Posts Tagged ‘wildlife’

Mark Keppler/AP  Sea Life Aquarium's psychic octopus, Paul, chose Spain to win the semifinals over Germany.  Paul's keeper says, "he's wrong this time."

Mark Keppler/AP Sea Life Aquarium's psychic octopus, Paul, chose Spain to win the semifinals over Germany. Paul's keeper says, "he's wrong this time."

If you’ve been following the World Cup, you know about Paul. He’s the 2 1/2-year-old octopus who lives at Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany.

And he’s psychic.

So far, Paul the Octopus has used his nine brains (one main and eight smaller brains in each arm) to tap into his sixth sense and he’s picked Germany to advance out of the the first round (including the 1-0 loss to Serbia), win the round of 16 and the quarterfinal matches.

“It’s a cute octopus,” Paul’s keeper, Oliver Walenciak, told me over the phone. “We’ve been playing quite a lot. He’s an active octopus and I would say we’ve fallen in love with him.”

The team who take care of Paul started this game two years ago during the European Championships. Basically, they set up two, square glass jars in Paul’s aquarium, one with a German flag and one with the opposing team’s flag. Paul’s handlers then put mussels in both jars and whichever jar Paul chooses to eat from is the team that he predicts will win.

“Up until now he’s been 100 percent right,” Walenciak told me about Paul’s World Cup 2010 predictions. “But now, he’s wrong.”

Walenciak is referring to Paul’s prediction yesterday (maybe it was the stress of making the choice on live television) where he ate from the glass jar with the Spanish flag on it. Germany and Spain meet  today in the semifinals and the winner moves on to face the Netherlands in the finals this weekend.

If Paul is wrong, Germany will meet the Netherlands on the pitch, giving this octopus one more chance to redeem himself. Sea Life Aquarium is in Oberhausen, on the border with the Netherlands, a fact that makes Walenciak nervous.

“I’m rather afraid that the Dutch will come and see what he’s doing and try to influence his prediction,” he said.

Whatever happens, Walenciak assured me that Paul will not become an octopus frankfurter until he dies of natural causes.

Raw Video: Oracle Octopus Picks Spain

Yeah! Louis & Lucille Goose were in the pond today! Lucy was on the nest and Louie was swimming guard duty. Spring is officially here!

Smithsonian’s National Zoo

We are the Nation’s Zoo, demonstrating leadership in animal care, science, education, and sustainability. We provide the highest quality animal care. We advance research and scientific knowledge in conserving wildlife. We teach and inspire people to protect wildlife, natural resources, and habitats. We practice conservation leadership in all we do.

Take a Virtual Visit to the Zoo

The National Zoo is home to 2,000 individual animals of nearly 400 different species. Our best known residents are our giant pandas, but great apes, big cats, Asian elephants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, aquatic animals, small mammals, and many others can be found at the Zoo.

You can take a virtual visit to the Zoo any day of the week by tuning into our live web cams, which feature many of the Zoo’s animals:  http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/WebCams/

Or if you are a Octopus nut like me you can go directly to him: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Invertebrates/default.cfm?cam=I1

By Susan Cosier, LiveScience Contributor
posted: 22 March 2010 08:08 am ET
http://www.livescience.com/animals/octopus-watch-tv-100322.html

Octopuses rely on visual cues to identify predators, prey and other marine creatures. Yet it has been difficult for researchers to study the animals’ reactions to their natural environments, because the scientists can’t control what might swim or crawl by an octopus — that is, until the advent of HDTV.

Researchers from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science found that by playing video on a liquid crystal high definition television for gloomy octopuses (Octopus tetricus), they could accurately see how the animals reacted to prey (a crab), a new object (a jar), and a potential predator (another octopus), responses usually only seen in the ocean. Observations reveal that that the individual octopuses have episodic personalities, according to details of the study published in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

“This new video playback technique is great news for researchers, because they can use it to study many different aspects of octopus behavior that can’t otherwise be discerned using traditional techniques,” lead author Renata Pronk, a marine biologist at Macquarie University in Australia, told LiveScience.

Video surveillance
Octopuses have very sophisticated eyesight, making everyday mirrors or videos, controllable tools that could help biologists see how the animals interact with their surroundings, ineffective in a lab. Essentially, the creatures know that the visuals aren’t real.

New display technologies, however, make movies look more realistic, leading Pronk and her team to try HDTV. After some tinkering, they found that the octopuses reacted strongly to what they saw on the screen.

“This is the first time such a strong, appropriate response has been shown from a cephalopod to video,” said Pronk. “The octopuses’ reactions were the same as the way they react to these objects out in the ocean. For instance, when an octopus sees a crab out in the ocean, they generally try to sneak up or jet over to it and envelope it under their arms. This is how the octopuses reacted to the video crab.”

The high-quality footage displayed with the latest and greatest technology led to the reactions, said Pronk. Seeing such significant responses, Pronk decided to explore whether the individuals had personalities by exposing them to videos over the course of a few days.

Personality episodes
If an octopus has a distinct personality, the researchers would expect to see the same behaviors from a certain individual consistently over time. Yet during the experiment, an octopus showed interest in the video one day, and seemingly became bored the next. Pronk uncovered that the octopuses have episodic personalities, meaning they display consistent traits over short periods of time, but longer-term, their behaviors changed completely.

“In short, they had what appear to be very short-lived personalities,” she said.

Her discoveries, with the help of future experiments that use HDTV, could help marine biologists find out more about the behavior of octopuses and other cephalopods, like cuttlefish and squid.

“We can hopefully answer many more questions about cephalopod behavior using video playback,” said Pronk. She would like to find out what it means when they change color, and if they can learn from each other. “This study raises even more questions about octopus personality,” she said.

Here’s another one.

The octopus who loves his Mr Potato Head

Louis cuddles his Mr Potato Head

Louis cuddles his Mr Potato Head

Louis the octopus clearly thinks two heads are better than one when it comes to toys.

The 1.8m-wide (6ft) creature is so attached to Mr Potato Head that he turns aggressive when aquarium staff try to remove it from his tank.

The giant Pacific octopus was given the toy for Christmas and has even learned to dig out food hidden in a secret box at the back of it.

‘He’s fascinated by it,’ said Matt Slater, of the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall. ‘He attacks the net we use to fish the toy out every time we try to take it away.’

Mr Slater added: ‘Octopuses are very intelligent and they like to be stimulated and busy.’

Otto the octopus wreaks havoc

A octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by short circuiting a lamp.

Last Updated: 12:22PM GMT 03 Nov 2008 

The culprit of the smashed glass and broken lamp is two foot seven inch Otto. Photo: EUROPICS
The culprit of the smashed glass and broken lamp is two foot seven inch Otto. Photo: EUROPICS

Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.

The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.

A spokesman said: “It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work.

“It was on the third night that we found out that the octopus Otto was responsible for the chaos.

“We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.”

Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: “We’ve put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn’t be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him – and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.

“Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better – much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.”

I got this story e-mailed to me a year or so ago.  I laughed so hard my co-workers came over to my desk to check to make sure I was ok.  I laughed myself breathless.  And now, every time I need a giggle I read this story.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
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Beet Pulp Safety Warning a.k.a. The Famous Squirrel Story
© Susan Evans Garlinghouse

People who are into equine nutrition are notorious for spending their time doing the oddest things. While everyone else has normal nightmares about finding themselves riding in the World Equestrian Games stark naked past the press corps, nutrition people fret over whether their carefully thought-out recommendations will make the difference between Muffy the Superhorse winning his next competition in fame and glory, or falling into a dead faint somewhere between being saddled and the starting line. In the end, the finer points of nutrition often make zero difference, however, because you generally find out that:

a) Muffy won’t even touch your carefully crafted ration, much preferring to eat his bedding, the vet’s fingers and anything from the Taco Bell menu;

b) the moment you finish calculating the Perfect Equine Ration featuring Aunt Tilly’s Super Horsey Yums Yums, the feed company goes out of business or is indicted on environmental pollution charges;

c) it’s all irrelevant, anyway, because the barn manager’s favorite phrase is “Well, we’ve always fed this way for sixty years and hardly ever lose more than a horse a month to colic”, and steadfastly refuses to feed anything at all other than His Very Own Secret Recipe, featuring lawn clippings, glazed doughnuts and something that smells a lot like latex.

However, every now and then, you stumble across a feed that horses actually like (at least, after that initial suspicious, “You’re trying to poison me, aren’t you?” look, is wonderfully nutritious, cheap to feed and still Obscure and Mysterious enough that people feel like they’re really on The Cutting Edge in feeding it to Muffy. Beet pulp is like that, and for a long time I thought the only disadvantage to it was the minor inconvenience of having to soak it before feeding. Some folks skip that part, but others revel in making sure everyone else in the barn knows just how conscientious and detail-minded they are about Muffy’s nutritional well-being.

However, eventually I knew the true downside to beet pulp would show up, and thought it only fair that I pass it along…

This afternoon I decided to bring some beet pulp pellets into the house to soak, because I wanted to get an idea of exactly how much they expanded in volume during the soaking process. Academic types are like that, pathetically easy to amuse and desperately in need of professional help. I knew they expanded quite a bit, because the first time I’d innocently added water to a five-pound bucket of beet pulp, I’d come back later to find my feed room practically awash in beet pulp, providing a breakfast that every horse within a five mile radius still remembers with fond nostalgia. So in the interest of scientific curiosity, I trundled in a bucket, about three pounds of beet pulp, added in the water and set it in the living room to do its thing. No problem. Research in action.

Well, in our ongoing quest to turn this house into Noah’s Ark, we have not only four horses, three dogs, four neurotic cats, a sulfur-crested cockatoo, a cockatiel and assorted toads, we also have William. William is a fox squirrel who absent-mindedly fell out of his tree as a blind and hairless baby two years ago and whom the vet promptly handed off to the only person he knew silly enough to traipse around with a baby squirrel and a bottle of Esbilac into her bookbag. Actually, the trick wasn’t in keeping such a tiny creature warm, fed and clean—it was keeping a straight face and looking as mystified as everyone else when William woke up hungry and started pipping for his bottled like a very small, slightly muffled alarm clock. Invariably, this usually occurred while I was standing in line at the post office, picking up a pizza for dinner or on one memorable occasion, taking a final exam in biochemistry. Being no dummy, William knew a sucker when he saw one and has happily been an Urban Squirrel ever since.

And for those of you that think A Squirrel’s Place is In The Wild, don’t think we didn’t try that … his first Christmas, we thought we’d give him his first lesson in Being a Wild Squirrel by letting him play in the undecorated Christmas tree. His reaction was to shriek in horror, scuttle frantically across the floor and go try to hide underneath the nearest border collie. Since then, the only way he will allow himself to be taken outside is hiding inside Mummy’s shirt and peering suspiciously out at the sinister world.

So much for the re-make of Born Free in San Dimas. So secure is he about his place in the world that on more than one occasion, I’ve caught him sitting on his fat, smug little bottom, making faces out the window at our neighborhood (very frustrated) red-tailed hawk—like as not clutching a cashew in one paw and a bit of mango in the other.

Anyway, when I set out the bucket of beet pulp, I may have underestimated the lengths that a young and enthusiastic squirrel will go to stash all available food items in new and unusual hiding spots. I thought letting William out of his cage as usual and giving him a handful of almonds to go happily cram under cushions and into sleeping dog’s ears was sufficient entertainment for the afternoon. After all, when I left, he was gleefully chortling and gloating over his pile of treasure, making sure the cockatoo saw them so he could tell her I Have Almonds And You Don’t. So much for blind optimism.

Apparently when the almond supply ran out, beet pulp pellets became fair game and I can only imagine the little rat finding that great big bucket and swooning with the possibilities of being able to hide away All That Food. The problem isn’t quite so much that I now have three pounds of beet pulp pellets cleverly tucked away in every corner of my house, it’s that as far as I can tell, the soaking-expanding-and-falling-apart process seems to be kinda like nuclear meltdown. Once the reaction gets started, no force on earth is going to stop it.

So when I come back from the grocery store, not only do I find an exhausted but incredibly Fulfilled squirrel sprawled out snoozing happily up on the cat tree, I find that my house smells a lot like a Jamaican feed mill and virtually every orifice is crammed full of beet pulp. This includes the bathroom sink drain, the fish tank filter, in my undie drawer, in the kitty box (much to their horror) and ALL the pockets of my bookbag. Not to mention that in enthusiastically stuffing beet pulp into the air holes of the little box that hold live crickets for the toad’s dinner. William managed to open it up and free several hundred crickets into the living room. It’s not that I mind crickets springing to and fro, it’s just that it sounds a lot like an Evening in the Amazon Rain Forest in here. The cats, on the other hand, have never had such a marvelous time steeplechasing after stray crickets back and forth over the furniture, crunching up the spoils of the hunt (which wouldn’t be so bad if they would just chew with their mouths closed), and sicking up the more indigestible parts onto the rug.

I simply can’t WAIT to turn on the furnace and find out what toasting beet pulp smells like.

The good news is that in case of siege, I have enough carbohydrates hidden in my walls and under the furniture to survive for years. The bad news is that as soon as I try to remove any of this stash, I get a hysterical squirrel clinging to my pant leg, tearfully shrieking that I’m ruining all his hard work and now he’s going to starve this winter. (This is despite the fact that William is spoiled utterly rotten, knows how to open the macadamia nut can all by himself and has enough of a tummy to have earned him the unfortunate nickname Buddha Belly.)

So in case anyone was losing sleep wondering just how much final product you get after soaking three pounds of beet pulp, the answer is a living room full. I’d write this new data up and submit it as a case study paper to the nutrition and physiology society, but I suspect the practical applications may be limited.

Off to go empty the Shop-Vac. Again.

Copyright Susan Evans Garlinghouse 1997.

 

This is another one of those that I got in an e-mail. I don’t know the origin, but would love to give the correct credit.

I got this e-mail a long time ago.  Since we’ve had our own Possum Adventures, it makes me laugh … a lot.  I can just see this happening.  And I laugh some more.  I have no idea who wrote it – I’d love to give them credit or, delete the post and link to the correct authors website.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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Now, I live in the woods and, by definition, I’m surrounded by trees.  Yet, for some unknown reason, the only lumber yard within 100 miles of my house is located in the industrial district of downtown Newport News. My wife, Helga, also being a person of rural descent, is very apprehensive about the inner city. Understandably, she insists that I make my journey during periods of extreme daylight. So, one morning early last month, I set off on my most recent expedition.

For those of you who have never had the good fortune of visiting Waterfront Lumber, it is a vast stockpile of extraordinary wood. The sheds are jammed with seasoned lumber of every variety and I’m always surprised at what I find. Being a regular customer, I parked the station wagon in front of the oak shed and made my way to the front office. A quick nod to the manager, and a young apprentice was sent to help me load and tally the booty.

As I said, the contents of the wood barn never fail to surprise me…

The young boy slid back the shed door to reveal the much anticipated stack of rough oak.  Of course, what neither of us had expected to find was the enormous, furry, bug-eyed possum that was sitting like a cherry on top. I turned to the apprentice, hoping to comment on our circumstances, but found nothing but a dropped tape measure and a dust trail.

Now, where I come from possums are a regular and equally unwelcome occurrence. In fact, the last one that dared to encroach on Helga’s territory was batted over the back fence with a broom stick. She takes no prisoners. Unfortunately, she wasn’t with me and most of my dealings with possums had transpired through a windshield.  I decided to follow the boy’s lead.

Upon arriving back at the office, I caught my breath while the young man painted a disturbingly accurate picture of the beast… describing him as a ‘greazy, red-eyed fiend’. I nodded in concurrence… he was greazzzy. The yard foreman, a renowned naturalist, set his jaw and delved into the closet looking for the right tool for the job… something heavy.  He emerged with a broom. I should have known, this was the expert’s tool of choice.

We promptly departed the office and marched lock-step to the frontlines, emptying a 50 gallon drum of rainwater along the way. In a raspy whisper, the foreman began to reveal his plan of attack. He would throw open the shed and give the animal a good shove, whereupon one of us would catch it in the drum where it could be ‘disposed of’ at our leisure.  Needless to say, no one was volunteering for the second part.

As it happens, though, when we rounded the corner it became clear that we would be spared this trial. Elvis had left the building.  He was now, instead, sitting comfortably in the front seat of my wife’s station wagon. I resolved that Helga must never know about this as I watched the ‘greazy-eyed fiend’ glare at me over the steering wheel. As they say, the ‘great circle of life’ was now complete.

I took the broom stick and moved forward, intent on putting mankind back in the driver’s seat. The foreman grabbed the drum and moved to the passenger’s side door. We threw the doors open in unison and with one tremendous thrust, I lunged at the beast. It was in that precise moment that I realized the flaw in our planning. This was no ordinary animal. He was a city possum: streetwise and crafty. He latched on to the broom and quickly reinforced his grip by wrapping a prehensile tail around the broomstick. I jumped back with the broom (and the possum) in tow.

Now, on the upside, the possum was out of the car… unfortunately, I was now the proud owner of 20 pounds of hissing meat at the end of a four foot stick. The spectators backed away quickly, choosing to watch the negotiations from a distance. They were brief. For those of you who have never tried something like this, I recommend that you get in shape first. After running around the car twice, I tripped over the 50 gallon drum and we tumbled to the ground. I landed with a thud, his landing was reminiscent of a grocery bag full of wet newspaper. The time had come for a deal. As I lay there, face to face with the angry possum, we reached an understanding… He would amble back to HIS oak pile, and I would purchase a load of walnut instead.

Hours later, as I sat at the gas station washing the stains out of my wife’s upholstery, I realize that she had been right. The inner city really was a dangerous place. I beat a hasty path back to Seaford… home of the country possum.

Chapter 36 – Bats, Cats, Possums and Skunks

The fun part about living on the edge of rural, just beyond suburban, is the variety of wildlife we have here that comes by the house.  We have bats, cats, vultures, deer, skunks, foxes and possums.  Just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

The vultures congregate in the yard 2 doors over.  There is a small stream, trees around the edges and a lot open space to land in.  Plus there is a compost pile that they seem to be fascinated with.  We have fox around the corner.  I haven’t seen any directly in our backyard, but they are in the neighborhood. And the deer migrate through the backyard, especially in the fall and winter.  There is only one fence to block thier progress.

Bats. One night on of the kitties came in squeeking.  Well, it turns out it wasn’t the cat that was squeeking, it was the bat that it had caught.  He has a small hole in his wings but other wise was unharmed – as far as we could tell. Since it was alive we took it away from the kids and put it in a box with a small saucer of water.  Do bats drink water? Who know.  But Binky got water. Yes, the bat got a name when he went into the box. David put Binky’s box on the top self in a wardrobe to keep him away from the kitties.  The next day we went to get Binky from his box and put him outside in a tree.  Well, he wasn’t in his box. He had climbed out of the box and was hanging on one of the coats in the wardrobe.  So David put Binky out in a tree.  We kept an eye on him until he flew away.

We know all about Edna the possum.  Who spent a night in the bathroom.  But Florence the Skunk came for a visit night before last.  We put food out for the cats that live on the porch.  Earlier in the evening I had smelt her go by… but when David put food out for the cats she jointed in.  The weird thing is, the cats didn’t seem to mind and they all ate together.  She was pretty docile, but then again, we didn’t give her a reason to get her tail up.   And that’s a little update on our wild life.