There once were two cats who lived across the road from the school in a small town near you. One of them, named Fluff, lived in a nice house and her best friend, Kat, lived next door in a rather old and ugly house. The owners of the cats were best friends too. One year both cats had kittens at the same time. The first kitten born to Fluff was pretty little white cat. She was bigger than her brothers and sisters and her owners named her Beauty. Everyone who saw her felt that her name fit her perfectly. Just a few hours later Kat had her kittens. But because…
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Patrick Swayze With Beloved Dogs
Patrick Swayze was a huge animal lover and kept a menagerie of pets with his wife Lisa – which included farm animals, horses and dogs – at his ranch in the San Gabriel Mountains. Animals were such a part of his life that Swayze once said, “I don’t keep track of time… The segments of my life are in movies or animal generations.” In 1995, while filming Three Wishes, Swayze had to grapple with the death of his beloved dog Cody. In an interview that year, he said, “Cody – my guardian, my conscience, my friend, my son, my bodyguard for years – this 115-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback, who truly…
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Genes reveal how the seahorse got its snout and why males get pregnant
Seahorses remain an enigma. These mysterious-looking creatures appear to float around coastal seas with a grace and level of perfection that sucks in observers and admirers from all quarters of society. In ancient Greek and Roman times, seahorses were revered. They were once seen as symbols of power and of authority. Even the Latin taxonomic family name stirs the imagination, as Hippocampus translates as the “horse sea monster”. The reality is that seahorses are part of the teleost group – the most common type of fish – and so are far more closely related to an Atlantic cod than to any horses, monsters or imaginary creatures. But seahorses also have…
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Slugs & Snails
SnailsThere are around 120 species of snail in the UK. These range from 1mm Dot snails (punctum pygmaeum) to the Roman Snail (Helix pomatia) which has a 5cm shell and is good with garlic butter. Some of these species are specific to geographical areas so not all will turn up on your plot. The main one we are interested in is the European Brown Garden Snail (Helix aspersa) – a terrestrial gastropod mollusc. These Gardens Snails have a life span of 2 to 6 year. They can produce up to six batches of eggs in a single year, and each newborn will take one to two years to mature. SlugsSnail_slug_on_broom_handleSlugs…
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‘Ghosts’ of the Coal Mines
The human race has long had a love affair with coal. Coal is a fossil fuel that started forming in the Carboniferous Period 359 million to 299 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era. Stone and Bronze Age flint axes have been found embedded in coal, evidence that people were using it for fuel long before the Roman invasion. In the 13th century, coal seams were found along shorelines of northern England, and settlers dug them up then followed them inland under cliffs or hills, the earliest beginnings of drift mining. But with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, coal mining exploded, providing fuel for steam engines, transportation, and…
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How Big is a Blue Whale’s Heart?
The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived. One urban legend says that its heart is as big as a Volkswagen Beetle! For the first time, scientists have tested this claim. Is it true?No. A Volkswagen Beetle measures about 14 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 5 feet tall. It weighs about 3,000 pounds. A blue whale’s heart is about 5 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 5 feet tall. It weighs about 400 pounds.One researcher said the blue whale heart was actually the size of a small golf cart—but that’s not really true, either. It looks like most golf carts weigh at least 500-600 pounds. The…
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Ugliest Fish in the World
Blobfish This ugly fish, 30 cm long, made up of a gelatinous mass, is only found in the abyss between 600 and 1200 meters deep. Therefore, you won’t be able to meet this horrible fish while scuba diving. Its strange appearance comes from the pressure of the depths, a hundred times greater than in the surface. Its anatomy allows it to float without having to spend energy while swimming. The best known photos of blobfish are not really representative of its original form. Indeed, the fish returned from the depths to the surface, undergoes a very strong decompression which profoundly modifies its appearance giving it a crushed appearance. Wolf fish…
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Preparing a woodpecker for winter.
First, he finds a dead tree and starts making holes for the acorns. Each hole is made very thoughtfully, because if the hole is large, other birds can easily steal the acorn. If the hole is narrow, the nut can break and deteriorate. By the end of summer, the woodpecker’s “jewelry” work ends, by this time the acorns ripen and take their places in the tree. The trunk of a large tree can hold about 50,000 acorns, allowing the bird a satisfying winter. In the spring and fall, hundreds of homeowners wake up to a drumming on metal outside their home or become aware of holes in their siding created…
