard would turn up again, keeping a careful distance but running for us flat-out every time we started to pull away.
For all I know that dog was running after us shouting the doggy version of “Let me love you!” but he was a good 80 pounds and didn’t appear to be neutered and frankly, unleashed dogs are the bane of my very existence in any case. They might be perfectly friendly, but Trudeau has a talent for being so offensive to other dogs that even the saints among them want to give him a beating, and the last thing I want to deal with basically ever is a dog fight and the vet bills that are always sure to follow.
So I dropped more dog biscuits to slow him down, and he probably thought it was all a great game where I run like hell and he gets dog biscuits, but that all ended when I turned and stood my ground, shouted at him that he was a very bad dog and go home, and started lobbing snow balls. At which point the lab looked at me like I had crushed all of his dreams, like he thought we were bros, man, and then he turned and wandered back the way he came, like it was all fine and he didn’t want to hang out with us anyway.
I was relieved to finally be rid of him, but then I realized I was back at the entrance to the park, and I’d run my entire route without hardly thinking about the agony, and then I wondered if maybe I could convince that lab to terrify me regularly, if only I could bring along enough dog biscuits.
As a continuation of my previous post with some recommendations on gifts for the horse people in your life, I thought I’d do a follow-up since it’s now officially gift-buying season and let’s face it, horse people are simply not getting any easier to buy for. As per usual, my suggestions are handmade items, and I urge you to support artists and crafters directly, because they’re awesome and they could use your business. With this post, I’m going to concentrate specifically on the kinds of gifts you’re not likely to be able to buy from the equine catalogs: gifts that you can have customized or personalized to make them one of a kind. Horse people are seriously hard to shop for, but we also appreciate the personal touch… like when you remember our horse’s name. And let’s face it, we are delighted with anything at all that has our horse’s name on it. Below is my latest Etsy treasury of customizable horse gifts; you can also check out the treasury directly on Etsy if you’d prefer.
I make my own personalized or generic horse, donkey, and mule ornaments out of wire and sell them on Etsy; you can find my shop at Bright Strange Things on Etsy. I can customize ornaments to try to match specific horse colors and breeds, or to symbolize particular riding disciplines. I also sell photo prints and sometimes t-shirts, and am working on some new lines of products, so I hope you’ll also give my shop a look, and check out some of the sellers above when you’re shopping for Christmas, birthdays, horsiversaries, or any other equine-related gift-giving occasion.
My dog Trudeau is a constant source of bewilderment to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty good with animals. At least, I think I am, if I judge myself by the standards I’ve developed from watching It’s Me or the Dog and My Cat From Hell. Admittedly, I might be skewing my sample about what constitutes an average pet owner by only comparing myself to people who are in such desperately bad situations with their pets that they have to go on television before the nation and admit that they’re the worst pet owners ever. At least it’s good for my self-esteem.
It’s just that reading an animal, at least on a basic level, isn’t that hard. I’ve always thought it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between a horse’s “oh yes, please scratch me there” face and its “if you touch me there I am seriously going to bite you in your most sensitive and squishy bits” face. A cat will clearly tell you whether it is pleased with your attentions as its minion or whether it’s about to scratch your face off as punishment for your impertinence, and it can communicate that with nothing but the tip of its tail. Dogs are even easier, because their happiness involves full-body wriggling and tail-wagging while their “I am so freaked out I might try to bite your jugular” body posture tends to be unsettling in a way that our human hindbrains can recognize as an impending wolf attack.
This is the expression that means he’s pining for the fjords.
It’s not like Trudeau himself should be all that complex a puzzle, anyway. He’s not by nature neurotic or hyper or mean or moody. Sure, with some of those ultra-intelligent herding breeds you end up expending so much energy just trying to keep them busy that eventually you find yourself thinking that it wouldn’t be that hard to teach your dog to play Scrabble. And anyway, Scrabble is the last of your worries because you’re starting to suspect that while you’re at work, he’s building a nuclear reactor in the basement. Trudeau is decidedly not one of those dogs. He’s mild-mannered, eager to please, quite trainable, and overall pleasant (unless you’re another dog, in which case he’d like for you to come closer so he can punch you in the face but he might warm up when he gets to know you better). He’s usually pretty low-maintenance. Usually.
The problem is simply that we don’t speak the same language, and this leads to frustration on everybody’s part. Like, sometimes I’ll be doing my thing, chilling on the couch with my laptop watching cat videos on the Internet or whatever it is people do (people being me, it usually involves staring at pictures of Tom Hiddleston and making whimpering noises), and Trudeau will come stick his head all up in my business, which I’m pretty sure he finds funny because of the squawking sounds I make while I’m desperately trying to keep his drool and my keyboard from meeting one another. In any event, this sort of aggressive affection is international Trudeau-speak for “I want something and I want it too badly to be polite about it right now so can we just set aside the Canadian prime minister jokes and please get on this issue right now.” I’m totally magnanimous, I can rise to the occasion and refrain from making cracks about Canadians and politeness, obviously. The problem is working out what the “something” is that he’s so desperate for.
Most of the time it’s not complicated: he wants to go out, or he thinks it’s his mealtime regardless of whether it’s anywhere near his actual mealtime. (He recognizes that time is not linear and is rather a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey… stuff. Which means it should always be dinner time.) But when he’s just been for a nice long walk an hour ago, followed up by a trick-training session to exercise his mind, a rousing game of “find the treats I have hidden around the house,” and a delicious supper, it’s kind of hard to think of what else he might need. And since he doesn’t actually speak English, except for a few key words like “sit,” “stay,” “roll over,” and “outside,” he can’t even give me the nod when I’ve hit the right item on a whole list of potential answers. I usually rattle them off aloud anyway, because it makes me feel like I’m being proactive about the situation. When “outside” fails to elicit any sort of obviously enthusiastic response, I’m forced to get more creative.
He may try to convince you that he’s never been on a walk before while you are in fact still in the middle of taking him for a walk. Do not believe his lies.
Does he want a snuggle? Is he just trying to weasel his way onto the couch? Maybe he’s distressed that I’ve moved the ottoman to where I can put my feet up on it and have therefore screwed up the room’s feng shui? Is Timmy down the well? Is he concerned about the situation in Gaza? Am I neglecting him? Does he feel like his life is passing him by and he’s not achieving any of his dreams and he’s only just realized that he’s never going to be able to start that woodworking business he’s always dreamed of because he doesn’t have thumbs? Is it just a general sense of ennui? Does he want to discuss his feelings? Do we need to hug it out?
Usually I end up trying at least a few of my more practical suggestions, like giving him a hug or relocating to the floor so I’m in a better position for snuggling if that’s he needs. I’d offer to buy him a lathe or something so he could hone his woodworking skills but honestly I think it would all just end in tears. I try explaining that to him gently while he just stares at me, getting more and more frustrated, expressing his dire and all-consuming need for something by decorating me with streaks of drool.
Once we’ve dispensed with this ritual, I’m usually flabbergasted enough to try the things I’ve already ruled out, and since he’s never actually succeeded in convincing me that I haven’t actually given him dinner yet, I usually end up taking him outside, where it quickly becomes apparent that at some point he has slurped down his entire very large bowl full of water and does, indeed, need to relieve himself again. Or he just needed a nice wallow on his back in the grass. Or he was dying to try to make friends with a neighborhood squirrel. (Not normal friends, though. Murder friends. Trudeau is not pro-squirrel.)
Mostly, I think it’s just a test he likes to conduct occasionally, to make sure my obedience training is coming along: he wants to make sure that he’s still able to convince me to take him outside on demand for no apparently obvious reason. Which actually is okay with me, because I live in fear of the day that he truly realizes how quickly he can get me off the couch and out the door just by hacking like he’s about to toss his proverbial cookies. I don’t think my nerves could take it.
If you ask me, having to buy a present for a horse person is a massive pain in the hindquarters. As a horse person myself, I understand the dilemma. Every horse-crazy individual probably has a massive wish list of tack, equipment, adorable knick-knacks and sassy barn signs that they’d like to add to their already equine-heavy lives, but it tends to be a very specific list, and even for a fellow horse person it can be impossible to get right. For somebody who doesn’t know a manure fork from a salad fork, buying anything horsey can be downright impossible. Tack is easy enough to rule out: it’s usually expensive, requires specific measurements, and isn’t worth bothering with as a gift if you don’t know exactly what you’re buying. The same problem crops up with more mundane items. Does your giftee prefer flat halters or rope halters? Does she use only one specific brand and shun all others? Is this muck bucket you found in the tack store the kind she loves because they last longer than a week, or the kind she’s always cursing because they break if you so much as look at them funny? Will his horse eat carrot-flavored treats or does he only like the peppermint ones? It all gets a bit fraught after awhile.
The obvious route, then, is horse-themed items of a less practical nature. Horse people seem to be pretty happy with any gift featuring an equine, and entering their homes you’re likely to see Breyer horses on the bookshelves and horse photos on the walls and pony silhouettes on the bedspreads. Even those get tiresome, though, when you notice that pretty much every horse equipment catalog carries exactly the same collection of apparel and home decor. (I do want to offer a brief tip of the hat, however, to Back in the Saddle, which tends to offer a wider and much more interesting selection of these sorts of goods than your standard everything-horses catalog. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to offer them up in the comments!)
For my own part, I no longer buy gifts for the horse lovers in my life through catalogs. In fact, I’ve taken to buying handmade items directly from artists, usually through Etsy.com. I have an Etsy shop of my own where I sell some pretty sweet little horsey items (I’ll get into a little shameless self-promotion later), but as a buyer I love Etsy purely because you can find something completely original, that your giftee didn’t even know existed, and you can directly support crafters and artists by buying from them. I’ll also highlight here a few services and whatnot that I think are highly underrated as gifts, but my aim here is entirely to expose you to some awesome new stuff that you might want to buy for your friends or for yourself. I’ll likely post a few more lists like this one as we draw nearer the holidays, so if you have a favorite seller of equine goods or are a seller yourself and you’d like me to check out your stuff, please feel free to offer it up in the comments.
I’d like to also point out that I don’t know any of the sellers mentioned, have not dealt with most of these vendors or products personally, and have received no freebies or anything else for my endorsements. I just think the items and services listed here are awesome. And now, without further ado:
Five Awesome and Unique Gifts for Horse Lovers, In No Particular Order
As services go, I think Giddyupflix is one of the coolest inventions of all time. As the name implies, it’s essentially Netflix for horse people, and their selection of available DVDs is so diverse that it doesn’t particularly matter which specific brands of horsemanship your giftee likes most, they’ll be able to find a staggering number of rentals to choose from. This is also a particularly thrifty gift since with horsemanship videos, a single disc can cost three or four times as much as you’d pay to buy your favorite new Hollywood release on DVD. This way your giftee can explore topics of interest to them specifically — whether they want to learn about horseshoeing or trick training, rawhide braiding or wild horse taming, showjumping or mounted shooting — without spending a fortune. Unfortunately the service is only available in the US and Canada, though, so if your giftee resides outside those countries, you might want to take a look at the rest of the list for some other suggestions. Cost: From $10.95/month to rent one disc at a time to $26.95/month for four discs at a time. When purchasing a gift membership, you can decide what level of membership you’d like to gift and for how long a duration, so this is a great flexible gift as far as cost goes.
Store-bought etched glass has nothing on the beauty of Carol Koch’s hand-painted pieces. The first time I saw Carol’s work on Etsy I fell in love with the bright colors and the beautiful motion in her paintings. She has a wide range of different types of glassware available, from votive candle holders to wine glasses to Christmas ornaments and suncatchers. There’s also something for all kinds of breeds and disciplines, from Gypsy Vanners to show jumpers. Cost: Prices range from about $15 for smaller and individual pieces to around $100 for larger pieces and matched sets of glassware.
Normally I’m against this kind of thing. I particularly loathe the fly masks that are painted to look like sunglasses. It’s a thing I have. This, though? This is hilarious. This is one of the best things I have seen ever. It’s cute enough not to look totally humiliating and it’s also made in a great vibrant orange that makes it good safety-wear for hunting season. Mostly I just want to see every well-dressed foxhunting pair sporting this stylish ear covering. Just think! Foxhunters won’t even need dogs, they can sneak up on the foxes with cunning disguises! EquiEars also sells other custom fly bonnets and and they’ll even personalize with monogramming and appliques and whatnot, so be sure to check out the entire shop! Cost: $40, plus shipping
You can buy all sorts of pre-made horsehair designs, including bracelets, earrings, necklaces, zipper pulls, and keychains. You can also have items custom-made with your own horse’s hair, which is a particularly great memorial for a beloved companion who has passed on. There are a variety of different designs and different sorts of braids and knotwork available, with both intricate and simple options available, and you have your choice of different beads, ornaments, pendants, and colors to make your own piece truly unique. The artist sells gift certificates as well, which is a great option particularly if you aren’t able to order far enough in advance for Christmas or whatever gift-giving occasion you’re after. Cost: Prices range from around $15-25 for something simple like a zipper pull, up to $50-90 for necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
I’m a huge fan of vinyl wall art. I love that it doesn’t damage your walls and it’s a great way to give a room a little extra decoration, especially if you’re a renter and you don’t want to deal with painting and repainting. It’s also great for people like me who like to change their lives by rearranging their rooms. Vinyl art is easy to apply and easy to remove, and you can do just about anything with it. There are a lot of vinyl artists on Etsy so there’s a pretty staggering array of vinyl available if you search for what you’re after, but one of my favorites is aluckyhorseshoe because this particular shop has a great variety of different horse-themed art available, some with customization options, and a portion of their proceeds goes to help support horse rescue.
Cost: About $20-40, depending on the size of the art.
I’ve been working on my own line of products, mostly horse-related, which I sell in my own Etsy shop, Bright Strange Things. I have a bunch of new stuff in development, but at the moment my most popular products by far are the Christmas tree ornaments I make out of copper wire. They’re pretty awesome if I say so myself; I make them in a variety of colors and poses, and their little legs swing like they’re running when you touch them. They make great year-round decoration too, as a hanging ornament from your rear-view mirror or wherever else you can find to hang them. Maybe your ornate crystal chandelier, I don’t even know. They’re classy as hell, is what I’m saying. Check out my shop for pre-made ornaments, and the option to order a custom-made piece in your choice of colors and poses, or if you’re after something else, I also have a variety of photo prints and a few t-shirts on hand, so I hope you’ll take a look!
If you have favorite handmade sellers, if you make horse-themed items yourself, or if you just have really strong opinions about decoupage, please share your thoughts in the comments!
I love the Internet. I love the Internet so much that I try not to remember the world before we had constant access to information at our literal fingertips, because as much as I love libraries, before the Internet it was quite difficult to find an answer to a question like “do pigs have half-hour orgasms?” in under thirty seconds, and I feel like we ought to be justifiably proud in our achievements in this area. The bizarre reproductive systems of animals should be information we can access in the blink of an eye, by god!
Unfortunately, this glorious system has its downsides, particularly if you’re on Facebook or if you have a gullible relative who sees fit to forward you any email which has clearly already been forwarded at least twenty times. Because our ability to share information at lightning speeds means we also have the ability to disseminate completely false information with equal rapidity. Sometimes even with greater rapidity, because what’s easier than hitting the “share” button and watching all those “likes” roll in? (It’s sort of like playing with Monopoly money, except you can’t even buy imaginary assets with it.) Why would anyone complicate this process by Googling to find out whether what you’re sharing is accurate?
This is on my mind in particular this morning because of a chain message that’s been making the rounds on Facebook which has been making my inner fact-checker twitch, and since my Googling didn’t turn up any handy collection of clarifications on these points, I thought instead of a featured creature this week, I’d run down this list for my own satisfaction. Because I kind of can’t help myself. So, here’s the entire text that’s going around Facebook, and then we’ll address each point one at a time. Doesn’t that sound like a fun learning experience? I thought so too.
A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (O.M.G.!!!) A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy. I’m still not over the pig.) The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. (Honey, I’m home . What the…?) The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?) The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?) Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still can’t believe that pig …quality over quantity.) Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.) Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (Okay, so that would be a good thing.) A cat’s urine glows under a black light. (I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out.) An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.) Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that, too.) Polar bears are left-handed. (Talk about a southpaw.) Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig? Do the dolphins know about the pig?)” – Unknown
So, there it is. I expect that many of these will turn out to be partially true, and I know some are not really correct at all, but we’ll see what we can find, and we’ll certainly all be better informed at the end of the process.
Awwwww yes, this is how we do it in Denmark. Girl, I’mma inseminate you so good.
A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
As far as I can discern, this item is possibly true but somewhat disingenuous. I can’t really find any research that indicates 30 minutes as average rather than the absolute upper range of time for pig sex, but also because it implies that both parties are having a similarly good time, like pigs are having amazing tantric sex or something. We can assume that this 30-minutes idea is based on a boar’s ejaculation, which really can go on at great length (5-10 minutes seems to be an average, though 30 minutes would certainly seem possible with multiple ejaculations) and can produce a staggering half-litre of fluid. Good lord, pigs. In her TED Talk “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm,” Mary Roach discusses an interesting fact on why we ought to also be concerned with more than just the boar’s pleasure: pig farms in Denmark have found that when artificially inseminating sows, they can prompt the sows to produce more offspring by sexually stimulating the sows while they’re being inseminated. (The five-point stimulation plan for sows is seriously hilarious. Just watch the TED Talk, it is so worth it, I am not even kidding.) It’s not all bad for the sow, at least; while it’s fair to assume that she probably doesn’t enjoy the sex act with quite the vigor that the boar does, she at least gets something out of the deal, since her clitoris is in fact located inside her vagina, and thus she does get to experience an orgasm herself, which is more than many poor women of our own species can say. So I’m going to call this item partially true, but exaggerated; the sex lives of pigs are undoubtedly fascinating, but a half-hour orgasm seems to be more of a remarkable feat than a regular event.
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. True, but this factoid underestimates the ability of cockroaches to keep creeping us out even after being decapitated, because nine days is nothing. They can, in fact, continue to live for weeks after losing their heads. They don’t breathe through their heads, nor do they bleed out the way mammals do, nor do they need to have a brain for the body to continue functioning. Starvation would eventually spell the end for a headless cockroach, but if they’ve had a good meal recently, pre-decapitation, the body can keep on for quite some time, moving around and reacting to touch. And if that wasn’t creepy enough, the decapitated head can go on about its business for some hours, too.
Here we have a male praying mantis, enjoying himself some copulation, with his head still attached. Whether he managed the dismount without being eaten is not noted. (Photo by Zwentibold, used under Creative Commons license from WikiCommons.)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male’s head off. Totally not true. While female praying mantises do sometimes cannibalize their mates, it certainly isn’t the case that mating isn’t possible without decapitation. The origins of this misconception are most likely a series of old studies in which scientists observed female mantises devouring their mating partners, but later studies didn’t offer up the same results; in fact, it’s likely that the females in the original study were stressed by laboratory conditions or were not fed enough. How frequently the males perish when mating naturally in the wild is difficult to say, because the disturbance of being observed seems to have a serious impact on the behavior of the mantises in question. The incidence of sexual cannibalism in mantises seems to still be a subject of some debate among entomologists, but apparently males are able to recognize when they stand a risk of being eaten and are suitably cautious, while a female who is well-fed before mating will usually show no interest at all in biting anybody’s head off. It is true, however, that even once a female has bitten his head off, the male’s body will continue to mate with her — more vigorously, even — despite his state of headlessness. He probably learned that trick from the cockroaches.
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It’s like a human jumping the length of a football field. False, I think? Most of the sources I’ve found say they can jump about 200 times their body length, which isn’t as impressive, and isn’t a terribly accurate measurement either. On average they can manage about 13 inches with a single leap which is still pretty awesome, if only they weren’t such horrible, horrible little creatures. Biomechanically speaking they’re pretty mind-blowing though, as this article on BBC Earth News explains:
It was known that the energy to catapult a flea over a distance up to 200 times its body length lay in a spring-like structure in its body.
But scientists did not understand how they transferred this energy to the ground in order to jump.
High-speed footage now reveals that the secret lies in the way fleas use their hind legs as multi-jointed levers.
This “lever-effect” allows fleas to drive their feet onto the ground, and the sudden release of the “coiled spring” hurls the insect forwards and upwards, scientists report in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. True. This inadequately explains how rad that is, because their tastebuds are distributed all over their bodies, so they’re sort of like a giant, swimming tongue. Which really is a great argument for why we probably shouldn’t dump so much crap in our rivers, it probably tastes awful. Save the waterways, people. For the sake of the catfish.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day. Okay, before we even get to the frequency of mating I want to point out something about lion mating, which is that the male lion’s penis is fucking barbed. Barbed. I mean Jesus, what is this shit. Animal kingdom, why don’t you do something for the ladies for once? Why is nature all about screwing the women over? As far as the fifty times a day claim, they saved themselves on that one with “some lions.” Average is apparently 20-40 times a day so I’d imagine some overachievers manage fifty times a day. They must be exhausted when they’re through, and the lionesses ought to be rewarded with like a spa day at the end of it all.
The female lion does not appear to be amused by this shit. (Photo by Bob Fabry, used under Creative Commons license, from WikiCommons.)
Butterflies taste with their feet. True fact, in fact. When butterflies are trying to figure out where to lay their eggs, they can tell just by landing on a leaf whether their eventual caterpillar offspring would find it delicious. It’s probably a time-saver, since they don’t have to sit around chewing bits off of leaves like they’re sampling wedding cakes. It’s probably kind of a rad superpower to have, until you landed on like a manure pile or something. But it’s not quite as impressive when you consider that during chrysalis they turn themselves into a cell soup and then make themselves into an entirely new organism. What is this witchcraft?!
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. Apparently it’s true that elephants can’t jump; they just aren’t built for it, and it wouldn’t help them escape predators when instead of jumping they can just trample you to death. But any statement that claims “X is the ONLY animal that…” automatically makes me suspicious, and saying that elephants are the only creatures in all the animal kingdom that can’t jump is simply too broad a claim for me. How about snails? Clams? Sloths? Starfish? Jellyfish? Blobfish? It’s difficult to find any definitive statements on which animals may be physically incapable of jumping since so many of them simply don’t jump, ever, because it would be pointless and also silly, but I do think assigning the sole honor of a non-acrobatic life to elephants is going to too far. Speaking of silly, if you’d like to see what it might look like if elephants did jump, you can watch this lovely animated short of an elephant on a trampoline. Just tell everyone that it’s for science.
A cat’s urine glows under a black light. This is true, and actually kind of handy if you’re trying to rid a house of the horrific odor of cat urine. However, it’s not that terribly interesting a fact because it’s also true of many other fluids, both animal and non-animal in origin. Human urine will also glow in damning brightness under blacklight — as Chef Ramsay often likes to demonstrate — so I don’t know what makes cats think they’re so special. A UV light may also reveal traces of semen, blood, saliva, or sweat, and many objects and substances will fluoresce under UV light for any number of reasons, but these include petroleum jelly, laundry detergent, tonic water, and all sorts of other boring things. It does look good on crime shows, though.
Baby, you got such big beautiful eyes that allow you to see predators from a great distance thus ensuring your longevity and the continuation of your damn fine genes. (Photo by A. Kniesel, under Creative Commons license.)
An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. True! This is not so much a statement on the ostrich’s intelligence — though they aren’t renowned for their remarkable brain power — but rather on the environment in which it is most suited to survive. While its eye-to-brain ration isn’t that bad in comparison to other birds, try not to think of it as incredibly small-brained so much as incredibly large-eyed (the largest eye on any land vertebrate, apparently); the size of its eyes (each is about two inches in diameter) gives it great long-range vision, combined with the heightened vantage point of its long neck, helps it immensely in its quest to not be eaten and die a horrible, horrible death. Which frankly seems like an admirable pursuit to me. (And while we’re on the subject of ostriches, I hope everybody realizes by now that they don’t actually hide their heads and think you can’t see them. That myth was probably started by Roman “historian” Pliny the Elder, who as far as I can tell spent most of his writing time drunk off his ass because nothing that jerk says is ever true.) Ostriches get kind of a bad rap, let’s be honest. Everybody thinks they’re stupid and we find it hilarious to watch people ride them, but just for perspective’s sake, you should know that they can run faster than you, the male ostrich has a scientifically important 8-inch phallus, and they are pretty much epic kickboxers. So I’m just saying, laugh all you like, but I wouldn’t fuck with an ostrich because they will mess your shit up.
Starfish have no brains. Not entirely true, and not very fair to the starfish. True, if you were facing an army of zombie starfish and you were trying to destroy their brains so they couldn’t feast on you, you might have a hard time knowing where to aim, but really I don’t think zombie starfish should be very high on your list of things to worry about. In essence, a starfish’s entire nervous system acts as its brain, which if you think about it is kind of awesome. Let us take a moment to just appreciate the humble starfish, okay? Because starfish do not need to take this bullshit. If you cut off a starfish’s arm, it can grow a new one. They can grip onto things using their very own adhesive chemicals, so basically they make their own glue. They don’t need to have sex to make babies because sex is so totally passé. They have their own internal hydraulics to move around with. When a starfish is hungry it doesn’t have to eat things smaller than its mouth — instead it can devour shit like clams and fish — because it can eject one of its stomachs and turn its prey into delicious prey-soup. That’s how badass they are. So let’s give a little respect to the starfish before they decide to join the jellyfish army and put an end to us all, okay?
Polar bears are left-handed. That is just fucking ridiculous. What do we think polar bears do with their time, anyway? It’s not like they can hold a fountain pen. They’re not out there on the polar ice practicing their fastball. They don’t even have hands. God, why are we even having this conversation? Okay, here are actual facts: there is no science to support this idea, nor has anyone managed to hunt down whoever started that stupid rumor and kill them with a trained polar bear, more’s the pity. (It was probably the asshole Pliny the Elder. That guy’s definition of “facts” was “shit I made up because I was too busy doing other stuff to actually learn anything.”) In fact, the only research I could find on the subject indicates that injuries seem to be more common to the right forelimb, which might indicate more of a tendency toward right-pawedness, or might indicate nothing at all because that study is actually about vitamin deficiencies in captive bears so who the fuck knows. In case you’re secretly harboring any other ridiculous ideas about polar bears, Polar Bears International actually has an entire page just about myths and misconceptions regarding polar bears, so please read it. You will find it enlightening and fascinating, and if you don’t, you can instead go watch this video of a baby polar bear riding around on its mom’s back and experience a drastic reduction in your stress levels. Because I’m sure that you, too, feel frustrated and annoyed by the persistence of stupid made-up “facts” about polar bears.
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
So. Patently. Untrue. This is so untrue it makes me sad. Like, if the first item on this list were completely true and pigs actually had glorious 30-minute orgasms you’d think they’d be having sex for pleasure too. In fact, all sorts of animals have been demonstrated to have sex for what we would call pleasure, which for simplicity’s sake I will call non-reproductive. Just about every permutation of sexuality and sexual behavior that has been seen in humans has also been documented somewhere, somehow, in animals. Bisexuality, orgies, self-stimulation, homosexuality, heterosexuality, autoeroticism, stimulation with objects, rape, sex with dead animals, prostitution, fetishism, the list goes on on and on and on. Literally. This Wikipedia entry on animal sexual behavior is a pretty good place to start if you’d like to have your mind blown. Since dolphins are particularly mentioned here, I feel like it’s also my duty to point out that a dolphin’s idea of pleasure usually involves gang rape and sexual slavery. They also enjoy long swims near the beach and some nice infanticide.
But since we’re talking about sex for pleasure, let’s talk specifically about bonobos. Because how in the name of all that is holy can you talk about sex for pleasure without talking about bonobos? Bonobo chimps have sexual practices for every occasion. There’s sex to say hello or to resolve conflicts or to say I’m sorry. If they find an awesome new food source they’ll have a celebratory orgy. Bonobos are not at all monogamous and don’t particularly care what age or gender their sexual partners are, either. Aside from all the homosexual contact, which clearly is not for purposes of reproduction, they also enjoy all sorts of sexual positions that don’t result in offspring, either. They enjoy kissing with tongue and oral sex and occasionally the males like to do something called “penis fencing.” Yeah, it’s really called that. I won’t link you to any of the youtube videos with bonobos having enthusiastic and undoubtedly pleasurable sex, but I’m sure you can find them on your own, if you’re so inclined.
And it’s not just sex, either. We like to think of animals as slightly mindless and driven by their various urges for survival and perpetuation of the species, but I hope we’ve all realized by now — particularly since science is providing us with solid proof — that all sorts of animals engage in all sorts of behaviors just for the fun of it. They have rich, complex lives of their own, and it’s not like they stop existing when we aren’t watching, so let’s all just take a moment to get over ourselves.
And sure, maybe my idea of fun is exhaustive Internet fact-checking, which is decidedly less exciting than a bonobo’s idea of a good time, but I hope that you’ve found this excursion into pedantry entertaining, and I do hope you’ll think about doing a little research of your own the next time you feel inclined to hit the share button this kind of bullshit. I mean Jesus, how could they forget about the bonobo orgies? Fucking amateurs.
My local zoo recently opened a new “Rocky Shores” exhibit, which was enough of an excuse for me to go again and take some more pictures. The new exhibit, which houses the sort of animals you might see at various points on the Pacific coastline, including otters, seals, and polar bears, is a pretty sweet set-up, particularly with the various underwater views it offers. Hogle Zoo is a very small zoo and I remember it from my childhood with a kind of horror — it wasn’t that awful and I remember the animals being in good shape, but it was a small zoo of its era, complete with big cats in little cages, the elephants on a nearly featureless concrete pad, and other habitats completely unsuitable, and going there on school field trips kind of put me off zoos in general for the next ten years — but I’m incredibly pleased with the efforts they’ve made since to update the zoo and improve the exhibits for the animals. Rocky Shores is a step in the right direction, and the concept drawings for the African Savannah exhibit they’re planning to open in 2014 looks quite good, as well. I have very little commentary to offer, but I did take a lot of pictures of the new exhibit and around the zoo in general, so I should like to present them without further ado:
One of the zoo’s extremely handsome tigers.
A golden lion tamarin
I seriously like golden lion tamarins. They look so silky and cuddly.
OH NO LOOK OUT SEAL YOUR FRIEND IS GOING TO EAT YOUR FACE
Yeah, I think the underwater seal viewing at Rocky Shores is pretty freaking sweet.
I don’t actually know what sort of animal this is. Maybe that’s why he was making that face at me.
The polar bear likes to entertain himself by diving into the water and swimming up right where the little kids gather at the glass to watch him. It’s obviously an incredibly compulsive repetitive behavior so it’s kind of simultaneously adorable and depressing.
I could’ve gotten some seriously sweet photos if it weren’t for reflections on the glass. So much regret. So much.
OTTERS. YOU GUYS. OTTERS.
The bald eagles now live in what looked like a slightly bigger enclosure than their old one, and they’ve been relocated to the Rocky Shores exhibit. Otherwise they’re basically the same as always. I can’t really remember from the interpretive signage but I’m fairly certain both are in the zoo because they’re severely injured in some way and won’t ever fly again.
The spoonbills live in the bird exhibit at the center of the small animal building. I just love them for some reason. They’re very photogenic.
Another of the birds in the small animal building. This one is apparently building something, or else he’s planning to use that leaf to repair somebody’s radiator or something like MacGyver.
Bighorn sheep are just kind of awesome. I was wondering about those things in front of his eyes so I looked them up and apparently they’re preorbital glands which the sheep use to secrete pheromones and other chemicals that they use for marking and communication. Rad.
This extremely large seal lives in the new Rocky Shores exhibit and is in fact larger than their resident polar bear. (To be fair, the polar bear is on the small side and I think he’s just a youngster still.) He’s blind and spends his day swimming in the same circle over and over again, since he knows the dimensions of the space.
Finally, I’ve managed to see the Amur Leopard! She’s beautiful. Or he. I don’t actually know. But beautiful, still.
I make my own personalized or generic horse, donkey, and mule ornaments out of wire and sell them on Etsy; you can find my shop at 
