On our recent trip to Washington state, Trish and I visited the Quinault Rainforest. This is a spectacular temperate rainforest (a rainforest in a temperate region, usually consisting of a mix of coniferous and broadleaf trees). We were lucky enough to come upon a herd of Roosevelt elk.
Roosevelt elk are the largest subspecies of the North American elk (Cervus elaphus). These huge mammals can weigh up to 1,100 pounds (500 kg), making them one of the largest members of the deer family (which includes deer, elk, moose, and caribou). Male elk grow massive antlers, which are shed after the mating season each year. Keep in mind that antlers fall off each year, whereas horns are permanent. One exception is the North American pronghorn, which grows horns, but the horn sheath falls off and is regrown each year. Anyway, male elk shed and regrow their massive antlers annually. If you look closely, you'll see that the third elk from the left is a male just starting to grow its new antlers. Roosevelt elk are named after President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt.
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Did you know cows often face north or south while grazing? I didn’t realize this until I read a National Geographic article about it recently. Scientists have limitless curiosity, and a team recently examined thousands of Google Earth satellite images. They realized something humans had heretofore never really noticed on a large scale. Grazing and resting cows often line their bodies up along the Earth’s magnetic poles. Not always, of course, but enough to establish a general pattern. Grazing and resting cows usually face north or south. Why? How? This pattern happens on all six of the cow-inhabitable continents, and it’s consistent regardless of the terrain or other factors like wind or the angle of the sun. (disclaimer: this is not a universally accepted phenomenon—some scientists suggest more data needs to be collected before it is conclusive).
As it turns out, nobody really knows why cows do this. Some animals, particularly birds, bees, and fish, have an internal compass, but this is the first evidence of an internal compass in a large mammal. Interestingly, the closer the cows are to the north or south poles, the less accurate they are with their orientation. Apparently, their internal compass works better the nearer they are to the equator. Some experts suggest this is somehow related to navigation. Maybe, in the distant past, cow ancestors used this compass to migrate, or to find their way home every day after grazing over a large area of land. Other experts suggest it is some kind of strategy for avoiding predators, perhaps allowing the cows to keep themselves spatially oriented in herds (kind of like fish schooling behavior). I wonder what happens to cows if they can’t orient themselves north and south, such as in some feedlots. Does this stress the cows and make them less healthy? I am going to add my own hypothesis (as silly as it might be) to this unsolved mystery. I’m not a cow expert, but I get the impression cows like routine, and they like uniformity. Maybe, just maybe, they orient themselves so that they are always doing something familiar, like they did yesterday and the day before. So, they orient themselves to be just like all the other cows in their herd. Maybe cows feel comfortable being just like all the other cows. Individuality does not seem to be a thing with cows. Did you know kangaroos cool themselves by licking their arms? Many kangaroos in Australia live in extremely hot places, often over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In these conditions, large mammals can have a hard time keeping their core body temperature from getting too hot. Many mammals, like humans, moderate their temperature by sweating.
Kangaroos are unusual in that they sweat when they are hopping (the kangaroo version of running), but when they stop hopping, they stop sweating and switch to panting instead. They pant at up to 300 breaths per minute, which keeps air flowing through their windpipe to cool their interior. But sometimes this isn't enough, which is when kangaroos start licking their forearms. Kangaroos have special networks of densely packed blood vessels just under the skin of their forearms. When they moisten their arms by licking, the saliva evaporates, cooling the skin, which cools the blood just below the skin. This cooled blood then travels throughout the rest of the body, cooling the entire kangaroo. Cool, huh? Trish and I recently enjoyed a week-long trip to Washington to explore some of the northwest coast and visit our son and daughter-in-law. One of our more colorful stops was the tulip fields of the Skagit Valley north of Seattle. This scene is from the Roozengaarde farm.
Each year, about 1,000 acres of tulips are grown in Skagit County, producing about 20 million bulbs that are harvested each summer. Another 75 million cut flowers are raised in greenhouses and fields. This is about 75% of all tulip production in the US. Every April they have the famous Tulip Festival, drawing about 300,000 attendees (including us this year). Surprisingly, the tulip bulbs and flowers generate about $20 million in gross income, but the month-long Tulip Festival generates $65 million for the county. The tulip, which is native to Central Asia, is in the lily family, and it is closely related to onions. Over a thousand years ago, tulips were cultivated in the Ottoman Empire (Turkish empire). The first bulbs were taken to Europe in 1556. In 1593, a botanist took tulips to the Netherlands. Tulips became extremely fashionable, and the wealthy paid high prices for them, leading to a period called Tulipomania (from 1634 to 1637). Eventually, tulips became affordable for the working class. They continue to be popular today. Tulips include more than 150 species and over 30,000 varieties. Despite all that, any time Trish tries to plant tulips in our yard, the deer promptly bite them off at the ground level. Okay, this one is the Big Kahuna of life’s great mysteries. The golden ticket. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The prize at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks. The… well, you get it, right? This one’s a big deal. But am I afraid to address it? No!
Actually, this question has been answered by a few great minds. In Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, a character opens an envelope containing the meaning of life. The character reads the contents: “Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” Honestly, that’s a pretty good answer, in my opinion. In A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a giant computer named Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to contemplate this question, and it finally reveals the answer: 42. If you turn to a dictionary for the meaning of life, you’ll get something like: “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.” But this isn’t very satisfying, is it? The question has been answered in countless ways, and the answers depend on the lens through which a person views the question. Some people think it has to do with our potential and our ideals, and their answer might be: to live your dreams, or to expand your potential in life. Some people consider the biological aspects, and their answer might be: to survive, or to evolve, or to reproduce. Some people are concerned about wisdom, and their answer might be: to learn as many things as possible, or to seek out a reason to live. Some people are most concerned about being good, and their answer might be: to leave the world a better place than you found it, or to be honorable. Some people approach the question in a religious sense, and their answer might be: to understand the mystery of God, or to have a pure soul and experience God. Some people are focused on happiness, and their answer might be: to seek beauty in all its forms, or to enjoy every moment of life. Some people are all about power and self-improvement, and their answer might be: to know and master the world, or to strive for power and superiority. Some people believe that life simply has no meaning, and their answer might be: humans evolved randomly, and therefore there is no purpose or meaning, or… there is no meaning, and that’s what makes life so special. Finally, some people think we shouldn’t even try to answer the question at all… they might say: the answer is too profound and cannot be understood, or… you will never live if you spend all your time seeking the meaning of life. So, what are we to conclude? It seems to me that the answer is different for every person on Earth. You must find your own meaning. Darn it! Then how are we supposed to get it right on the test? Here is my own answer (although it could change as I change): Human life, having evolved by natural selection, has no predetermined meaning. However, we are fortunate to have the cognitive capability to contemplate our existence. Therefore, it would be a shame to squander this amazing evolutionary superpower. Humans are capable of making their own happiness, although the ingredients for such happiness are different for each human, as it should be. Personally, my purpose—the meaning of my life—is to achieve happiness and satisfaction. How? By striving to be a role model for others, by helping those who need my help, by loving my wife, kids, and others in my family, by experiencing and nurturing my awe of the natural world, by creating stories that entertain people, and by learning new and fascinating things. Anyway, there is definitely an answer to this age-old question. There is meaning to life, and it isn’t 42. It is something different for every person. We visited one of our daughters and her family in Texas recently. While waiting outside of a social security office for our daughter to take care of something, I spotted this lizard hunting for insects next to the sidewalk. About ten inches long including the tail, this is a Texas spotted whiptail. They are extremely fast-running lizards and they roam around, darting this way and that, as they hunt for insects. Despite their diminutive size, whiptails can run up to 17 miles per hour (27 kph). Whiptails feed in the heat of the day, often when the temperatures are over 100 degrees F (38 C). Interestingly, the Texas spotted whiptail has contributed (by mating with other whiptail species) to producing two hybrid whiptail species that only have females. You read that correctly... the Chihuahuan spotted whiptail and Laredo striped whiptail species do not have any males at all. These all-female species reproduce by a natural form of cloning called parthenogenesis. Without mating with a male, the female lays fertile eggs, which hatch as clones of the mother. It gets even stranger. Even though these females do not mate with males, they still go through a false mating ritual with other females, physically mounting and pretending to mate. Why? Because this act releases their internal hormones, triggering their production of one to five eggs, each containing a clone of the mother. Photo Credit: Texas spotted whiptail - Stan C. Smith This is a relatively easy one. Let's think about this. People aren’t hobbits—we don’t put round doors on our houses. We don’t put round doors on schools. Gas stations, courthouses, factories, and Walmart stores? Nope, no round doors there. All rectangular. Even the hatches on airplanes and submarines are mostly rectangular, although they do have rounded corners. But a manhole, and the corresponding manhole cover—round as a moon pie. What’s up with that?
As it turns out, there are several reasons. As the saying goes, “safety first.” So, perhaps the most important reason for round manholes is that the covers cannot fall through the hole and bonk someone (presumably a “man”) on the head. A rectangular or a square cover could be turned in such a way as to fall through the hole. And if you’ve never picked up a manhole cover, they are heavy! Here’s another reason. Round covers are easier to fit onto the hole. They don’t have to be turned a certain way, as a square cover would. They’re heavy, remember, so no one wants to turn a manhole cover this way and that to get it to fit. And… you can’t cut yourself on the corner of a manhole cover if it ain’t got no corners (safety first, remember?). And finally… as if this weren’t enough reasons, round manhole covers are easier to move from one place to another. Instead of having two people carry one, a single person can simply roll it. Did you know colonies of army ants build complex nests using their own bodies? Most colonial ants excavate permanent nests in the ground or in structures like dead trees, but army ants make temporary nests with their own bodies! The name "army ant" actually refers to about 200 species, not all closely related. The name refers to their behavior rather than their lineage. Army ants deploy huge groups of millions of foraging predators. When a group encounters a prey animal, the ants attack in overwhelming numbers. Unlike other ants, army ants are nomadic, frequently on the move. They need to keep moving because they have so many ants in the colony that they quickly deplete the prey in any given area. And this is why they create temporary nests with their own bodies instead of permanent nests. Army ant colonies alternate between a nomadic phase and a stationary phase. During the nomadic phase, millions of them forage for prey during the day, but each night they form a temporary nest with their bodies, called a bivouac. They usually do this in tree trunks or burrows. The ants grab each others' legs with their powerful mandibles, creating a huge mass that looks kind of like a ball but is actually a complex nest with an orderly structure. The soldier ants stay on the outer surface to protect the colony, and the interior of the living nest has various chambers especially for food, ant larvae, ant eggs, and even a special chamber for the queen. Astoundingly, most army ant colonies (3-4 million ants) have all come from a single queen—the queen is a serious egg-laying machine. When the queen dies, the entire colony is likely to die because army ants do not have the ability to produce emergency queens. Sometimes, when a colony loses a queen, they will try to locate another related roaming colony that already has a queen and then join with that colony. If the colonies are closely related, they may be allowed to join. Here is a portion of a complex army ant bivouac. Photo Credits: - Army ant bivouac - Geoff Gallice from Gainesville, FL, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons We’ve all experienced the “grass is greener” syndrome. Well, I don’t know if everyone experiences the feeling—some people might think their situation is the best in the entire universe. Basically, the expression refers to the idea that there is something better that we are missing. I experience this often. When I go fishing, for example. I always think carefully about where I want to fish, weighing the options in my mind. Then, when I get to the spot I decided on, I start to wonder if I made the wrong choice: “I am at location A, but would I be catching more fish if I’d gone to location B? Yes, I’m pretty sure I would. Why-oh-why did I chose location A? I’m such an idiot!”
This is a minor example, with little to no consequences. Unfortunately, though, some people have “grass is greener” syndrome with regards to really important aspects of their lives. To solve this mystery, first we should figure out where the expression (an idiom, actually) came from. I used to think it came from the fact that cows and sheep are often seen stretching their necks through the fence to eat the grass on the other side. As it turns out, though, it probably came from a really old Latin proverb that was translated into English in 1545: The corne in an other mans ground semeth euer more fertyll and plentifull then doth oure own. If you haven’t guessed, the more modern translation is: The corn in another man’s ground seems ever more fertile and plentiful than our own. Hmm… maybe we should consider why grass is green in the first place. That way we can get some biology into this mystery. Basically, the color has to do with the pigment called chlorophyll. Most plants have little organelles called chloroplasts inside their cells. These chloroplasts contain molecules of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll molecules absorb certain wavelengths of light, especially red and blue. Green light, on the other hand, is reflected. That reflected green light hits the retinas of your eyes when you look at grass, which is why you perceive grass to be green in color. Now let's get to the question of why people (me included) sometimes have a tendency to believe the grass is greener on the other side. First, it's worth noting that sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side. For example, if someone is in a job they hate, or in an abusive relationship. In cases like that, the “grass is greener” syndrome is actually a healthy thing. However, why is the syndrome so common when we actually have no evidence that the alternative situation is any better than the situation we are in? I don’t really have any evidence that the other fishing spot would be any better on this particular day. So, why do I experience the “grass is greener” syndrome? Psychologists say it is based on fantasy and fear. The fear is easy to explain. Many people have a fear of boredom, or wasting time, or being unproductive, or missing out. And on the more serious side, a fear of being trapped by commitment, fear of losing one’s individuality, or fear of oppression. Where does the fantasy part come in? We tend to convince ourselves that, if we go to the greener side, we will get exactly what we want. That’s a fantasy because we have no evidence that we will get anything better than what we currently have. There is a new variation of the phrase, and I have decided to embrace it: “the grass is greener where you water it.” In other words, good situations come from the energy you put into them, not from dreaming about them. The other day I was testing out a new camera and this beautiful red-shouldered hawk happened to fly over me and land in a nearby tree, offering an opportunity for some photos. The hawk was studying the ground intently, probably watching some movement it had noticed, hoping it was a chipmunk or a vole. Besides rodents, these hawks eat snakes, toads, and crayfish. They sometimes eat birds, and we have seen them hanging around our bird feeders, waiting for a snack. Red-shouldered hawks are strictly forest hawks, spending most of their time hunting among the trees. They can be quite territorial. In fact, they will attack intruding crows and will lock talons with other hawks that come into their territory. They've even been known to attack humans they think are getting too close. Photo credit: - Red-shouldered Hawk - Stan C. Smith |
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