Not that we believe we know everything. Not even by accident, but sometimes we do keep our mouths open. Animals surprise us with their behaviour and make us think again whether we really know them as well as we think we do. Take elephants. Are they really as interconnected and committed to each other, almost at the cost of their lives, as we have believed so far? And chickens: when we buy a chicken, do we really have a chicken, or have we perhaps bought a cockerel after all?
With elephants, we can be sure: an elephant is always an elephant. The males, who leave their mothers when they are 12 to 15 years old, may have a reputation for being reclusive, but it seems that they also need the company and companionship of their mates. They are not very different from humans, at least not in the area of emotion.
They are family-related, happy and sad, lively and calm. They can be envious and jealous, fiercely competitive and theatrically aggressive. They talk and they reminisce, except that their memory is remarkable and they can recall, for example, where they found food 30 years ago, which can save their lives in times of scarcity.
They always recognise the elephants in their family, even if they find themselves in a crowd of a hundred elephants or more. They miss their loved ones when they are away, and when they lose them, they grieve deeply and even suffer from depression.
They always stand by each other in times of trouble, but the long-held belief that they are almost a model of family bonds is not true.
Researchers in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park wondered how violent elephants really are about a decade ago, when they observed how life in the park had changed after poaching was reduced and artificial watering holes were created.
Was it a coincidence that elephants were now more and more abundant and other herbivores fewer and fewer? Could it be that other animals died because elephants did not allow them access to water?
Probably not, the researchers concluded after looking at nine species, including buffalo, zebra and warthogs. The animals rarely retreated when the elephants showed up. On the contrary, they drank for as long as two minutes longer than usual.
Does this mean that elephants actually make them feel safer from attackers such as lions? Or is the conclusion wrong, and they had such a bad experience with elephants that they were constantly watching what they were doing, just in case, which is why they drank for those two minutes longer than they would have done if the elephants had not been there?
Researchers don’t know the answer, but it seems unlikely that herbivores in a Zimbabwean park would die because of elephants. But the same disbelief has been aroused by the behaviour of the elephants they have observed in their daily lives. Is the firmly held belief that they will never harm each other really hollow?
Elephant Manor
Not quite. Elephants really do help, support and protect each other. They live in families of 15 to 30 animals, although these can be smaller, with 2 to 20 members, but in any case the mother, her daughters, granddaughters and close relatives are all connected.
Daughters, younger siblings and cousins devotedly care for the children, not because they are so loving, but because it gives the offspring a better chance of survival and increases the likelihood of the family line being maintained.
The hierarchy among elephants is strong, both within and between families. If several elephants reach the water source at the same time, the best place by the water goes to the most important family. If the last one reaches the water’s edge, the family with the best position gives way. Members of the family that is not prominent enough are not allowed to go to the water at all. They must wait for the others to withdraw.
Either the oldest or the largest elephant is the leader of the family, but other elephants also have varying degrees of influence. The more important ones usually help their female relatives in trouble and devotedly rescue their babies if they need help, but they also seem to be equally passionate adversaries.
When the researchers observed one elephant family, they couldn’t believe it: the elephant mothers were trying to stop selected other elephant mothers from accessing the water. It’s not clear on what basis they chose the ones who couldn’t drink, but their innocent children certainly fell into disfavour along with their mothers.
Elephant bullies have gone so far as to slap their rivals and harass their young rather than drink, even though their survival depends on water. They did this day after day and did not stop even when the cull females and their children were completely exhausted from dehydration.
Researchers did not expect them to behave in this way, not only because it was not consistent with what we know about them, but also because it seemed completely illogical. Why would they endanger themselves? Why would they turn on each other when they spend their whole lives together, bathing together, foraging together and looking after each other, because that is how they ensure not only the survival of others, but also of themselves and the family line? Why do certain females and their offspring suddenly fall into disfavour?
There is no clear answer. It is possible that elephant families have a caste system, so that some elephants are inherited as more important than others, and their families function as courts with aristocrats and subjects.
Or maybe this behaviour has something to do with the disintegration of elephant families. This is natural, but researchers have always thought that it happens spontaneously. When a family gets too big, the bonds between the members loosen and some elephants just go their own way.
Not going would put the family at risk because, especially in the dry months, there would not be enough food for everyone, so a large family is essential for survival. But now researchers are wondering whether it might be the female elephants who are lowest on the elephant social ladder that are leaving the family, and who are in fact being pushed out by their female relatives.
In areas where poaching is abundant, females without families join together to form their own group, but this is weaker than the blood group. Their bonds are random, so it is more natural for them to be hostile to each other at times.
But as it turns out, even family ties are no guarantee of survival. How does one establish a hierarchy in a family? It is quite possible that it is based on the hormonal system. Lower class females seem to have fewer offspring than higher class ones, but it is also possible, of course, that their fertility is influenced by circumstances and decreases when the chances of survival are lower.
As elephants have a remarkable memory, it could be that older female elephants remember how they survived droughts in the past, so they are less stressed and remain fertile, which means that less experienced younger female elephants would fly out of the family.
No one has yet proved this, so we don’t really know why female elephants are hostile to their female relatives, but it seems that elephant family life just isn’t as idyllic as it once seemed.
Risky pooing
But the researchers were also surprised by sloths, which spend most of their lives in the treetops. There is plenty of food, they can sleep peacefully and no one threatens them, so for a long time it was unclear to researchers why they make the slow and arduous journey from the canopy to the ground once a week just to do a big chore.
Because they have an extremely slow matebolism and eat only leaves from the canopy they live in, they use most of their daily energy to travel downhill. On top of that, there are invaders on the ground.
“It’s like going to the toilet, but you’re programmed to have to travel five kilometres between two countries before you can go to the toilet. It’s really risky and it really takes a lot of energy,” explained Jonathan Pauli.
Why then do the lazy take so many risks? It seems to be because of limited living space. They always live in the same tree and always eat the same leaves. Food is scarce and they would easily get sick if they did not have algae in their fur, which is a source of protein for them. But algae can only grow in their fur because sloths are dirty, smelly and full of moths.
What does this have to do with fulfilling the great need of the slothful? It goes something like this: sloths with three fingers get down on the ground and do the needy thing there. Since they always live in the same tree, it is already full of their droppings. While they sleep in the canopy, moth larvae hatch in their droppings on the ground.
When the sloth comes back down to earth, the moths climb on its back and ride it up the tree, carrying food from their home droppings. When the moth dies, it decays. The algae that grows in the sloth’s fur now feeds on it, and it eats the algae because, with the general lack of protein, it is a kind of protein bar for the sloth.
This is why he has to risk the arduous and dangerous journey to the toilet once a week, although another theory is that he only gets down on the floor because he is bored and the two of them chat a little while they do what they need to do.
Crocodile tears
Whether they exist or not is now the question! Well, for many decades, researchers didn’t even think about it, but they could never escape the myth that crocodiles cry during lunch because they feel bad that they killed an animal and are now eating it.
We could check whether there is any truth in the words of Sir John Mandeville, who wrote a book of travels in the 14th century and in it also talked about crocodile tears, but that is difficult because crocodiles are not so friendly as to eat on the spot and we could observe them closely at close range.
And since an ancient study tested whether a crocodile cries if you throw an onion at its eyes, and apparently it didn’t, it somehow turned out that the myth was just that – a myth. But a few years ago, researchers published that some reptiles do indeed cry while feeding, so it is very likely that crocodiles do too.
Crocodile tears, which in our world are synonymous with fakeness, are supposedly quite similar to human tears. They appear as a “glassy” eye, or drops collect in the corners of the eye. When there is enough moisture, the droplet spills over the edge and slides down the human face.
But crocodiles, of course, don’t cry because they would feel bad for the deceased they are chewing on. They cry more or less all the time because it moistens their eyes, but it’s hard to say for sure because it’s hard to observe them in the water.
There is no hero on land to try to domesticate them for close observation, but researchers have experimented on two close relatives of the crocodile, alligators and caimans.
They were fed dog-like cookies and both shed a tear every time they got a meal. That’s when large, soap-like bubbles reportedly appeared in the corners of their eyes.
But why do they cry at all? Crocodiles could be crying because of the sounds they make when feeding. This causes air to pass through the sinuses and causes the eyes to fill with moisture. Something may be irritating the tear ducts, as sometimes there are so many tears that they just keep flowing. It is also possible that the contraction of the jaw muscles during biting causes tears to be pushed out of the tear ducts.
Another possibility is that tears may have accumulated earlier and run from the eyes during chewing simply because the crocodile moves its head, and this can be easily linked to the conclusion that crocodiles cry while eating.
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The incorrigible hitchhiker
So there are crocodile tears, but there are also adventurous civet tears. Well, at least one. Members of the conservation group Wildlife Act set up cameras around South Africa’s Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park to monitor the endangered black rhino, and looked up thickly when they saw the footage.
They showed a civet or cat-like animal, which usually prefers to be alone, but if it does socialise, it gets involved with the opposite sex. It is almost invisible in the daytime and not even at dusk, but when night falls, it comes to life.
What happened to the South African civet is beyond the researchers’ wildest dreams, but it seems she has decided to find some company. She didn’t look for a mate or a friend, she chose the largest herbivores in the vicinity as her companions. Thus, when night fell, she would bark at a black rhino or buffalo without lifting a finger to stop it.
She jumped on and walked around a bit, although she didn’t seem to want to take her own transport to get to her destination. She apparently hitchhikes a bit at night just to cheer herself up, because she does not like to walk, so she is not at all picky about her choice of transport. She does not wait for her rhino or buffalo, but jumps on any that comes along.
But when they stopped having fun at her expense, the researchers got an idea. Why does a civet seek such company? And since when does one mammal ride on another? It’s true that birds often take advantage of such transport, but they feed on parasites that live on the animals they mate with.
The white heron is not entirely innocent either: it walks around on the backs of wild animals only because it feeds on tiny organisms that are disturbed by its carriage and rise into the air so that it can snack in peace.
But the South African civet clearly has no use for her friends and really only hangs out with them because they make her feel good.
Little Orcas in trouble
It’s not logical that aquatic animals would voluntarily force their way ashore, but in 2009, conservationists were not exactly surprised when 55 seemingly stranded orcas were dragged into the water by environmentalists, but they soon swam back to shore near Cape Town, South Africa.
The four to five metre animals simply did not want to go to the open sea, even if they could not survive on land. Experts had no choice but to put them out of their misery by shooting them in the head. In animals of this weight, injections do not work for sure, so a shot is the least painful. At least for the animal, the shooter can only console himself with the fact that he had no other option.
Because researchers have no idea why different species of whales and dolphins sometimes end their lives on the shore. The reason for their stranding is only discovered in half of the cases, and even then more or less only when it is clear that the animal has, for example, crashed into a boat, has been the victim of a larger shark or a member of its own species, is sick, has been poisoned or something similar.
Some environmentalists blame military sonar and modern electric fields for cetacean strandings, but historical data shows that cetaceans have been stranded since ancient times, as Aristotle reported.
Unfortunately, even then they did not know why, but the historical record can certainly show that it is natural to run aground. But if it is, then is it right for environmentalists to push animals back into the sea? Should we maintain the natural balance and let them die?
And if an animal comes back to shore once, twice, what to do with it? Kill it or keep pulling it back? They cannot do that with some of them because they are too heavy, and even with the lighter ones, things can easily go wrong. If sand gets into their stubble, it is like having one’s nose stuck.
In any case, stranded animals are hard to watch. So far, environmentalists have seen a maximum of 835 stranded orcas in one place on the coast of South Africa.
The lady has become a gentleman
They were painful to look at, but on the contrary, the English owners enjoyed watching their hen Gertie. She was lovely and laid her eggs diligently until they were gone. She would have accepted that, but when she started to behave like a cockerel, they could no longer tell.
First, she started crowing and crowing like a rooster. Within a few weeks, she thinned out. She grew a chin under her chin like a rooster, she got a rooster comb and her feathers changed to become more masculine.
The owners no longer recognised their Gertie. What happened to her? Did she change sex? Some species are indeed able to change sex, but they usually do so when they are not accompanied by members of the opposite sex, because it is important for the survival of the species that both sexes are together.
The two astonished Englishmen did not know, and had never heard, that such things can be observed in a domestic henhouse and that hens can change sex.
Here’s the thing: in the adult hen, only one ovary normally functions, the left one, and the right gonad is dormant, but it can develop into an ovary, a testis or both, or a kind of “ovary-testis”.
A cyst on the ovary, a tumour or some other disease can cause the left, active ovary to become inactive, at which point the resting, right sex gland can take over. The dormant gland may then turn out to be the testis, or “ovary-testis”.
If the gland is a testicle, it will start secreting male sex hormones, which in turn will cause the hen to develop male body characteristics, thus turning the hen into a rooster. Well, not exactly, because a hen never really becomes a cock. It is true that it resembles him, behaves like him and can no longer lay eggs, but it cannot produce offspring because biologically it is still a hen.
Can a rooster become a hen? No, and the breakthrough does not work that way.
(Un)safe radiation
Scorpions sleep during the day and watch at night, but that’s also when their enemies are awake. So how is it possible that scorpions glow blue-green when illuminated with ultraviolet light?
No one knows why. Some people think it’s a coincidence and just the result of a very normal chemical reaction in a Scorpio’s body, which just happens to have that side-effect.
Others believe that scorpions have their distinctive glow to attract prey, although insects seem to avoid fluorescent scorpions rather than cling to them.
It is also possible that Scorpios are chasing away predators by glowing, although they are, on the other hand, drawing attention to themselves. Or perhaps the glow helps them to see and recognise each other because their eyes are best adapted to detect blue-green light.
These are all just hypotheses, and even the researchers at the University of Oklahoma are only speculating when they say that the glowing of scorpions is linked to their sense of security.
When they are outdoors, they can be seen by invaders such as rodents, owls and others. To protect themselves from them, they try to get out of the light shining on their bodies as quickly as possible, for example out of reach of the moon or other light to safety. There is no light where it is safe, because it is always under something, like a dragon.
They can supposedly sense where the shadow is and where the light is not only with their eyes, but with the whole surface of their body, so they can immediately detect any obstacle that causes their skin to be illuminated.
When their body is glowing more strongly, they know they are more exposed to danger, and when their body calms down, they know they are safe.
Collectively depressed
The baboons in the Dutch zoo apparently did not feel safe at all when, seemingly for no reason at all, they started behaving strangely, to say the least. They were completely apathetic, as if they had fallen into a collective depression.
They sat motionless with their backs turned to the visitors, as if in protest. They were not fighting or courting. Even apples were refused, even though they were their favourite food and they usually sprinted towards them like sprinters.
Usually the guards would bury them in the ground so that they had to dig them out, just like in nature, but now they just set them on the ground, but the baboons didn’t move.
They have been like this since the day they became insanely hysterical, and the next day they gave nothing more. It was obvious that something traumatic had happened to them, but nobody knew what.
This is unprecedented in other zoos, but this is the fourth time the Dutch zoo has dealt with baboon apathy, except that the third time, in 2007, all the baboons were looking in the same direction, and now they refused to move.
What upset them, or what upset their leader, because it is well known that the colony follows the leader, so is it quite possible that he was the only one who was desperately upset? There are many theories, more or less serious.
Some are convinced that he saw a flying object, though others object that he saw a ghost. One theory is that he was frightened by a snake that escaped, except that no snakes escape in zoos. And that he was alarmed by an earthquake, even though the seismological equipment did not register a tremor that day.
Others believe that the alpha baboon was upset by a visitor’s T-shirt because it had a lion painted on it, but in that case the baboons would be constantly on their wits because zoo visitors are never changed into uniform clothing before entering.
So to this day, no one knows why these baboons in particular are subject to mass depression, although something must have really scared the shit out of them. In the wild, they are still upset days after a predator crosses their path. But there are no lions or hyenas in their zoo on their island, so the question remains.
