Did You know - outdoor edition

[WV Sawmiller]

  Did you know that on the giant tortoises of the Galapagos, and maybe other species, the male has an indention or cupped area on the plastron or belly plate so that when he mates with the female he can make a more stable connection? I guess a perfectly flat shell would tend to slide off.

   Maybe the MagicMan needs to go back and check his erotic pictures of his mating Box Shell Terrapins (Tarpons in WV) and see if he can identify the male by any such indention.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that fire ants in the south will cluster together to form ant rafts when flooding conditions cover their nests? I assume the queen(s) and eggs and such are protected in the middle but I cannot swear to that. In NW Fla where I grew when we would have a high water event it was not uncommon to see mounds of fire ants looking like of a 1-2 gallon capacity floating in the backwater.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know when a honeybee stings she leaves a pheromone scent that causes other bees to sting in and around the same spot? I am not sure if other stinging insects do the same thing or not. 

[HemlockKing]

I was under the impression all wasps and bees etc did that. Especially wasps.(no need to kill bumble bees they leave alone). When you kill a wasp make sure to smush into the dirt as they release pheromones when in distress that tells others to KILL

[ellmoe]

  Did you know when a honeybee stings she leaves a pheromone scent that causes other bees to sting in and around the same spot? I am not sure if other stinging insects do the same thing or not.

       Fire ants do.

[caveman]

Did you know that fire ants in the south will cluster together to form ant rafts when flooding conditions cover their nests?

A few years ago after a hurricane came through here I walked out my back door and waded over to the kiln to see if it was still upright.  We did not have electricity and it was an incredibly dark night.  I was wearing a customized garbage bag and some shorts.  I walked into a wad of floating fire ants and on cue they started stinging.

I live on the edge of the Green Swamp.  This is our rainy season.  When the water table gets to or near the surface of the ground, fire ants become more of a problem inside the house and other structures as these little imps head for higher ground.

These ants are an incredible annoyance, not native to the U.S. and evidently are partially responsible for the decline of Bob White quail (I'm sure Ellmoe can elaborate).  I've read that the ants migrated up from South America.

[WV Sawmiller]

   While this may be a little indelicate, nature can be that way at times so bear with me.

   Did you know experienced coon hunters can often identify the more likely candidates to join their pack at a very early age by doing a quick, simple anatomy check? The coon hunter can take a puppy only a few days old and turn him over and check the "bulls-eye" under his tail to see if the dog possess the traits to make him a good coon dog. A puppy with a small, tight "bulls-eye" will typically be rejected out of hand as lacking the heart to ever be a top notch coon dog while a puppy with a very large "bulls-eye" will be earmarked for special attention and training. The centuries old "science" behind this simple check is that it is a well established fact that a coonhound with a large "bulls-eye" will be willing to sit it on the cold ground and hold a coon up a tree for many hours if necessary for the hunter to get to him. A more delicate dog with a small "bulls-eye" is not going to plop his anatomy down on the cold ground for any significant length of time required to hold the coon in the tree. He will rapidly lose attention and wander and the prey will escape.

   I am not familiar if anyone has taken this topic on as a graduate study or for his PhD yet. Also I am not sure if surgery or artificial aids such as padded "clothing" can be used to compensate for a deficient "bulls-eye". While I am not sure if bear and lion hunters use this same technology in selecting their future pack leaders or not, I suspect they do as dedicated hounds-men love to talk and compare notes and brag on their animals.

[WV Sawmiller]

  We talked earlier about ants - Did you know there are ant species in the jungles of Africa and South America  that are so numerous they look like narrow streams of swiftly flowing water as they trek from place to place carrying leaf matter and other food? There will literally be millions of these ants migrating from place to place. I think in the Amazon jungle they are called leaf cutter ants while in Africa they are Army ants. It is very unnerving to see that many ants in motion when you are walking along game trails in the thick jungle.

[HemlockKing]

I heard you can HEAR them there is so many, obviously you can't cross one of these ant rivers. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Yes, you can hear them but they are easy to step over. They will be in trails only a few inches wide. They do an excellent job of cleaning up the debris on the jungle floor. I remember seeing them in Central African Republic and the ground looked like it had been swept clean but there were these streams of ants passing through. What was really neat to see was where the river of ants would fork off into two or merge just like streams of water would do.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know termites build mounds in Africa that are often up to 6' tall and 15' in diameter? They are often the tallest "structure" in the area so they are used by wildlife to spot game or predators. Animals like cheetas will lay on the top of these mounds and look for game. Bushes will grow in old mounds and lions often drag their kill under them where it is cooler and they try to protect them from scavengers like hyenas, vultures, maribous, jackals, etc.

   Native tribesmen will sometimes dig into one of the smaller termite mounds (Mabye a cubic meter or so) and use them as a clay oven.

    Driving unexpectedly into an active termite mound can also result in a broken truck axle if it collapses under you.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know the road to Cape Cross along the Skelton Coast of the Atlantic Ocean along northern Namibia is made of salt? The builders laid down a bed of beach sand, graded it smooth then repeatedly dripped sea water from the adjacent Atlantic Ocean on the sand using tanker trucks with spreader bars to evenly distribute the water. The water quickly evaporates and the salt left behind binds with the sand making a hard packed surface that feels as hard and smooth as any asphalt road. While it almost never rains in the area the area is subject to heavy fogs and when they occur the road surface can get damp and is as slick as ice at times.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know the secretary bird in sub-Saharan Africa is an odd and unique member of the Raptor family that has been described as looking like a cross between an eagle head and body on the legs of a crane? It grows to over 4'3" tall and averages about 9 lbs in weight. It hunts mostly on the ground in savannah and semi-desert areas with low or little vegetation as a fast walking bird that stomps the ground and scares mice and snakes and such out of their hiding places where it catches and eats them. The head has a crown of feathers that stick up and has been described a looking like a 1920s era secretary with a selection of pencils sticking out of her bun type hair-do.

   We first saw secretary birds in Kenya on our first safari in Africa and saw them in many other parts of southern Africa such as South Africa, Namibia, Ethiopia, Botswana, etc. They were probably my favorite bird in Africa with their big gawky appearance and ground hunting habits.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know in southern Africa you will typically not see the eagles and vultures out early in the morning because they wait till later in the day when it warms up and they can soar on the air currents when they are more active and use less energy to search for food? This is probably true with our large soaring birds in North and South America but my guide in Africa pointed it out to us on a trip to Namibia one time.

[peakbagger]

Interesting, we used to have turkey vultures that roosted next to a river in our town about a mile north of our mill. Nothing disturbed them as they roosted in fenced in EPA superfund site. We were in steep valley and our stack was 320 feet high. Sometimes around mid morning the turkey vultures would take off and start circling the stack very slowly until they were above the discharge and then they would rapidly rise on the updraft until they were specks. At some point they would all break off the thermal and glide over to the local landfill which was in the hills outside the valley. I never really saw when they returned during the day. The mill is long gone but the boiler was converted to large wood boiler but I am not over in that area often enough to see if they are still catching a lift off the stack. The odd thing was this area didnt have any turkey vultures until around the year 2000.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sounds like a neat observation. I guess they used the heat from the boiler to get started and then picked up the currents already there. It amazes me how expert animals are on conserving energy. 

   When I was working in Saudi Arabia I noticed on one trip there was a telephone or power line along the road to the next town. Under the shade of each 8-10 inch diameter pole you would see 1-2 camels. There was not much shade there but that was all there was and they capitalized on it to the max.

   As to the turkey vultures we have a public boat landing on the COE lake 8.5 miles from where I live and the vultures hang out at the landing eating garbage, dead fish bait and food people leave but mostly the dead fish people catch and throw on the bank. The light on and crap all over people's cars, trucks and trailers down there. 

[ellmoe]

I built a new house on a lake a few years ago. The neighboring house had just been purchased by a women that moved from New York city. She had lived in the city since birth. When we moved in it was quickly apparent there was a vulture problem . They got on the roof . fences , trees , anywhere there was a perch. I could not figure why they chose to reside in this area. I'm a firm believer in aversion  therapy and commenced such a plan. Usually, this has been effective on most every species tried on , but not in this case. Then , one day I came home and found a dozen black vultures having a party in my bass boat!  :( They torn the foam out of my seats , ripped up the carpet , and stripped out the LED lighting strips. ! What they didn't destroy , they crapped on! This meant war!!!   DefCon III . I had one goal at home , send these scavengers to the landfill where they belonged. (Alive of course , they are an internationally protected species , ;)  ) . I brought out my A game and after two weeks they were gone. I was very proud of myself! After a couple of months passed , I had a casual conversation with my neighbor. She queried
me as to why the big black birds were no longer around. I asked , " you mean the nasty buzzards ?". "Oh , is that what they are ? I just thought they were birds. I am kinda glad they are gone because they are really messy. That's  why I quit feeding them dog food on my shed roof" !!!   ... You can take the girl out of the city , but you can't take the city out of the girl! Not sure if my actions had anything to do with them leaving . I suspect the lose of a few source was the main cause .Anyway , I don't have to put up with them anymore and the neighbors have quit talking about the crazy guy chasing the " black birds". 
   Sorry for the long post. Riding out a small hurricane today. ;)

[WV Sawmiller]

   My Dad had a friend near Old Town Fla who found a pair of eggs in the woods and figured they were turkeys or such and he took them home and incubated them and when they hatched it was a pair of turkey vultures. He fed them dry dog food on his back porch and they would come and go.

 My last assignment was in Guinea in West Africa and there was an open air meat market a few hundred yards up the road. The guys there fed them meat scraps and trimmings and such and there was a bunch of vultures walking around the yard like a bunch of chickens. There was a huge tropical tree on the banks of the Kissidougoo River.


 The big tree in the background is the vulture roost.


 

 

Some pictures of the vultures at the meat market.


 

 Some of the local neighbors. I still miss the vibrant colors and the kids. The people were very friendly and photogenic and loved having their pictures made and seeing themselves on the viewer. Sometimes I'd get so many kids following me around the only way to get rid of them was stop at a local bodega and give the shopkeeper a 10K guinea note (About $1.40) and tell him "Une bon bon" (One candy) and point at each kids and I'd walk away while they mobbed him for a change.


Now I am back to living next door to different neighbors. View from out my window while I was typing this.,

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know that the home of the clown fish (remember Nemo?) is an Anemone? The Anemone has a toxin on its arms that is poison to most fish and they avoid it. The clown fish is not affected by this toxin so uses the Anemone as a safe haven.

   You can discover this information very easily on many sites on line but what they do not tell you is that while there may be 4-5 clownfish living in a single Anemone - there will never be 2 clownfish of the same size in the group. If you look at them carefully you will find they are stair-stepped in sizes for example 1-4", 1-3", 1-2" and 1-1" long.

   I honestly don't know why this is true but after many hours of bottom time in the Red Sea I can attest to the veracity of this observation.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know squid and I seem to remember octopus can change colors to blend in with their background?

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know an octopus can lose a leg and it will regrow another? A shark or barracuda or such will often rip off a leg or two and the octopus will take shelter in a cave in the coral and recuperate. It was common to see an octopus with 5-6 long legs and 2-3 only a few inches long that it was in the process of re-growing.

[WDH]

  Did you know squid and I seem to remember octopus can change colors to blend in with their background?

All this squid and octopus talk got me to thinking about this song:



I was a cook
And she was a waitress
Down at the Salty Sam Seafood Café
And somewhere 'tween the clam juice and the seaweed salad
Some little shrimp just lured her away

{Chorus}
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
And they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart

{Verse 2}
I said, "Just squid and leave me
For that piano tuna
If you want to trout something new"
She was the bass I ever had
Now my life has no porpoise
Oh, my cod, I love her, yes, I do

{Chorus}
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
He wrapped his line around her
And they drove off in his carp
Oh, I lobster and never flounder
I octopus his face in
Eel only break her heart

{Outro}
"Boy, I swordfish she'd come back to me, Sandy
I'd shore her a whale of a time"
"Now, Richard, you know she'd just pull that 'Not tonight, I've got a haddock' routine"
"You're probably right, but y'know, I've kelp her picture in my walleye just for the halibut
I wonder if she's still got mine in her perch"
"Did you, did you say 'perch'"
"Yeah, I'm afraid so"
"That's good, for a moment there, I thought I was losing my
Herring" *audience groans*
"Well, we bass squid all this seahorsing around before these people out here go into a state of shark"
"Yeah, if we get out of here alive, it's going to be a mackerel" "Frankly scallop I don't give a clam"



Pinkard & Bowden - I Lobster But Never Flounder - YouTube

[doc henderson]

Danny, that is so bad,..it is good!

[WV Sawmiller]

 :   :D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Did you know when alarmed octopus and squid squirt out an ink screen to hide from predators? While the predator is temporarily blinded and the squid/octopus is out of sight of the predator the intended victim hides or makes his escape unnoticed.