Page 3 - Animal Facts

Weak male cuttlefish disguise as female to get past other males and mate with the females!

The cuttlefish, like many undersea animals, is quite odd. They belong to the same class as squids and octopi and can rapidly change the color pattern on their bodies. Sometimes, this color change is used to camouflage them against predators and sometimes, it is used to attract a mate.

Cuttlefish populations are male-biased, which means there is a lot of competition between males, especially for access to females. Once a male identifies a female he would like to mate with, he has to convince her. In order to do so, he often displays an impressive array of colors.

However, this display, while impressing the female, also often attracts other males. Basically, the males have to pretend that they haven’t found a female and at the same time, convince her to mate. Tough.

In some cases, a weaker male will display an attractive range of color patterns on one side of his body toward the female and on the other side, a camouflage. Often this camouflage side can be mistaken for a female. The male is then able to mate unobtrusively mate with the female.

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The Blanket Octopus rips off the Portuguese Man O'War's tentacles and uses them for defensive purposes

The blanket octopus is a type of octopus that occupies shallow waters in subtropical and tropical oceans. They are called this because of the long, transparent webs that connect the dorsal and dorsolateral arms of the adult females.

Unlike most species of animals, the females are much larger than the males. They can reach 2 meters in length while the males are only a few centimeters long. The male dies shortly after mating and the female carries nearly 100,000 eggs at the base of her dorsal arm.

The blanket octopus is immune to the poison of the Portuguese Man O’War. This allows the males and immature females to rip off the man o’war’s tentacles and use them for defensive purposes. The females also unfurl their net-like membranes to increase their apparent size.

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There's a wasp that cocoons and grows inside cockroaches! The larva eats them alive from the inside!

This seemingly harmless looking parasite, called the Jewel Wasp, actually has a very creepy birthing ritual. It will poison and paralyze a cockroach with a few quick stings, and drag it into a burrow. Once it's there, the wasp will lay an egg on the wasp, and the egg will develop inside the roach!

The wasp mostly lives in the tropical regions of South Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands. The weird reproductive method doesn't end there, however. The wasp will sting a cockroach twice. The first sting will paralyze the cockroach so it can't defend itself.The second sting turns the roach into a zombie, basically, as the cockroach is unable to walk spontaneously or of its own will.

The eggs hatch about 3 days after the sting. Then, the larva feed for 4-5 days on the roach. Mind you, the roach is still alive. In fact the larva will strategically eat the roach's internal organs to maximize the chances that the roach stays alive until the larva can develop into a cocoon!

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Elephants are the only other mammals that have death rituals!

Elephants are amongst the world's most intelligent species. With a mass of just over 11 pounds elephant brains are larger than those of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty fold those of a typical elephant, whale brains are barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain.

The elephant's brain is similar to that of humans in terms of structure and complexity—such as the elephant's cortex having as many neurons as a human brain, suggesting convergent evolution. Elephants exhibit a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, play, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, memory and possibly language.

All indicate that elephants are highly intelligent; it is thought they are equal with cetaceans, and primates in this regard. Due to the high intelligence and strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them.

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Bats represent 20% of all mammals!

Bats get a bad reputation. Due to their nocturnal nature and their association with vampires, some people may be afraid of them. And since they can fly, thye may be mistaken for birds. Bats are actually fairly harmless mammals though. They actually make up 20% of all mammal species worldwide. There are about 1,240 species.

These are divided into two suborders: The largely fruit-eating megabats and the echolocating microbats. As noted before, bats are fairly harmless. Seventy percent of them are insectivores Most of the rest are fruit-eaters, and a few feed on animals, such as the fish-eating bat. And vampire bats do in fact drink the blood of animals.

These 1,240 species are scattered throughout the world. They perform vital ecological functions such as pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds. They are also important in eating insects and reducing the need of pesticides. So all in all, bats are helpful creatures.

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