Did you know? Human beings in their conceit think ‘god’ made them in his—isn’t it always his?—image. But many of our fellow members of the club called Kingdom Animalia are gifted with abilities that human beings cannot replicate even with all the technology at their disposal. The series Did You Know? is an attempt to find and share such amazing information that the world of fauna is replete with. If you have an interesting nugget of verifiable information and wish to share it with a wider audience, please send an email to connect@thesnout.in to with a short, crisp write-up and the reference. If it passes muster, it will find place in this series, with your name and location. The series will also include startling statistical information and interesting information about animal welfare.
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Though hippopotamuses, the large, semi-aquatic herbivores native to sub-Saharan Africa, spend more than half their life in water bodies, even taking naps there, they cannot swim! In fact, they cannot even float, because their bodies are much denser than those of other mammals.
The hippopotamus, scientific name Hippopotamus amphibius, the world’s third largest land animal after the African elephant and the white rhinoceros, can grow up to 16 feet in length and over 5 feet in height. Though it is endowed with two-inch-thick, waterproof skin, the skin is also sensitive and can easily dry out and burn in the fierce African sun. Which is why the animal spends most of its day in water or in wet mud, leaving its cool environs only after sunset to feed, mostly on grass.
According to information on the National Geographic website, the hippopotamus cannot swim or breathe underwater. It simply walks or runs on the riverbed. As the animal’s eyes and nostrils are located right on top of its head, the hippopotamus can still see and breathe while the rest of it is underwater. When the entire animal is submerged, the eyes and nostrils shut to prevent the entry of water. And hippopotamuses can hold their breath for as long as five minutes. Now try holding yours for a minute. (Riddhi Dangre, Karjat)
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Did you know? The king cobra is not one species but four
December 3, 2024: The king cobra, among the most iconic snakes in the world, is not one monotype species but four. Two of the species have been identified and named for the first time after an extensive study led by an Indian researcher.
The study, led by Orissa-based wildlife biologist P. Gowri Shankar and involving scientists from the U.K., Sweden, Malaysia, and India, challenges the long-held belief that, despite visual differences in king cobras across their wide geographic range in South Asia and Southeast Asia, they all belong to the same species, Ophiophagus hannah.
The study has been published in The European Journal of Taxonomy. According to a report on Mongabay, a U.S.-based non-profit conservation and environmental science news platform, the king cobra was first described by Danish researcher Theodore Edward Cantor in 1836 as Hamadryas hannah. In the following year, another species from Southeast Asia’s Sunda region was proposed by Hermann Schlegel as Naja bungarus. It was only recently renamed after validation as Ophiophagus bungarus.
By 1945, scientists had decided that the king cobra was a single species, with no sub-species, and named it Ophiophagus hannah. The study led by Gowri Shankar has, however, found genetic and morphological evidence to prove that there is not one, but at least four distinct species of king cobras. Two of these have been named for the first time.
The four species are: O. hannah (Northern king cobra), O. bungarus (Sunda king cobra), O. kaalinga (Western Ghats king cobra), and O. salvatana (Luzon king cobra). The Northern king cobra is found across eastern Pakistan, northern and eastern India, the Andaman Islands, Burma, Indo-China, and Thailand. O. bungarus is native to the Sunda Shelf area, which includes the Malay Peninsula, the Greater Sunda Islands, and parts of the southern Philippines. O. kaalinga and O. salvatana, the newly named species, are located in the Western Ghats and on Luzon in the northern Philippines, respectively.
The discovery is likely to have an impact on the status of the animal in the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. So far, thinking the king cobra was a single species, it was classified as vulnerable. A fresh evaluation will be needed to find out if all the species are only vulnerable or some or all of them are endangered, given the rapid deforestation across the regions these magnificent snakes inhabit.
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Did you know? Italian meat giant has quit the business
October 8, 2024: Gruppo Tonazzo, among Italy’s oldest meat producers specializing in pork and beef products, has decided to exit the business and focus on plant-based foods, a report on plantbasednews.org, a media platform focused on elevating a plant-based diet and its benefits to human health and the planet, said.
Gruppo Tonazzo is a family-owned brand set up way back in 1888. It was known for using traditional Italian butchery methods.
The company said it decided to go plant-based because it feels a “deep responsibility to future generations”, the report said. It will now focus on its meat-free brand Kioene, which it had set up nearly four decades ago.
“We are embarking on the third revolution in our company’s history and, we hope, in the sector as well,” Gruppo Tonazzo Chief Executive Officer Stefano Tonazzo said in a statement. “We are now closing all meat-related operations to focus entirely on plant-based proteins and our Kioene brand, already the leader in Italy.” Thousands of pigs and cows will be cheering.
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Did you know? The USA has the most tigers in the world
October 6, 2024: Estimates by experts suggest there may be as many as 7,000 tigers in the USA. Let that sink in, because the total global estimate for tigers in their natural habitats in the wild is about 5,500.
However, the tigers in the USA are an unfortunate lot. None is free. All are condemned to spend their lives in places and circumstances they were never meant to be. Almost 99% live in unaccredited roadside zoos, private residences and private ‘sanctuaries’, according to a recent report in The New York Times. Worse, all are genetic hodgepodges of the six subspecies of tigers that currently exist.
That last bit was discovered after a group of researchers from Stanford University examined the DNA of America’s captive tigers for the first time. Till then, conservationists had often wondered if genetic material from these tigers could be used to revive critically endangered populations in the wild. The Stanford study suggests these animals would be of little use in conservation projects. That is because while there is only species of tiger in the wild, the six subspecies have clear genetic markers and have adapted over the millennia to survive in very different habitats.
You might wonder how people in a “developed country” that supposedly functions under the rule of law are allowed to keep wild animals in which international trade is prohibited as pets and show beasts. The answer probably is that these beasts are descended from animals that were captured and sold into captivity 100 or more years ago, which probably also explains why their genes are all mixed up. The legacy of the lawless Wild West lives on in many ways.
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Did you know? India is home to 3 out of 5 Asian elephants
August 12, 2024: Today is World Elephant Day. There are just over 45,000 elephants in the wild on the Asian continent, according to estimates. And 60% of them, or about 27,000, live in India, as per the latest elephant census figures. At one time, in the early years of the 20th century, there were believed to be more than 100,000 on the Indian subcontinent alone.
The other countries in Asia that continue to host elephants are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia, China (Yunnan province), Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. The animal is now extinct in Pakistan.
The Asian elephant has been classified as “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species since 1986. The Sumatran species is classified as “critically endangered”.
According to the IUCN Red List, the Asian elephant population has halved over the past three elephant generations, or 75 years, estimating 25 years to be one elephant generation. This assessment is based on the degradation and fragmentation of the animal’s former range. According to an assessment carried out in the early 2000s, nearly half of the Asian elephant’s range, spanning 873,000 sq km across 13 countries, comprised habitats that are fragmented and affected by pressures created by human activity.
The Asian elephant’s larger cousin, the larger African elephant, is in only slightly better shape. There are an estimated 400,000 elephants in the wild in Africa currently, though some experts believe the number may be an overestimation. The animal is currently classified as “vulnerable” by the IUCN Red List.
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Did you know? Some sharks can have babies without a mate
July 24, 2024: Women may feel at moments of intense frustration that the world would be a much better place without men, but, of course, that is not an option, at least not yet, because without either of the sexes, the human species itself would die out. But there are some species in the Animal Kingdom that possess the superpower of reproducing without a mate. And we are not referring to simpler life forms such as amoeba.
Also Read: California condor Xol-Xol fathers his 41st chick, San Diego zoo’s 250th
Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis), a reptilian species from the Indonesian archipelago, and California condors (Gymnogyps californianus), North America’s largest extant birds, have been found to have the ability to reproduce by a process known as parthenogenesis, which results in offspring that are exact clones of the mother. Females of these and a few other species are able to create embryos from unfertilized eggs. The offspring in such cases tend to be all of the same sex—male or female. Or, as in the case of the brahminy blind snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus), only females, since no male of the species has ever been found.
Virgin births have also been recorded in some species of sharks, such as the bonnethead, zebra and smooth-hound sharks. (Arya Dangre, Karjat)
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Did you know? A hummingbird’s heart can beat 1,200 times a minute
July 20, 2024: The heart rate of top athletes at maximum exertion can reach 150 beats per minute. At rest, their heart rate can fall to as low as 40 beats per minute. Of course, an unfit person exerting himself may find his heart rate rising close to 200 beats a minute, but that would be cause for alarm, not celebration.
Like top athletes, birds are built for a high-energy lifestyle. Their hearts are larger, in relation to body size, than those of mammals, and they pump more oxygen-rich blood per minute, because flight requires that kind of energy, even with their aerodynamic and ultra-light bodies. Moreover, they have extremely efficient cardiovascular systems.
An active hummingbird’s heart can pump at 1,200 beats per minute, eight times faster than a top athlete’s. Even the heart of a flying pigeon beats 600 times a minute. Next time you see those birds commonly dissed as ‘flying rodents’, think about it. (Nauman Shaikh, Panvel)
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Did you know? NYC Audubon is now NYC Bird Alliance
July 15, 2024: The renowned New York birders’ society, NYC Audubon, formally changed its name to NYC Bird Alliance early last month, to distance itself from its 19th century founder, J.J. Audubon, self-taught ornithologist and illustrator who was once seen as the patron saint of birders. The reason: Audubon had a darker side—who doesn’t?—that has become increasingly hard to ignore. He was a slave owner who held strongly racist views.
In the past few years, the Audubon Naturalist Society has changed its name to Nature Forward, and some local chapters of the National Audubon Society, including those in Seattle and Chicago, have followed suit. The society itself voted last year to keep its name. Audubon, who lived from 1785 to 1851, documented birds and illustrated them for his master work The Birds of America.
“We wouldn’t be where we are without John James Audubon,” admitted Jessica Wilson, who was executive director of NYC Audubon and holds the same position with NYC Bird Alliance. But, she added, Audubon was “overtly, vocally racist” and “his actions and his views were harmful at the time and continue to be harmful today”.
Curiously, while organizations that might legitimately have sought to remember Audobon are changing their names, prominent areas in Manhattan, where he lived in his final years, continue to commemorate him. (Sandy Pawpaw, Bombay)
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Did you know? The camel is king of hydration
July 14, 2024: The distinctive silhouette and impressive size of the camel, once famed as the “ship of the desert”, mask the real physiological marvel: its ability to consume and store water. A parched camel can gulp down a whopping 200 litres of water in just three minutes. That’s right, the animal can drink at a rate of more than a litre a second. This ability allows the camel to thrive in environments where water is scarce and finding a reliable source can be a matter of life and death.
A typical Camel can drink 200 liters of water in 3 minutes pic.twitter.com/wCPZAbZrdi
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 12, 2024
However, it is a misconception that the camel stores water in its hump. In fact, the hump is a fat deposit that serve as a vital energy source, giving the camel the fuel it needs to endure long journeys and harsh conditions.
So, where does the incredible amount of water imbibed in a camel’s rapid drinking session go? The answer lies in the animal’s super-efficient digestive and circulatory systems. When a camel encounters precious water, its body prioritizes rapid hydration. Specialized adaptations in its nasal passage allow it to inhale large volumes of water vapor while drinking, minimizing water loss through evaporation. The ingested water then swiftly enters its bloodstream, replenishing lost fluids and hydrating the animal. In addition, camels possess a unique stomach structure with specialized compartments that allow them to store a significant amount of water for several days, even weeks. (Romana Shaikh, Panvel)
