Their humps store fat, not water

Contrary to popular belief, camel humps aren’t actually reservoirs of water. They are composed of dense fat and weigh up to 80 pounds. This stored fat allows camels to convert their humps into nutritional, backup generators when food is hard to come by.

By storing their fat in a single place on their backs, camels can release body heat more quickly from the other parts of their bodies. This helps prevent overheating in extreme conditions.

They have a complex ocular defense system

As camels need to protect their eyes from severe desert sandstorms, they have a unique built-in ocular defense mechanism. They have not one, but two rows of extra-long eyelashes that lock together to prevent blowing debris from getting into the eye.

Underneath these eyelashes is a third eyelid that’s semi-transparent (called a nictitating membrane) that sweeps horizontally across the eye like a windshield wiper, wiping away dust and still permitting enough light in for the camel to see where it’s going.

Their blood cells expand up to 240% without bursting

A camel can lose more than 30% of their total body water weight when severely dehydrated. This kind of dehydration would kill humans through heart failure or stroke. After going without water for so long, camels can drink up to 30 gallons of water in less than 10 minutes once they locate water.

Their red blood cells are oval instead of round, allowing the cells to flow easily when their blood is thick from dehydration and expand up to 240% their normal size to store the large amounts of water without bursting.

They excrete almost zero water

Camels are masters of moisture retention. Their kidneys excrete urine that is twice as salty as seawater, and reduced in volume until it’s syrupy.

Moreover, their intestinal tract squeezes every last particle of moisture from their food. As a result, camel dung is expelled completely dry, and Bedouin have traditionally used it right away for fires without having to dry it first.

Their nostrils can reabsorb their own breath

Inside a camel’s nostrils there are specialized, labyrinth-like scroll structures lined with hygroscopic mucous membranes.

During exhalation, moisture is absorbed out of warm exhaled air by these cool, dry membranes and stored inside the nose. Upon inhalation, the moisture is evaporated and drawn back into the lungs, thus conserving water which would otherwise be lost through breathing.

They can completely seal their nostrils

Unlike people, camels’ nostrils are muscular slits that they can voluntarily close completely.

When sandstorms are severe or when camels walk behind other animals in dusty caravans, they seal their nostrils shut in order to prevent fine sand and dust from entering their respiratory systems without interrupting their breathing patterns.

There are two main camel species

Not all camels are alike. Dromedary camels have one hump and are the camel most people think of when they imagine a Middle Eastern or North African desert.

Bactrian camels have two humps and are native to Central Asia’s cold deserts. Wild Bactrian camels are critically endangered and a different species than domesticated Bactrian camels. They are among the rarest large mammals on Earth.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Camel | Description, Humps, Food, Types, Adaptations
2. Camel

Blue whales can drop their heart rate to two beats a minute

Blue whales can dramatically slow their heart rate while diving deep into the ocean in search of food. The whale’s heart can weigh 400 pounds, and when it dives, its heart can beat as few as 2 to 8 times per minute.

Slowing their heart rate allows more blood to flow to the brain and muscles while conserving oxygen.

Sperm whale clicks are the loudest biological sounds on Earth

The clicks of sperm whales are measured at over 230 decibels in volume underwater, making them the loudest animal sound produced on the planet. These clicks are produced when sperm whales force air through nasal passages in their head, which works like sonar. The energy released by sperm whale clicks is powerful enough to cause human tissue to vibrate.

Humpback whale songs evolve and spread across entire oceans

Male humpback whales in any given ocean area all sing identical, complex vocalizations during breeding seasons. These songs can last up to 20 minutes before they repeat themselves.

Scientists have found that these songs change gradually over time as small mutations or new styles become popular within a region. When a new song develops, it seems to spread like wildfire to adjacent populations of whales throughout entire oceanic basins.

Bowhead whales can live for over two centuries

Bowhead whales hold the record for mammalian lifespan. They can live past 200 years with relative ease. Scientists were able to determine their impressive age by finding old stone and ivory harpoon tips lodged deep inside their blubber from when they were attacked by humans over a century ago.

Bowheads survive in frigid Arctic climates and can live so long due in part to mutations which give them extraordinary DNA repair capabilities. They also appear to be very resistant to age-related diseases.

A blue whale’s tongue weighs as much as an elephant

An adult blue whale’s tongue is huge and weighs about 2.7 metric tons (3.0 US tons). An adult Asian elephant weighs about the same. When engulfing large volumes of krill-rich seawater, the tongue flattens, expanding the mouth into a cavernous pouch roughly equal to its body weight in volume before pressing the water out through its baleen plates.

Orcas hunt great white sharks just for their livers

Some pods of orcas hunt great white sharks. They engage in tactical maneuvers to ambush sharks and knock them into an upside-down position. This temporarily paralyzes the shark, in a phenomenon known as tonic immobility.

Once the shark is helpless, the orcas mutilate the shark by ripping open its chest cavity and consume its fatty liver, which contains significant deposits of squalene. Orcas often leave the rest of the shark carcass untouched.

Humpback whales blow bubble nets to trap their prey

Humpback whales display sophisticated cooperative behaviour on a regular basis during a feeding strategy known as “bubble-net feeding”. One or more whales swim below a school of fish or krill, then swim upward in a shrinking spiral while blowing bubbles from their blowholes.

Panicked prey do not dare pass through the cylinder of bubbles, trapping themselves in a tight ball at the surface where the whales can then leap out of the water with their mouths open and gulp them down.

Gray whales swim the distance to the Moon and back

Gray whales have one of the longest annual migrations of any mammal. Their roundtrip journeys can cover 12,000 miles from their cool summer feeding grounds in the Arctic to their warm winter breeding lagoons in Mexico.

In a normal 70- to 80-year lifespan, a gray whale will travel about 800,000 miles on its annual migrations, a distance similar to traveling to the Moon and back.

Sperm whales sleep vertically in the ocean

Sperm whales do not sleep lying down like land mammals. Instead, they drift vertically near the surface of the ocean, in a state of semi-consciousness called drift sleep, completely still and unresponsive, without moving to sleep.

Sleep periods typically only last 10–15 minutes. During these periods, the whales neither breathe nor move.

Whales are natural climate engineers

Whales have an important effect on ocean ecosystems worldwide through a process called “whale pump”. Since whales dive deep to feed and return to the surface to breathe and defecate, their feces deposit large amounts of iron, nitrogen, and phosphorus-enriched material into the sunlit upper ocean layers.

Whale feces fertilize phytoplankton, microscopic marine plants that take up huge quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and generate over 50% of the world’s oxygen.

Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.

1. Blue whales: Heartbeat reduces to 2 beats per minute when feeding
2. Loudest animal sound
3. Humpback Whales Pass Their Songs Across Oceans
4. A blue whale’s tongue weighs the same as an elephant
5. How humpback whales use bubbles as a tool
6. Which whale undertakes the longest migration?
7. Behavior Sleeping – Sperm Whales
8. Sciencespeak: Whale Pump
9. Biological Information for the Whale

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Sea otter

Scientists counted the hair on sea otters and found that they can have up to 140,000 hairs in a single square centimeter. That’s denser than any other mammal we’ve ever studied. In fact, a sea otter’s underhairs are so fine at 7.6 to 11.9 microns across that water can’t touch their skin.  One micron is around 0.00003937 inches, so those hairs are rather small.

Platypus

Yes, a platypus looks odd, but its coat is rather impressive. Each square millimeter carries 600 to 900 hairs & traps a layer of air that keeps it warm while it dives. That’s roughly 60,000 to 90,000 hairs per square centimeter. It’s quite important, as they need to stay underwater for long periods without losing body heat.

Vicuña

You probably haven’t heard of the vicuña. It’s a wild relative of the llama & it has fibers so fine they average only 12 to 13 microns wide. Interestingly, research has shown that these animals have incredible uniformity across herds in Peru & Chile, with each staple of fleece being about 31 mm long. This gives their fiber its smooth, almost silk-like look.

Musk ox

Beneath a musk ox’s shaggy coat, they have something called a qiviut, which is an underwool that insulates the animal against Arctic winters. Qiviut fibers are only 17.5–18.2 microns thick on average & researchers discovered that females usually have slightly finer samples than males. That’s quite different from their coarse guard hairs, which can be ten times as thick.

Angora rabbit

Breeders & textile researchers measured the fibers of the Angora rabbit and found that it’s usually between 12.4 and 14.1 microns. So what’s the secret to their softness? Well, the size is just as important as the structure because the down fibers have little to no medulla, which is the central core in hair. This makes the fur flexible & springy.

Cashmere goat

Cashmere goats produce an undercoat that’s between 15.6 and 19.5 microns in diameter. However, some breeds, especially in Inner Mongolia, can go as low as 13.8 microns. The sex & age can affect the hair’s diameter, and so can the climate. But the cashmere itself is hidden under a rougher outer coat. These animals shed it naturally each spring.

Common eider

In northern communities, eider ducks are famous for their down because it behaves differently from goose or duck down. Each barbule has tiny prongs that hook together & form clusters that cling without stitching. In fact, these clusters spring back into shape and insulate the eider evenly, so it’s no surprise it’s known as one of nature’s strongest soft materials.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. An Analysis of California Sea Otter (ENHYDRA LUTRIS) Pelage and Integument
2. The sensory world of the platypus
3. Fibre characteristics of vicuña (Vicugna vicugna mensalis)
4. Fiber characteristics of qiviut and guard hair from wild muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus)
5. Characteristics of Angora rabbit fiber using optical fiber diameter analyzer 
6. Effect of sex and rearing system on the quality and mineral content of fiber from raeini cashmere goats
7. Contributions of feather microstructure to eider down insulation properties

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Cattle see two cone colors, not a true red

Bulls’ eyes are wired differently from humans, and instead of three color sensors like us, they only have two. Neither one of these is tuned to red. As such, when they look at that famous cape, it’s essentially just another shade of dull grayish-green, and there’s no red alert going on in their brains.

Red versus green

When light levels are balanced, cattle also have a hard time telling one hue from another because their eyes rely more on brightness differences than subtle color shifts. They’re unable to pick red over green unless the lighting’s uneven. When both of them look equally bright, it’s more of a guessing game when they’re trying to spot the difference.

The importance of movement

So what’s going on? When the cape’s completely still, the bull normally does nothing & just stands completely still. But the second that thing swishes, the animal snaps to attention. This is because bulls rely on motion to decide whether something’s a threat. The color itself is background noise for a bull, compared to a sudden flick or wave.

Fighting cattle show no pull to red

Spanish fighting bulls don’t care more about red than any other color. In fact, most bulls simply react to whatever is in front of them when it moves, and a bright blue tarp would do the trick just as well as a red one. However, most shows use red because it’s easier for humans to see, not the bulls.

Two capes, two colors

Usually, bullfighters use two capes. The first one is often magenta & gold, which the bulls charge at just fine, while the red one is used later mostly for tradition. It also masks the animals’ blood stains. However, in practice, both colors get equal attention from the bull because it’s the waving motion that sets them off instead of the shade.

Red became the usual choice in the 1800s

Matadors didn’t use to have a strict color rule. In the early days, the fighters waved white or yellow cloth, sometimes blue, as red wasn’t the most popular option. It took until the 1800s for it to become the standard. Bullrings across Spain began using the red muleta, and by the late 19th century, it was practically the only option.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision in cows, goats, and sheep
2. Behavioral Principles of Livestock Handling
3. The Perception of Color by Cattle and its Influence on Behavior
4. Colour perception in fighting cattle

But why are these animals so small? And how did animals with completely different body plans end up being so minuscule? That’s what we’re going to find out.

A frog that averages 7.7 millimeters long

Paedophryne amauensis is one of the tiniest frogs on Earth. The adults only grow to a size of roughly 7.7mm (0.3 inches) long, so you could fit several of them on top of a penny & still have space left over. These tiny frogs live in damp leaves across Papua New Guinea. 

Their calls are just as small as they are, and they sound more like beeps than ribbits. Paedophryne amauensis are some of the smallest vertebrates known to exist. It’s quite incredible when you consider that they have a skeleton & organs inside those tiny bodies.

A fish whose mature females are 7.9 millimeters

Another tiny aquatic creature is Paedocypris progenetica. These fish don’t look like much at first glance, mostly because you can barely see them, and females reach maturity at around 7.9 mm. The majority of the fish are less than a centimeter. Only a few have been known to grow larger than 10mm.

The fish live in Southeast Asia in acidic blackwater swamps. The water is so soft that only the most well-adapted animal species can survive. Part of the Paedocypris progenetica’s skeleton is made of cartilage, not bones, so you can see through it. Shine a light across it & you’ll see the fish’s organs inside.

A mammal that weighs around 1.8 grams

Who would’ve thought a mammal could be so small? That’s exactly how the Etruscan shrew is, since it only weighs around 1.8 grams as an adult & measures between 35 and 48 mm long. These animals are essentially shorter than a golf tee.

But even for such a small animal, the Etruscan shrew is constantly moving & eating, meaning that it continually burns energy. It’s mostly due to the shrew’s high metabolism. You can find them in parts of Europe and North Africa. 

A chameleon with a 13.5-millimeter body

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Brookesia nana looks like a toy chameleon. But it’s a very real animal. The male of the species measures around 13.5 mm from snout to vent & 21.6 mm including the tail. The female is only slightly bigger.

Scientists who captured the species were able to see the developing eggs in the female, using micro-CT scans. Yes, even at such a small size, the female was able to reproduce. She’s small enough to sit on less than half of your thumbnail. 

Wasps measured in micrometers

It’s okay to feel insignificant sometimes. Just think about wasps whenever that happens, as some of them aren’t even a full millimeter large. Tinkerbella nana is less than 250 micrometers or 0.25 mm, putting it at a size smaller than a dust speck. They usually live near plants & water surfaces, although you’d never realize it because they’re just so small.

However, they’re not the smallest kind of wasp. Dicopomorpha echmepterygis wins that title. The males of the species can be as small as 139 micrometers & are actually wingless. They’re also smaller than the females.

Entire animals under half a millimeter

Most people have no idea about loriciferans, and that makes sense. These animals live between grains of sand on the sea floor. Most loriciferan species are between 100 and 500 micrometers long, although some of the “larger” ones can be 800 micrometers. But you still wouldn’t be able to see them since several of them could fit on a pinhead.

Loriciferans do have an entire set of body parts, like head, neck, thorax & abdomen. They’re just extremely small. The creatures also have a tough outer casing, known as the lorica. It’s what gives the group its name.

Water bears between 0.05 & 1.2 millimeters

You might’ve heard that tardigrades can survive all sorts of extremes. But that’s not the only interesting thing about them. A typical tardigrade, or water bear, is around 0.05 mm to 1.2 mm. The larger members of the species are barely big enough to see without a microscope. That’s right, all the images online of tardigrades are massively magnified.

These water bears walk on eight legs and move quite slowly compared to the animals that live near them. Still, they do have a knack for surviving. They can live in practically any moist environment, like moss or soil, freshwater or saltwater.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Ecological Guild Evolution and the Discovery of the World’s Smallest Vertebrate
2. Paedocypris, a new genus of Southeast Asian cyprinid fish with a remarkable sexual dimorphism, comprises the world’s smallest vertebrate
3. First Data on the Helminth Community of the Smallest Living Mammal on Earth, the Etruscan Pygmy Shrew, Suncus etruscus (Savi, 1822) (Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)
4. Extreme miniaturization of a new amniote vertebrate and insights into the evolution of genital size in chameleons
5. A new genus and species of fairyfly, Tinkerbella nana (Hymenoptera, Mymaridae), with comments on its sister genus Kikiki, and discussion on small size limits in arthropods
6. A complete three-dimensional reconstruction of the myoanatomy of Loricifera: comparative morphology of an adult and a Higgins larva stage
7. Tardigrades: Facts about one of the hardiest animals on Earth, and beyond

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Fire ants link bodies to build waterproof rafts

Fire ants quite literally hold their legs & jaws together with other ants to stay above water. They do this when floods come along. These creatures snap together like LEGO pieces, with enough trapped air to keep the whole colony afloat for days. That’s pretty amazing teamwork. And especially for bugs that usually just bite.

Periodical cicadas run on prime-number schedules

You wouldn’t think that cicadas care about math, but they do. Some cicadas stay underground for thirteen years, or sometimes seventeen. They’ll then crawl up to the surface. Scientists say the odd-number cycles help them avoid predators’ rhythms. And honestly, waiting that long for a few weeks of flying sounds rather wonderful for an insect.

Honeybees map directions with a dance

You might’ve seen bees doing figure-eight moves inside their hives. That’s not just random buzzing around. They’re creating a map to tell other bees where the food is compared to the sun. The wider the angle of the dance, the farther away it is. Essentially, they’re showing off their bee GPS, just without Wi-Fi.

A tiger moth can jam a bat’s echolocation

Tiger moths have the remarkable ability to click away at high speed. This throws off a bat’s echolocation completely. In fact, it’s so strong that the bat’s attack often fails because it simply can’t get a read on where the moth is. Scientists muted the moths during an experiment & the bats started catching them again.

Glasswing butterfly wings cut glare with nano-pillars

Glasswing butterflies look almost invisible in flight, and that’s thanks to their wings that act like natural anti-reflective glass. They have tiny, uneven pillars on the wing surface. These pillars scatter light in all directions, which is quite different from smooth glass. Their wings allow you to see straight through without any glare.

Treehoppers talk by vibrating plants

Instead of chirping like crickets, treehoppers prefer to send messages through plant stems. They create low vibrations that go along the leaves & stalks. Other insects pick it up with their legs, meaning that they’re quite literally talking through plants. How amazing is that?

Cockroaches have an ultra-fast escape circuit

Anyone who’s ever tried to sneak up on a roach will know it’s nearly impossible. This is because they have little hairs on their back end that sense the tiniest puffs of air, sending a lightning-fast signal straight to their legs. They’ve already picked a direction & bolted within a fraction of a second. No wonder they’re so hard to catch.

Dragonflies can see in almost every direction

A dragonfly’s eyes cover nearly its whole head. As such, it can spot movement from the front, back & sides without needing to twist around. But that’s not all. Each compound eye holds around 30,000 tiny lenses, which gives them quite an edge. They notice changes almost instantly from any prey they’re chasing in the air.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Fire ants self-assemble into waterproof rafts to survive floods
2. Independent divergence of 13- and 17-y life cycles among three periodical cicada lineages
3. The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance
4. Tiger Moth Jams Bat Sonar
5. The role of random nanostructures for the omnidirectional anti-reflection properties of the glasswing butterfly
6. The Behavioral Ecology of Insect Vibrational Communication
7. Responses of Giant Interneurons of the Cockroach Periplaneta americana to Wind Puffs of Different Directions and Velocities
8. Visual Acuity in Insects

Here are thirteen animals that are known to mate for life. Which of these animals do you think has the most romantic life? 

Wandering albatross

Wandering albatrosses aren’t the kind of animals to rush into a relationship. They take their time with slow dances & circling flights, then they’ll finally settle into a relationship. It’s a “marriage’ that can last several decades.

That’s not to say they’re always around each other, though. Wandering albatrosses reunite on the same island after spending months apart over the ocean.

Whooping cranes

Another bird that mates for life is the whooping crane. They find their partner once they’re just a few months old & nest together as a set.

You can easily notice these birds, since their “duet” calls are quite loud, and you can see them guarding the nest in their marshes. The birds swap long incubation shifts with each other. It’s a give-and-take sort of relationship. 

Sandhill cranes

Most sandhill cranes find their mate when they’re together in huge seasonal flocks. They’ll return to the wetlands every year once they’ve made their choice.

Their mating dances involve big leaps & wing stretches, as well as a lot of stepping around. Interestingly, it keeps their bond strong. It’s one of the reasons they stay together for their entire lives.

Barn owls

You probably know that barn owls live in barn lofts or hollow trees. But did you know they usually mate for life, too?

Yes, these birds will roost close together and bring back mice for each other. But that’s not all. Should a partner disappear or die, the survivor will keep the spot, almost as though it’s waiting for the other to return.

French angelfish

Even underwater animals stick together. French angelfish are the perfect example. They’ll swim together as a pair, side by side, guarding a piece of reef that they’ve claimed as they won.

They’ll then rise towards the end of the day and mate. It’s something that bonded partners repeat for years.

Prairie voles

Yes, prairie voles are tiny. But their hearts are anything but small since, after mating, a male often stays close.

They’ll share the nest & warm the pups with the female, huddling and grooming each other the entire time. The mammals move around as a unit. The adults will stick together across all the seasons because they’re that close.

Eurasian beavers

Eurasian beavers are just as committed as voles. There’s often one adult male & female raising all the young inside each lodge.

The older offspring help their parents to repair dams and collect branches, so it’s kind of like a little family workforce. The parents often stay together for many years. They’ll keep any other adults out of the home.

Shingleback lizards

Researchers in Australia noticed that shingleback lizards kept appearing in pairs. It happened so often that they began tracking them, learning that many of these animals had met up every spring for many years.

The female usually leads the pair. You can often see the two of them sharing shaded spots together because they genuinely care for each other.

Gibbons

Like humans, gibbons have a long-term adult pair that leads the family. But unlike humans, the pair usually sings together in the morning.

They travel through the same patch of trees & raise their young together. As for their partnership? It lasts for quite a few years.

Kirk’s dik-dik

You might not have heard about Kirk’s dik-dik. But these animals control small home ranges in pairs in East Africa, and the male of the species usually stays close to his partner.

It’ll put scent marks over the female’s scent. It makes it clear to other dik-diks that the pair is bonded together for life.

Azara’s owl monkeys

It shouldn’t be surprising that some monkeys mate for life. Azara’s owl monkeys are one of these monkeys, and they’ll nap through the day with their partner & young.

They might also do so with an older sibling. The male Azara’s owl monkey often carries the babies, but both mom and dad take responsibility for finding food.

Common marmosets

A common marmoset family usually involves three members. Who are they? A male, a female, and some helpers from earlier litters.

The pair stays bonded for years & they work together to find out where they’re going to move, as well as how they’ll deal with infant care. 

Atlantic puffins

It doesn’t matter that Atlantic puffins spend months in open water. They’ll show up at the same cliff colonies as soon as spring comes, and pairs of the birds usually stay in the same burrow.

They’ll tidy it up together & clear out the old debris. Atlantic puffins take turns to warm their single egg, and then they’ll bring it food once the chick has hatched.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Boldness predicts divorce rates in wandering albatrosses (Diomedea exulans)
2. Birds choose long-term partners years before breeding
3. Sandhill cranes
4. Tyto alba (Barn Owl)
5. Pomacanthus paru
6. The prairie vole: an emerging model organism for understanding the social brain
7. Time budgets and sex differences in the Eurasian beaver
8. Social monogamy and extra-pair fertilization in an Australian lizard, Tiliqua rugosa
9. Hylobatid communities: Changing views on pair bonding and social organization in hominoids
10. Monogamy in the dik-dik
11. Social Monogamy in Wild Owl Monkeys (Aotus azarae) of Argentina: The Potential Influences of Resource Distribution and Ranging Patterns
12. The pair-bond of the common marmoset, Callithrix jacchus jacchus: An experimental investigation
13. Fratercula arctica: Atlantic puffin

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Where venomous snakes live in the U.S.

Venomous snakes exist in every state, barring Alaska. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths & coral snakes have all carved out territories in warm areas across the country, with nearly every state having a type of snake. Some of them have several. However, once you head far north, those ranges taper off fast, disappearing completely at Alaska’s border.

Maine and Hawaiʻi

However, there are two other outliers that are easy to overlook. Maine used to have timber rattlesnakes, but they disappeared ages ago, while Hawaiʻi never had native land snakes at all. But sometimes a sea snake drifts in with the current. Yet Alaska takes it further by not having any native venomous land or sea snakes whatsoever.

Cold limits snake biology

Snakes don’t make their own body heat because they’re cold-blooded, so they rely on the sun & warm surroundings to stay active. That’s not great in a place where most of the year is cold. Without reliable warmth, snakes can’t move fast or digest food properly, making it rather difficult for them to survive.

Too short a warm season

Even when Alaska does thaw out, it doesn’t last long, as the warm months are quick, and cool nights creep back in before you know it. That short summer makes it tough for snakes to find enough time to eat or grow. They can’t even mate. Yet in most of the U.S., there’s a big window for all that, which is why they tend to prefer living in other areas.

Permafrost limits winter dens for snakes

Another issue is the permafrost, in which a big part of Alaska’s ground stays frozen year-round. This causes practical problems for reptiles. Snakes need a place underground where they can ride out the cold without freezing solid, but permafrost doesn’t give them much to work with. The thawed soil in the summer is too shallow, so there aren’t many good places for winter shelter.

State law blocks importing venomous reptiles

The state also takes animal control rather seriously & it has rules that ban people from bringing in venomous snakes unless they have a special permit. And almost nobody gets those. Such regulations cut down the chance of anyone accidentally or intentionally letting something dangerous loose.

How snake sightings get reported in Alaska

Every once in a while, a snake turns up somewhere unexpected in Alaska. This is usually because it hitchhiked on a truck or in a shipment. Most of these cases involve non-venomous species that accidentally traveled north. However, officials still track everything closely, as it’s their way of making sure nothing slips under the radar.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. 122: Native (US) Venomous Snakes and Lizards 
2. UAA professor asks, ‘Have you seen a snake in Alaska?’
3. Global analysis of thermal tolerance and latitude in ectotherms
4. Phenology and predictors of spring emergence for the Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus)
5. Large reptiles and cold temperatures: Do extreme cold spells set distributional limits for tropical reptiles in Florida?
6. VenomMaps: Updated species distribution maps and models for New World pitvipers (Viperidae: Crotalinae)
7. 2024 Alaska Statutes Title 16. Fish and Game Chapter 05. Fish and Game Code and Definitions Article 9. General Provisions. Sec. 16.05.921. Venomous reptiles and insects or their eggs; prohibited conduct; permits

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Crows bend wire into a working hook

In 2002, researchers gave a crow some wire & a bucket inside a tube. The crow bent that wire, then hooked the bucket & pulled a piece of bait right out of the bucket, even though nobody showed her how. She even reshaped new pieces when the originals were taken away, proving that crows are capable of tool design, right on the spot.

Some crows solve multi-tool puzzles in sequence

But that’s not all for tools. Crows can use a chain of tools to get something they want, like using a short stick to grab a longer stick, then using that to reach food. They work through it step by step. It’s rather incredible because it means that they’ve mentally pictured the whole plan ahead of time.

Crows remember specific human faces for years

Some crows hold grudges. In field studies, people wearing a “danger” mask trapped crows once, and then disappeared. Years later, when someone showed up in that same mask, the birds sounded the alarm instantly, proving that they could do more than just remember. They actually taught their friends who the enemy was & the memory stuck for close to three years.

They respond strongly to dead crows placed at sites

Crows don’t simply ignore a dead crow when it shows up somewhere. In fact, they’ll gather & caw like crazy, sometimes even calling in backup to help them. They’ll also keep that area in mind afterward. Clearly, crows treat a dead bird like a serious situation worth reacting to, and they can process death.

Crows use cars to crack walnuts

In Sendai, Japan, crows drop walnuts into traffic, and then they wait for cars to run them over. They’ve been seen timing their drops near crosswalks so that they’re able to safely grab the cracked nuts when the light turns red. Essentially, they’re using humans as a tool for their own gains. How incredible is that?

Their brains have “number neurons”

Crows have certain neurons inside their brains that respond to numbers, almost as though they’re tuned to “three” or “five.” And amazingly, they also get the idea of zero. Whenever crows see an empty set, they treat it as a specific quantity instead of just “nothing.” That’s a concept even some animals never understand.

American crows often breed with helpers at the nest

Unlike most birds, American crows don’t always raise chicks as a couple, as extra birds often help them out. These are usually grown offspring. The birds stick around to help feed the babies & guard the nest. Sometimes there’s a whole little family crew pitching in, almost like a backyard bird version of extended relatives.

A crow can sing with two independent tones at once

Hooded crows can actually make two separate notes at the same time. Their vocal organ has two sides that work independently of each other, so one side hits one pitch & the other hits another. The result sounds kind of like two birds singing together. But in reality, it’s just one showing off.

They raise water levels to reach floating food

New Caledonian crows don’t let water stop them from reaching their food. In one experiment, they dropped stones & other heavy bits into tubes full of water until the level rose high enough for them to get their food. They didn’t waste time with sand or lightweight stuff, but instead picked what actually made the water rise fast.

Some crows rub ants on their feathers

Bizarrely, crows don’t avoid ants. They’ve been witnessed rubbing the insects through their feathers or settling down on an anthill so the ants crawl over their bodies. It’s not exactly clear why they do this, but the behavior itself is well recorded. However, it’s possible they’re using the ants to remove bacteria.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Shaping of Hooks in New Caledonian Crows
2. Lasting recognition of threatening people by wild American crows
3. Wild American crows gather around their dead to learn about danger
4. Variations of behaviour of Carrion Crows Corvus corone using automobiles as nutcrackers
5. Neurons selective to the number of visual items in the corvid songbird endbrain
6. Reproductive partitioning and the assumptions of reproductive skew models in the cooperatively breeding American crow
7. Songbirds use pulse tone register in two voices to generate low-frequency sound
8. Using the Aesop’s Fable Paradigm to Investigate Causal Understanding of Water Displacement by New Caledonian Crows
9. Anting behavior by the Northwestern Crow (Corvus caurinus) and American crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

Here are seven animals that can function on almost no sleep at all. Which one do you think has the easiest life?

African elephants

Elephants are the largest land animals, yet they’re also some of the lightest sleepers. They average around two hours of sleep every day. Sometimes, they can do with less.

Most elephants stay standing & swaying gently, only lying down every few days for a proper nap. Their REM sleep, the kind of sleep where you dream, lasts barely a few minutes.

Great frigatebirds

Sleeping while flying over the ocean sounds impossible. But frigatebirds do exactly that. They take tiny naps that last a few seconds & keep one half of their brain awake to avoid crashing mid-air.

They’ll sleep like normal birds only on land. However, out at sea, they make do with approximately 45 minutes of rest total in 24 hours.

Northern elephant seals

Elephant seals spend many months hunting prey far from shore. They’ll only nap while they’re diving hundreds of feet underwater. Even then, they sleep for a few minutes before floating back up half asleep.

How much sleep do they get in a day? Less than 2 hours. But that’s somehow enough to keep them going between meals.

Bottlenose dolphins

The idea of sleeping with one eye open is true for dolphins. Half their brain switches off while the other half stays awake, helping them to surface when they need to breathe. They’re also able to watch for danger without ever being fully unconscious.

Dolphins take turns between turning each brain half off. Essentially, they never completely shut down in the way that we do with our brains.

White-crowned sparrows

White-crowned sparrows barely sleep during migration season & they will only nap in very short bursts. They’ll spend most of the night flying. But what makes these animals so incredible is that they’re able to fly thousands of miles each season without ever collapsing from exhaustion.

It’s only once they arrive at their destination that they’ll fully sleep.

Pectoral sandpipers

Mating season is important for all animals, and pectoral sandpipers are no different. In fact, male sandpipers will stay awake for up to three weeks chasing mates. They’ll do this during the Arctic summer, when the sun never sets.

What do they do during this time? Simply moving & calling, perhaps defending their ground, and the ones that sleep for the least time are often the ones most “successful” during mating season.

Common swifts

Common swifts are another kind of bird that can fly for long stretches without sleeping. They’ll stay in the air for nearly ten months without landing. Yes, that means they’ll eat & drink, as well as sleep, in mid-air.

Swifts only take small brain breaks in the air. They’re capable of flying ten months straight in the sky. Not bad for a bird that’s lighter than an ounce.

The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:

1. Inactivity/sleep in two wild free-roaming African elephant matriarchs – Does large body size make elephants the shortest mammalian sleepers?
2. Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight
3. Brain activity of diving seals reveals short sleep cycles at depth
4. Dolphins Can Maintain Vigilant Behavior through Echolocation for 15 Days without Interruption or Cognitive Impairment
5. Adaptive sleep loss in polygynous pectoral sandpipers
6. Migratory sleeplessness in the white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii)
7. Annual 10-Month Aerial Life Phase in the Common Swift Apus apus