Archive for 2011

AUSTRALIANS RALLY AGAINST LIVE EXPORTS

THOUSANDS across the country have protested against live animal exports as independent Senator Nick Xenophon echoed their calls for the cruelty to cease.

Rallies, organised in each state capital and Canberra, called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to allow MPs a conscience vote on the issue.

The future of live exports will go before federal parliament this week with two bills to be debated, including one which would phase it out by 2014.

Groups opposed to the trade, including the RSPCA and Animals Australia, believe a conscience vote would bring it to an end.

The bills were prompted by video footage of abuse at an Indonesian abattoir recently aired byFour Corners.

The subsequent outcry prompted the federal government to impose a temporary ban on exports to Indonesia, which resumed last month.

In Adelaide, Senator Xenophon said no Australian should ignore the cruelty of the live trade.

"The industry will give you a thousand reasons why we can't stop it," he said.

"They say that we can't process meat here, even though that would mean creating value and creating jobs for our nation."

In Melbourne people wept as Animals Australia investigator Lyn White recalled some of the cruelty she had witnessed at slaughterhouses in Indonesia and the Middle East.

"I have stood in front of workers in a Dubai marketplace to stop them from throwing Australian sheep three metres through the air like bags of wheat," she told the crowd.

"I have stood in Indonesian slaughterhouses for six consecutive nights witnessing a level of brutality to animals that I hoped I would never see from our fellow human beings.

"This is not about animal rights, this is about ending human wrongs."

Greens MP Adam Bandt, who introduced one of the bills before federal parliament, also backed calls for a conscience vote on the issue.

"Members ... from all sides of parliament should vote with their heart and with their head," Mr Bandt said.

"It's what the Australian people want."

Among the crowd in Sydney, Jill Trotter, who came with her dog Zoe, said she felt strongly about live animal exports.

"There's no need to send live animals overseas, it just doesn't have to happen and there are humane ways of killing animals," Ms Trotter said.

"They would have known that this was going on in Indonesia for a long time and that's what is really sad."

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POACHERS' CAMERA PORTRAYS ITS OWN MASTER'S MISDEEDS

This tiger, its image captured by a hidden camera in 2010, was identified as one killed by poachers recently in Thailand.

This image was among those retrieved from a cell phone camera left behind by tiger poachers in Thailand.

Two suspects arrested in Thailand after park rangers recovered images on cell phone

Two men suspected of killing endangered tigers in Thailand have been arrested, a U.S. conservation group said Thursday, and the key evidence turned out to be cell phone images of them with their prizes.

A phone with the images was seized after a gun battle between Thai park rangers and suspected poachers in a protected area, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement.

"The rangers also found other evidence of poaching, including animal body parts and insecticides that are sometimes used to poison tigers," the group stated.

The images led to three men, one of whom escaped and two who were arrested. The group is thought to have killed up to 10 tigers in the region — a significant number given that only 2,500 breeding adult tigers are left in the wild globally.

"When confronted with 'trophy' images of themselves posing over a dead tiger, the suspects claimed the big cat was poached in Myanmar in 2003," WCS said. "According to WCS Thailand staff, however, the tiger (identified by its unique stripe patterns) was a well-known male tiger that researchers had tracked with camera traps in Thailand for at least three years between 2008-2011."

The society said it believes the men are part of "an organized crime ring that WCS and other partners have been tracking in this region for the past year."

The cell phone also contained images of elephant tusks, suggesting the men had illegally hunted elephants as well.

The Wildlife Conservation Society, based in New York, has helped Thailand and other governments with funding and training for beefed up patrols to protect wildlife.

"Such work comes with great risk to the park rangers working on the frontlines of enforcement," WCS noted. "One officer was shot in a nearby community on Friday in what is believed to be retaliation for the recent poaching arrests. The ranger remains in serious condition in the hospital."

Tigers have lost ninety percent of their historic range — which spread across Asia from Turkey to eastern Russia — according to TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring group funded by the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Tigers are poached mainly for their pelts and bones, which are used in traditional Asian medicines.

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GLOBAL WARMING MAY COOK SEA TURTLE EGGS

THE GIST:

Scorching sands pose the greatest long-term threat from climate change to sea turtles.
Sea level rise is a more important threat in the short term -- until about 2030.
Evaluating the intensity of these threats could help conservation efforts.

When they emerge onto beaches around the world to lay their eggs in the sand, sea turtles expose themselves to a trio of threats from climate change: cyclones, rising seas and warming temperatures.

A new study finds that for the world's largest population of sea turtles -- in Australia's northern Great Barrier Reef -- blazing hot sands pose the greatest threat to the animals' breeding success over the long term.

The researchers predict that from now until 2030, sea level rise will do the most harm to turtle breeding grounds. However, by 2070, sands in many areas will be so scorching that eggs could not survive.

"Different studies look at how a single climatic process is going to affect nesting grounds," study lead author Marianna Fuentes of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, told Discovery News. "But all the climatic processes are going to happen simultaneously."

The new work on sea turtles -- gentle, charismatic denizens of our oceans that keep ecosystems balanced by grazing kelp and algae -- evaluated the combined effects.

Fuentes and her colleagues gathered what was known from studies of individual threats and surveyed experts' views of their relative significance. They published the findings in Global Change Biology.

Experts were most certain about the effects of warming beaches. Sand temperatures determine the sex ratio of turtle eggs. "With increasing temperature we get more female turtles being produced," Fuentes said.

Warmer temperatures also bring reduced hatchling success, more deformities, and, above about 91 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius), the eggs die.

Installing shady areas on the beach, replanting vegetation along beach edges, or relocating eggs to cooler places are all possible strategies for protecting eggs from overheating, Fuentes said.

The findings could also help prioritize conservation efforts. "In the long term, it doesn't really matter if you mitigate against impacts from sea-level rise because increasing temperatures will be causing most of the damage," Fuentes said.

But it's not quite that simple, she noted. Breeding grounds may move in response to sea level rise in ways that could not be anticipated in the study.

Also, the relative importance of these threats may vary in other regions.

"It would be really interesting to use the tool in different areas," said Marianne Fish, program leader for the Marine Turtle and Climate Change Program at the World Wildlife Fund.

Fish studies turtles in Latin America and the Caribbean, and suggests the ranking of threats may be different in her region.

"I think some of the threats we face are very different," she said. "In the Caribbean, there is a lot of coastal development. As sea levels rise, if you have a building right behind the beach, there's nowhere for that beach to move."

"Sea turtles have been around for so long, and they have adapted to past climate change," Fuentes said. "We think they have the biological capacity to adapt. But they are a lot less resilient than before because their population is reduced and the nesting areas that they have available are reduced. It is a lot harder for them to adapt than it was in the past."

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New Pit Viper Found—One of World's Smallest

A good thing recently came in a small package for scientists: A new snake species found in China is one of the littlest pit vipers in the world.
Yang and colleagues found the species during a recent survey of forests in Maolan National Nature Reserve in Guizhou, China. At a maximum length of about 2.6 feet (0.7 meter), the new pit viper is the smallest known so far in the country.

The new snake, Protobothrops maolanensis, was an unexpected "surprise gift for us," study leader Jian-Huan Yang said in an email.

Though the grayish brown species easily blends into its habitat, the ground-dwelling species ended up being the most common snake found during the research, noted Yang, of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou.

Scientists have found two other new pit vipers in China so far in 2011:Sinovipera sichuanensis and Protobothrops maolanensis, he added.

Bad Luck Snake?

The group of snakes known as pit vipers includes well-known species such as the copperhead, the rattlesnake, and the water moccasin.

All known pit vipers are venomous, although their potency varies across species.

The toxicity of the new pit viper species is not yet known, but "kindly local peoples warned me that this snake is very poisonous," Yang added.

"They said that some local peoples had been bit by this snake and then got poisoning—one was dead who had not got treatment in time."

Yang's team also found dead snakes that had been killed by people—the Miao, a local minority, believe that a snake encountered in the wild will bring bad luck unless it's killed immediately, he said.

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ORGANIZED CRIME WIPING OUT WILDLIFE

Sophisticated, organized criminal syndicates involved in the illegal trade of animal body parts are wiping out wildlife, to the point that several subspecies have already gone extinct, according to a paper in the journal Oryx.

The Sumatran rhinoceros is thought to have gone extinct in Thailand and Peninsular Malaysia due to poachers working in crime rings, and two subspecies of African rhino have suffered similar fates. Tigers, elephants, saiga antelopes, and even a little anteater known as the pangolin are all at dangerously low numbers due to relentless hunting by the criminals.

Author Elizabeth Bennett, vice president of species conservation for the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Discovery News that the crime syndicates "are likely to involve similar networks -- and even the same people -- as the organized crime networks involved in illicit arms and drugs smuggling. But they are networks, globally linked, like inter-connected spider webs."

She says numerous species are targeted, from turtles and snakes, along with much larger animals. Aside from people coveting exotic pets, many people believe in traditional "remedies." Rhino horns, for example, are mostly made of keratin, the same fibrous protein found in human hair and fingernails, but people in some cultures still think of them as an aphrodisiac.

The illegal wildlife trade would not exist were it not for such customer demand.

"The single greatest core driver is increasing wealth, especially in East Asia," Bennett said. "That is leading to greatly increased demand for high-value wildlife products. That demand can now be met because of greatly increased access, largely by roads often built to extract natural resources (logs, minerals) throughout wild areas."

Technology allows the criminals to stay in constant contact with each other. When alleged tiger poachers were recently caught in the Western Forest Complex of Thailand, for example, most had cell phones in hand, likely waiting for instructions. Bennett points out that these traders are light on their feet, frequently changing routes and modes of operation as enforcement commences in any one place.

She believes another key to their success "is that part of the system involves fake permits somewhere along the trade chain. An animal might be poached illegally in Africa, sent illegally to another country where paperwork (such as a CITES permit) is introduced or changed, so then an illegal animal become a 'legal' one, since the paperwork gives it legitimacy."

"So much of the legal wildlife trade in this country (the U.S.)," she added, "is probably from animals that were hunted illegally at the start."

Over the past few years, conservationists have become especially concerned about rhino populations. In 2010, a record 333 rhinos were killed in South Africa alone as a result of poaching. Already in 2011, at least 200 rhinos have been killed in the country, many from the world famous safari destination Kruger National Park.

"Poaching is being undertaken almost without exception by sophisticated criminals, sometimes hunting from helicopters and using automatic weapons," said Joseph Okori, World Wildlife Fund's African Rhino Program director. "South Africa is fighting a war against organized crime that risks reversing the outstanding conservation gains it made over the past century."

While the criminals are becoming wealthier, the poor global economy has weakened conservation groups' ability to counter the crimes.

"We are almost losing a rhino a day," Kevin Bewick of the Anti-Poaching Intelligence Group Southern Africa told Discovery News. "At this rate, they will soon be wiped out. Anti-poaching units are extremely underfunded and are not receiving support from the South African government."

Bennett, however, remains hopeful that citizens and governments can fight the crime syndicates and win.

"Scientifically based patrols and intelligence networks are relatively low tech and not too costly," she said. "Involvement of local community members as rangers and 'eyes and ears' is also not expensive. Development of apps to aid in species identification again is not too costly."

She concluded, however, that "the core costs will always lie with governments, who have the legal authority to enforce…The governments of the key wildlife consuming nations for these high-end products are not poor, and could allocate additional resources to customs and others as needed. Developed country governments with good technical expertise could contribute that, as well as funds, to support less developed countries with the key wildlife needing protection."

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DRAGONS - MYTHS BUSTED

Did the dragon once live?

There are three ways that dragons can exist. The first is symbolically, as an idea or a philosophy.While these can have every bit as much of an impact on the world as a truely monstrouse beast, perhaps even more, it is a less overt, direct exisence.

The second is by definition. On earth there can be found a creature known as teh Komodo Dragon. A large dangerouse predator lizard, it has the name dragon, and yet is not considered one in a traditional sense. On other planets, there are many creatures which ahve evolved with characteristics similar to that of a traditional dragon from human lore. Unfailingly these are categorized by human scientists along various biological features, completely overlooking the obvious similarities these independently occurring species have to one another, and to the traditional dragon. The large, fire breathing, flying lizard, with a penchant for shiney objects known as the sciliopath of Vegii 9 (a newly discovered species which some realities may not yet have knowledge of them yet) is one of the best examples of an undefined dragon. While the need to define things along evolutionary direct biological lines is understandable from a scientific standpoint, it shouldnt stand in the way of a deeper understanding of the reality of the universe, and of the dragon.

Special Note: Recent discovereies have shown that there is a mystical connection which may exist between all of the independently evolved dragons which have appeared on seperate planets throughout the universe. This common trait may be a result of these creatures existing on a more subtle spiritual level as transdimensional biengs, that only resurface as biological creatures in our reality. Some indications show that this may even be a trait shared by creatures other then dragons.

The third way dragons can exist is based on a complex understanding of reality. Existence is made up of moments, and each moment has an infinite number of possibilities, each of which can lead to a different universe. Every single one of those universes exists realtive to our own, and can even impact on our own in certain subtle ways. This means that the reality we understand is only one momentary possibility, constantly changing, in an infinitely infinite sea of possibilities. In a truely infinite universe, everything is reality.

In some realities dragons do physically exist. In others, they once did. Along some lines of possibility, a universe where dragons exist, evolved into our current unioverse. In others, our own universe will one day evolve into one in which they exist. This understanding of the universe leaves all possibilities open, and provides us with a wider perspective of the nature of possibility, and teh reality of the dragon.

All of the Oriental dragons were intimately associated with water. Dragons lived in lakes and rivers and seas, even in raindrops. They controlled the tides, floods and rainfall. If they really existed, then a source that immediately comes to mind is the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis. They are not as large as their American cousin, ranging from an average two metres in length to sometimes three metres. But they are dangerous, reptilian and water-based - all good reasons for linking them to the Oriental dragon. But only if you haven't heard of the predecessors of the real-life Komodo dragon .

Australian monitor lizards all belong to the genus Varanus. They are easily identifiable by their streamlined shape, elongated neck, semi-erect posture, and a forked tongue - which can give the effect of fire-breathing. They all look very similar except for their size differences, which are extreme to say the least. The smallest is the pygmy monitor Varanus brevicauda (20 centimetres long, weighs 8-10 grams). The largest in Australia is the perentie or Varanus giganteus, which can attain a length of two metres.Larger still are the Komodo Dragons (Varanus komodoensis) of Indonesia, a country that the ancient Chinese would certainly have visited. They can reach lengths of three metres and weigh 150 kgs, making them the world's largest lizards. They are formidable predators, like crocodiles that are able to run quickly across land. They were probably the reason that the stegodonts (pygmy elephants) became extinct in this area. They might even have wiped out the 1-metre tall, miniature humans, Homo floresiensis, who lived there up until 12,000 years ago.

These dragons were previously more widespread, with evidence of them once occurring in Mongolia coming to light. And in Queensland, Australia, only becoming extinct 19,000 years ago (take that date with a pinch of salt), was a bigger lizard still, a cousin of the Komodo dubbed Megalania prisca.

Megalania prisca, as we have learned from fossil evidence, grew to be a staggering seven metres in length and weighed 600 kgs. Although it was technically a lizard, it must have had the presence of a dinosaur, and almost certainly ate a few of the humans of that era. But it's usual meal was more likely to have been rhinoceros-sized wombats. [Strange days indeed with gigantism seeming to be rampant.] These meals are believable when you consider that Komodo dragons have been known to kill water buffalo weighing three times more than themselves.

Which brings us back to ancient Rome! Pliny, the Roman naturalist, said that the dragon of India was

"so enormous a size as easily to envelop the elephant with its folds and encircle with its coils. The contest is equally fatal to both; the elephant, vanquished, falls to the earth and by its weight crushes the dragon which is entwined about it."

He also mentioned the dragons of Ethiopia, which, with a length of only thirty feet, were too small to kill elephants. Other European myths state that dragons always jumped onto elephants from out of trees. Is this all just fantasy, amazing stories concocted to scare children with? Or is it just as reasonable to suggest that dragons once lived?

So where are we heading? On the one hand there are myths connecting dragons to global destruction and rebirth. On the other are links to DNA, ancient languages, ancient calendars and the I Ching. And now I am taking a big breath and suggesting that the mythical dragons were rooted in reality, that knights in shining armour actually killed real dragons, and somehow it all makes sense.

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TWO HEADED BEAUTIES OR BEASTS

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goodwill prevails among the unlikeliest of partners - check out the symbiosis between the squid and the bacteria

The Invisible Squid

The Hawaiian Bobtail Squid, Euprymna scolopes, has a clever way of duping predators during its nightly activities.

It uses a symbiotic luminescent bacteria, Vibrio fischeri, to light up its underside, so that upwards-looking predators don't see a dark, edible form silhouetted against a moonlit or starlit sky. Instead, hungry sharks or other fish see only sky. The squid is invisible.

What the glowing bacteria get out of this arrangement is a comfy place to live, food and even help reproducing. But because the squid does not need the bacteria except as a camouflage, it can live happily without it in a laboratory.

"The squids are not physically compromised without the bacteria," said University of Wisconsin biologist Margaret J. McFall-Ngai, who has studied the squid and its symbiotic bacteria for two decades. This makes it possible to look at the relationship of the two organisms in great detail.

The same cannot be said of a human's gut bacteria, she said. They are not so good at living apart, and there are so many kinds of them. The one squid, one bacteria model simplifies the study tremendously, she said.

Among the things that have been discovered by studying this relationship is that the bacteria and the squid operate together on a daily rhythm, said biologist Spencer Nyholm of the University of Connecticut.

Every morning the squid spits out 95 percent of the glowing bacteria, along with some of its own cells, perhaps to feed the bacteria. These expelled bacteria are then taken in and grown by other young squids.

After expelling the bacteria, the squid buries itself in sand and rests for the day, growing a new batch of glowing bacteria, which only glow when they reach a certain concentration.How do the bacteria "know" when they reach that concentration? That's another important mystery that needs to be found out.

"You see similar things in the guts of humans and other animals," said Nyholm, the second author on a paper on a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reporting on the biochemical mechanisms behind the daily rhythms in both organisms.

Understanding the inner workings of these rhythms could lead to new ways to treat disease. Among the big questions that the squid and bacteria could answer, for instance, is how the two organisms communicate so they don't harm each other.

"I'm interested in specifically how the immune system reacts," said Nyholm. "How can they tell the good from the bad bacteria?"

Indeed, how does the human body know the good gut bacteria from the bad bacteria? And why don't our gut bacteria just keep growing and kill us?

"That doesn't happen (in the squid) and that doesn't happen in us either," said McFall-Ngai. Discovering why could, among other things, lead to new ways to fight bacterial infections, since the molecules involved in the process are, remarkably, the same in squids and humans.

The very fact that the molecules at work are the same in such very different animals suggests something else too, she said. Unraveling the fine details of this symbiotic relationship could open a window into some very fundamental and ancient processes that date back to the earliest life on Earth.

That's some big science from a small glowing squid.

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WORLD IN SLOW MOTION LOOKS SO MUCH MORE AMAZING - CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO

Sometimes seeing even the most mundane creatures in slow motion through the lens of a camera reveals just how truly strange and wonderful they really are. In the video clip below, cinemetographer Louis Schwartzberg talks about pollinators--the bees, butterflies, beetles, flies, bats, and hummingbirds that fertilize plants in their quest for pollen and nectar and in doing so ensure that plants produce the seeds, berries, fruits, nuts and other food that so many other species rely upon for food, ourselves included.

His footage of pollinators is nothing short of stunning..

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check how much you think is true - TOP 10 ANIMAL MYTHS

An Elephant Never Forgets

Sometimes it's hard to separate fact from fiction, especially with the many myths that involve animals. Their behavior can certainly be mysterious to say the least, so it's no wonder that some of these creatures have become the focal point of speculation. Take a peek at these 10 animal myths and discover which ones are actually true and which are merely urban legend.

This expression likely stemmed from the fact that the elephant has the biggest brain of all land animals — and apparently, the bigger the mass, the better the memory. Elephants are able to retain a mental map of their entire home range — we're talking an area the size of Rhode Island! Elephants also travel in packs and when the group gets too big, the eldest daughter breaks off to start her own contingent, yet she never forgets her roots. One researcher witnessed a mother and daughter elephant recognizing each other after 23 years of separation. MYTH VERDICT: TRUE

Crocodiles Are Crybabies

Terence Trent D'arby sang about crocodile tears in his hit song "Wishing Well," but the phrase that implies expressing fake emotion actually comes from an ancient fable that crocodiles weep while both luring and killing their prey. In reality, crocodiles can't chew, so they are forced to rip their food into chunks and swallow them whole. As luck would have it, the glands that keep their eyes moist are right near their throats, so their eating habits actually force tears into their eyes. MYTH VERDICT: TRUE

March Hares Are Mad

The expression "Mad as a March Hare" may be foreign to many, except for those who spent a lot of time hobnobbing during the 1500s when the saying first came into fashion. Back then, "mad" meant crazy or wild, and this could certainly be used to describe the behavior that was commonly exhibited by the normally shy and quiet hare during the spring mating season (which in Europe primarily meant the month of March). Their odd conduct included boxing with potential paramours, but contrary to early belief, it was the female throwing the one-two punch. MYTH VERDICT: TRUE

Groundhogs Can Predict the Arrival of Spring

It's the only mammal to have its own day named after it and as legend goes, every Feb. 2, the groundhog emerges from hibernation. If it sees its shadow, six more weeks of winter lie ahead, and if not, spring is on the way! The most famous groundhog of all is Punxsutawney Phil, named in honor of his hometown in Pennsylvania where he acts as the spokesperson for all groundhogs. So how much stock should you put in his predictions? In reality, groundhogs prepare for six months of hibernation by eating up to one-third of their weight on daily basis. When they emerge, they actually do respond to changes in light and temperature, two factors that play a part in determining the forecast. MYTH VERDICT: TRUE

Are Bats Really Blind?

This saying has become a fixture of everyday vernacular and the assumption likely developed because bats primarily use a form of sonar to navigate through dark areas and avoid obstacles. However, their eyes, while small and sometimes poorly developed, are also completely functional, not to mention the fact that they have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Perhaps the saying should be changed to "Keen as a Bat"? MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks

Just because a dog is approaching its more senior years doesn't mean it can't learn a new thing or two. In fact, with approximately 15 minutes of training every day for two weeks straight, even the most stubborn dog can usually learn how to sit, stay, fetch, roll over or whatever your heart desires, regardless of age. The saying is meant to be taken less literally about dogs and more about people — specifically, the types who have been set in their ways for so long that changing their behavior would be (to quote the rock band Chicago) a hard habit to break. MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

Are Hens Teeth Really Rare?

This expression may not be all the rage among the Gen-X, Gen-Y or Gen-2.0 crowd, but there was a time when it was commonly used to describe something very difficult to track down or find. The saying harkens back to long, long ago, as in 150 million years, back when the hen's ancestor the archaeopteryx was roaming the world. This chicken of the Stone Age came equipped with feathers, claws and a beak full of cone-shaped teeth. Scientists not only recently discovered that hens still have the DNA necessary to grow a set of chompers, but actually successfully put the theory into practice. So there! MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

Do Camels Really Store Water in Their Humps?

A camel can survive seven days without water, but not because they are carrying large reserves inside their humps. They're able to avoid dehydration that would kill most other animals, thanks in large part to oval-shaped red blood cells (vs. the standard circular variety). As far as that hump goes, it's nothing more than a big mound of fat, though a useful one at that — the lump provides camels with the same amount of energy as three weeks of food. If there's any body part that excels at retaining water, the award goes to the camel's kidneys and intestines. These organs are so efficient that a camel's urine comes out thick as syrup and their feces is so dry, it can fuel fires! MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

Do Earwigs Live Inside Your Ears?

If the mention of an earwig makes you shudder or think of that horrifying scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, rest assured — while earwigs are predisposed to hiding in warm, humid crevices, they're not likely to choose your ear as their new home. Even if one did, it wouldn't get very far — there's a thick bone in your ear canal to block it from burrowing into your ear and laying eggs. So how did this creepy crawler get its name? Turns out if you stretch one out, it actually looks like an ear ... but who has the time for such antics? MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

Do Lemmings Commit Suicide?

The lemmings earn the top spot on the myth list because the misconceptions about these critters are both legendary and long-standing, starting back in the 1530s when a geographer proposed that they fell from the skies during storms. These days, the most popular rumor is that lemmings commit mass suicide when they migrate, but the truth is much less dramatic. Every three or four years, their population drops to near extinction only to skyrocket again, but the ebb and flow is a result of migration in large groups, which can include jumping off cliffs into the water and swimming great distances to the point of exhaustion and even death. The myth was also fueled by the 1958 Academy Award-winning documentary that showed the lemmings leaping to their deaths, but the scene was later busted for being staged. MYTH VERDICT: FALSE

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animals can be strange..check out this octopus

Otherworldly Octopus Hatching Event

Few creatures are odder than octopuses. Everything about them is utterly different from humans. Even fish and most other undersea creature have physical traits that we can relate to, but not octopuses.

They have eight legs. They have no backbone, which allows them to squeeze their soft bodies into spaces that an animal with a skeleton could never hope to fit. They don't even have a recognizable face. Their eyes are just attached to the top of their body but they have no nose and their mouth is found under their tentacles and holds a parrot-like beak which they use to crush the shells of crabs and other crustaceans.

Yet for all that "otherness" octopuses are surprisingly intelligent (some would even claim they are psychic). They are also very good parents to their young, at least up until the point where their eggs hatch. At the risk of anthropomorphizing, it's hard to not feel something watching the stunning video below of a female octopus holding vigil over her brood, knowing that she has forsaken eating in order to protect her defenseless eggs and will die shortly after her tiny, alien-like young float off into the ocean to fend for themselves.