Category Animal World

Why the Indians use Llamas?

The typical beast of burden in the Andes region of South America is the llama. These animals are mostly bred by the Indians for their milk and their thick wool. Usually white, the animals can vary in colour to solid black, with any combination of brown or black spots.

The llama is a stolid and tough animal, able to endure thirst and to exist on a wide variety of vegetation. It is often used to carry loads up steep mountain paths and in places where there are no roads, travelling slowly but safely even in the most difficult and dangerous places. It can carry a load of about 60 kilogrammes for about five days on end without resting. When overloaded or exhausted, however, it lies down, hisses, spits and kicks, refusing to move until relieved of some weight or adequately rested. Only the male llamas are used as beasts of burden. The females are kept in the grazing grounds, and although they do not yield very much milk the Indians put it to a number of uses.

 

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Which are the pets owned by famous personalities in history?

Pets have always been special to us. A dog is great company, a cat is a precious little bundle, a parrot is a delight, an alligator is a… well, an interesting companion, a bear… probably is unusual! Let’s look at the pets owned by famous personalities in history!

A very important horse

Roman emperor Caligula had a bad reputation for cruelty, but even he had a soft spot for his pet – a horse. So special was

his horse, named Incitatus, that it got to live in a marble shed, drink from a golden bucket, wear a jewelled collar and have gold flakes mixed with its oats! Caligula didn’t stop there – he gave his pet a saddle with a red border. What’s the big deal? It turns out that only the ministers of his court wore a robe with a red border, so Incitatus was promoted as a senior official!

An alligator in the White House

When President Quincy Adams was gifted an alligator by the French aristocrat Marquis de Lafayette, he took a quick decision regarding the reptile’s living arrangements: it would live in a bathtub inside the East Room bathroom of the White House. Unsuspecting guests who entered the bathroom were in for a horrifying shock and fainting fits!

Too fond of dogs

Muhammad Mahabat Khan III, an Indian maharaja, loved dogs. Nothing strange because many people love dogs, right? But he loved them so much that he had nearly 800 dogs! Each dog had its own room, complete with a telephone (though how a dog would use it is not clear) and a personal attendant. Marriages between his dogs were grand affairs and he even invited the British viceroy at the time to attend one such event!

A wise friend from the sea

The French poet, Gérard de Nerval, rescued a lobster and adopted it as a pet, fondly naming it Thibault. He would take Thibault for a walk with an elegant blue ribbon as its leash. When people argued that it was crazy to have a lobster, Nerval calmly explained the pluses of having a crustacean as a pet: it was calm, serious, didn’t bark and knew the secrets of the sea.

An artistic pet

Salvador Dali was famous for his unique moustache, his surreal paintings and his bizarre choice of pet – an ocelot. Babou went with him everywhere, proudly flashing its special studded collar. This included a journey on a luxury cruise and even a visit to a restaurant in Manhattan, much to the alarm of other diners.

No dogs allowed? How about a bear!

Lord Byron, the famous poet, was well-known for his eccentricities. When he enrolled in Trinity College in Cambridge, dogs were forbidden as pets on the campus. So Byron kept a tame bear instead! This flummoxed the college authorities, but Byron had a solid defence. For nowhere in the rulebook was it mentioned “no bears allowed”, was it? Apparently, nobody could legally expel the bear and it stayed on while Byron studied there.

A pet-plus messenger

Much before the serial Game of Thrones made ravens cool, the 12th dynasty pharaoh, Amenemhat II, thought ravens were awesome and he had a pet raven he loved dearly. But this was a special raven that also served the pharaoh faithfully as a messenger. It was apparently the swiftest of messengers, well aware of where to deliver its messages and where to pause on its way back. So fond was he of his pet that Amenemhat II had a tomb built for his loyal raven.

 

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Do animals sweat?

Sweating or perspiration is a natural way for the body to regulate its temperature. Humans have sweat glands in many parts of the body. What about animals? Sweat glands are found in most mammals. But they do not produce large amounts of sweat (exception being horse). For instance, dogs and cats produce small amounts of sweat through their paws. The overall distribution of sweat glands varies among primates – while the rhesus monkey has them on the chest, some macaque species and baboons have them over the entire body. But they do not sweat as much as humans, as their fur serves as the temperature regulator.

Mammals also resort to other methods to regulate body temperature. Pigs and hippopotamuses roll in the mud to cool themselves, while dogs pant.

Have you ever wondered about the secretion on the skin of the hippopotamus? It is not sweat.

Hippos secrete a reddish oily fluid, sometimes called blood sweat, from special glands in their skin. This fluid functions as a skin moisturiser and antibiotic.

 

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What are the threats to sloth bears?

Threats

Increasing human population is said to be the greatest threat to these bears. This leads not only to the loss and degradation of the bears habitat but also human-bear conflict. And, this is not good news. Sloth bears tend to avoid humans. However, they can also be intolerant of them when the two meet face to face. And their aggressive behaviour coupled with powerful claws and canines don’t help. So, a human-bear conflict may not end well. For instance, a media report says that “in Odisha, between 2014 and 2018, 716 attacks by sloth bears on humans were recorded. Out of the 716 attacks recorded, 627 humans were left grievously injured – with many victims severely impaired for life”. Which means, there are retaliatory killings too. Other worrying factors include hunting and poaching for meat and body parts for medicinal purposes. It is said that there are no specific numbers for the deaths of sloth bears. This is of concern because there are only rough estimates for their population, meaning we may not know exactly how many bears live and die, and what sort of conservation mechanism should be put in place to save this vulnerable species. Another reason for concern is that these animals have traditionally been captured and made to perform “dances” for human entertainment. Though this has been largely brought down in India and some of the animals have even been rehabilitated, it is believed to be continuing in places such as Nepal.

Though sloth bears are found in Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal too, India hosts its largest population in the world. They appear to be extinct in Bangladesh since no sightings have been confirmed in the region for years now. Within India, they are found in many States, including Karnataka. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and central India. Among the sanctuaries for the species are Ratanmahal Sloth Bear Sanctuary and Jessore Sloth Bear Sanctuary in Gujarat, and Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary in Karnataka. According to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, it is a “Vulnerable” species.

Sloth bear facts

  • Sloth bears are small bears, and usually have a black coat (and sometimes, a brown coat). What helps identify them is their distinctive whitish or yellowish chest patch in the shape of a wide U or Y.
  • They are a lowland species, and occupy different types of habitats such as wet and dry tropical forests, savannahs, scrublands, and grasslands.
  • These omnivores feed primarily on termites, ants, and fruits. Apparently, they are fond of honey too.
  • Cubs stay with their mothers for roughly two-odd years, and for about nine of those months, they ride on their mother’s back.

 

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What is unique about a snake’s jaw?

Now and then we come across news of snakes, pythons particularly, consuming animals unbelievably huge in proportion to their own size. So how do they do it? Come, let’s find out.

Snakes are found everywhere, except in the coldest regions. Which means their habitats are varied (water, soil, etc.), and so is their food. Depending on their size, these carnivores consume anything from earthworms and snails to birds, other snakes and alligators too! It’s the bigger snakes such as pythons and anacondas that go after larger animals such as deer, pigs, goats, crocodiles, and rarely, unsuspecting humans too. Irrespective of whether they kill their prey with venom or by constricting them, snakes invariably swallow their food as a whole. This applies to even their largest prey, and that’s where their jaws come into play.

No, the jaws don’t unhinge

The myth surrounding the snake’s consumption is that the reptile’s jaws unhinge to help it take in very large animals. Snakes have a set of skull bones, ligaments and muscles that help them stretch their mouths very wide. In addition, flexible joints in their jaws also help with elasticity. The jaws are attached by ligaments, making them very flexible while staying connected. Since snakes do not have limbs to hold their prey, their head and jaws come in handy to draw the prey in. Their inward-facing teeth too offer grip. Usually, snakes seem to be good judges when it con to the prey size they can take in. However, there have been unfortunate (and rare) instances of judgment going horribly wrong – resulting in two deaths.

Trivia: For all the (unwarranted) fear surrounding snakes, only a miniscule number is venomous. According to the National Geographic there are more than 3,000 species of snakes in the world, but only about 7% of them “are able to kill or significantly wound a human”.

 

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Why does a hermit crab need a shell?

The Mu Koh lanta national park in Southern Thailand had a rather unusual appeal to make to the public. The park authorities requested the public to donate cone-shaped shells they may have to the hermit crabs that have boomed in the last few months in the park. The population of the crustaceans, which protect themselves by wearing and living inside the discarded shells of other animals such as sea snails, has exploded on some islands in the Mu Koh Lanta national park Marine biologists believe the lack of visitors to the park in the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic could be a contributing factor. They feel that low number of tourists means fewer activities in the coastal areas, which could have led to the high survival rates of the hermit crabs.

As tens of thousands of hermit crabs thrive on the island, there is a serious shortage for shells. Some hermit crabs, having outgrown their previous homes, have moved into pieces of rubbish such as plastic cans, bottles, or caps. While going without a shell make them extremely vulnerable to their predators, living inside plastic homes is not safe either. The hermit crabs that climb into plastic bottles find the surface too slippery to get traction. Therefore, they cannot climb out of them. A 2020 study found that around 570,000 hermit crabs die annually from getting caught in plastic debris on two tropical islands in the South Pacific.

Plastic debris, in fact, creates a cascade of death for hermit crabs, because when a hermit crab dies, it releases chemical signal to other crabs conveying that its shell is available for occupation. This lures other crabs into the plastic container. One after the other hermit crabs get into the bottle or plastic can thinking they will get their next home, when in reality, it’s their last home.

Have you heard of the vacancy chain?

Hermit crabs begin their lives in larval forms on the seafloor. The larvae eventually metamorphose into small crabs, at which time they must search for their own shells. Hermit crabs are not true crabs – they do not grow their own shells, instead they have hard exoskeleton in the front and soft body in the back, which they protect using the discarded shells of other animals. As the hermit crab grows in size, it must find a larger shell and abandon the previous one.

These social animals display a fascinating behaviour when they are out to look for a new shell. At least 20 individual hermit crabs line up in size order – biggest to smallest – to see if a new shell turns up and who fits into it best. Their curled tail with a hook enables their bodies to fit inside these borrowed shells. Once a member fits into a new shell, it will eject itself from its former calcified castle and the next smallest will take this hand-me-down home, while leaving its older one for another and so on – the aim is that everyone walks away with a new shell that is a better fit than their old one! Scientists call this the vacancy chain.

 

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