Clever Bee's And Other Animal Shorts

Over the years I collect a lot of media snippets that often don't inspire a full post, but are still worthy of some attention ....

Willow And The Grave Of The Unknown Cat

 ...... in this case, its media stories about animals that would otherwise go wasted (and lost to the ether).

One Life Down, Eight To Go

A family in Hope under Dinmore, Herefordshire England, lost their pet oriental tabby cat 'Willow'. After a week of searches the found the remains of a totally squashed cat on a road nearby. They decided that this must be poor Willow and took the remains home for burial and a memorial service (My god, I recall a few of those is our back garden!!).

 

The two boys were so upset that they were given a day off school to grieve .... but then a few days later the 18-month old tabby limped into their garden in Hope-under-Dinmore with a broken leg.'Willow' was back .... after veterinary care she survived the ordeal with eight of her lives left and a leg cast, unlike the unknown road casualty buried in the garden.

Big Apples, Little Ants

Only One, But He Has 100,000 Helpers

Ants on the main thorough fares of Broadway and West Street Manhattan New York remove the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs or 600,000 crisps (chips to US readers) in food waste on the streets each year, researchers from North Carolina State University have found.  

A Bees C's

Australian Scientists have taught bees how to use plus or minus (using colours) and say learning how bees are capable of this will aid artificial intelligence studies ...... 

 

Clever Bees

 

..... in the mean time the bees have qualified for Australian citizenship.

 

Flying Fishes

In California USA, bees have now been classified legally as fishes. The strange decision was taken by a judge in June 2022, in order for bees to be classified as threatened or endangered as fish under California's Endangered Species Act which has a limited number of species.

The Look Of Love

Who would have thought that Zebra fish picked partners by personality? Who would have thought that Zebra fish had personalities? Who cares? Apparently Dr Sonia Rey Planellas of the University of Stirling does ..... she said that "proactive animals were the best (at finding mates) - regardless of colour."

 

Best Of Mates

A type of tarantula spider and frog have been found that have a symbiotic relationship. They share a hole in the ground, where the spider lays her eggs. 

 

Frog And Spider Super Heroes Travelled Together

The frog eats the ants that would attack the eggs, while the spider protects the frog from rain forest predators.

Neat Mice

A retired man in Severn Beach, Gloucestershire England was puzzled when his plastic bird feed tub in his shed, was being filled up with bits of metal, screws and blots. He would take them out of the peanuts he used to fill a bird feeder, but the next day they or other random items would be back in the tub again. Confused he set up a mini camera and was surprised to see a little mouse tidying up his work bench and placing items in the peanut tub. It had obviously considered the tub its hoard.

 

 

This wasn't the only 'Tidy Mouse' uncovered .... Rodney Holbrook had another such animal in his houses garden shed. In his case photographs captured a mouse tidying up his shed workbench every night by placing items into a box.