Anatomy of a bird

Animal spotlight: Tarantula!

1. A tarantula bite is no worse than a bee sting in terms of toxicity.

2. Tarantulas have re-tractable claws, just like cat.

3.  Tarantulas will go bald on their thorax when they get old.

4. Tarantulas can regenerate lost legs.

5. Tarantulas don't spin webs but they do use silk.

2012 Dog of the Year: Gary Jefferson!

Animal spotlight: Holy cow!

"Missy"

 Missy is a three year old black and white Holsten Cow. She currently holds the record for the most expensive cow ever sold in the market. Winning the title for Grand Champion of the 2009 Western Fall National Show and being one of the best show cows in North America made her a target for buyers. Missy sold for $1.2 million in Ontario, Canada on November 11th, 2009.

Animal Spotlight: Hummingbird

 Hummingbird

Hummingbirds while in flight have the highest metabolism of all animals, a necessity in order to support the rapid beating of their wings. Their heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute.

They also consume more than their own weight in nectar each day, and to do so they must visit hundreds of flowers daily. Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death, and are able to store just enough energy to survive overnight.

Hummingbirds are capable of slowing down their metabolism at night, or any other time food is not readily available. They enter a hibernation-like state known as torpor. During torpor, the heart rate and rate of breathing are both slowed dramatically (the heart rate to roughly 50 to 180 beats per minute), reducing the need for food.

Animal Spotlight: Camel

 

1. A camels hump does not store water. It stores fat, lessening heat-trapping insulation around the rest of the body.

2. One reason they can go long periods without water is the shape of their red blood cells. These are oval so will flow when they are dehydrated rather than clumping as ours do. The camel is the only mammal to have oval red blood cells.

 

3. Camels can drink up to 40 gallons of water in one sitting.

4. Camels lips are split to help them graze.

5. They can eat anything including thorny twigs without injuring their mouths.

6. Camels can kick in all four directions with each of their legs.

7. The shape of their nostrils allows them to retain water vapor and return it to the body as fluid.

8. They can lose 25% of their body fluids without getting dehydrated. Most mammals can only lose 15%.

9. Camel feces are so dry they are used for fuel and their urine is as thick as syrup.

10. One of the camel's defenses is 'spitting' where they essentially throw up a foul smelling greenish fluid from their stomach all over you when provoked.

Animal Spotlight: Skunk

Skunks

Skunks are crepuscular and are solitary animals when not breeding, though in the colder parts of their range they may gather in communal dens for warmth. During the day, they shelter in burrows that they dig with their powerful front claws, or in other man-made or natural hollows as the opportunity arises. Both genders occupy overlapping home ranges through the greater part of the year; typically 2 to 4 square kilometres (0.77 to 1.5 sq mi) for females, up to 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) for males.

Skunks are not true hibernators in the winter, but do den up for extended periods of time. However, they remain generally inactive and feed rarely, going through a dormant stage. Overwinter multiple (as many as twelve) females huddle together. Males often den alone. The same winter den is often repeatedly used.

Although they have excellent senses of smell and hearing – vital attributes in a crepuscular omnivore – they have poor vision. They cannot see, with any clarity, objects more than about 3 metres (10 ft) away, making them vulnerable to death by road traffic. They are short-lived animals: Fewer than 10% survive for longer than three years

Animal Spotlight

Crow

As a group, crows show remarkable examples of intelligence. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Certain species top the avian IQ scale. Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing. Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order. Crows have been found to engage in feats such as sports, tool use, the ability to hide and store food across seasons, episodic-like memory, and the ability to use individual experience in predicting the behavior of environmental conspecifics.

One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food. These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass. Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open. On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows. It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing, and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs^. Crows in Queensland, Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.

Recent research suggests that crows have the ability to recognize one individual human from another by facial features.