Category: Animals

The African Dung Beetle navigates Earth using the stars

Post author By Wells Baum
Post date November 7, 2019
No Comments on The African Dung Beetle navigates Earth using the stars

Not sure what’s more amazing about the African dung beetle, one that it rolls immaculate balls out of other animals dung or that it navigates the Earth via the Milky Way.

“These clever insects use the polarized light of the moon to navigate in a straight line,” writes Popular Mechanics. “Their eyes cannot see individual stars but a group of stars together, like the Milky Way, is dense enough to create a luminous line for them to follow.”

But entomologist and photographer Piotr (Peter) Naskrecki of the Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory at Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique believes the Kheper subaeneus beetles are more interesting for what they do for mother Earth.

Few animals are as important to the African savanna ecosystem as the dung beetles and without their thankless toil the entire ecosystem would soon collapse, covered in a thick layer of waste.
Piotr Naskrecki

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Few animals are as important to the African savanna ecosystem as the dung beetles and without their thankless toil the entire ecosystem would soon collapse, covered in a thick layer of waste. In @gorongosapark 217 species of these heroic animals, such as this pair of Kheper subaeneus, make sure that that doesn’t happen. @gorongosapark #biodiversity #mozambique #life #species #animal #dungbeetle #atbi #gorongosa #wilsonlab #coleoptera #scarabaeidae #wildlife #insect #beetle

A post shared by Piotr Naskrecki (@piotr_naskrecki) on Nov 4, 2019 at 2:30am PST

Tags africa, African Dung Beetle, animals, Nature, Peter Naskrecki

Animals Science

Anthropologist Grover Krantz donated his body to science with this one condition

Post author By Wells Baum
Post date November 2, 2019
No Comments on Anthropologist Grover Krantz donated his body to science with this one condition

Anthropologist Grover Krantz and his dog

Grover Krantz was one of the few anthropologists who dedicated their time to studying Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot.

As a cryptozoologist, Krantz believed that Bigfoot might exist and did everything he could to research it. Five of his ten books explored the possible existence of the ape-like creature.

Perhaps even more interestingly, the peculiar scientist donated his body to science with the one condition that his dog Clyde, an Irish wolfhound, would be right by him.

“I’ve been a teacher all my life and I think I might as well be a teacher after I’m dead, so why don’t I just give you my body,” said Krantz. “But there’s one catch: You have to keep my dogs with me.”

Both Krantz and Clyde are on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.

Tags animals, anthropology, Bigfoot, Grover Krantz, Sasquatch, science

Animals Culture & Society Nature

Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists

Post author By Wells Baum
Post date September 20, 2019
No Comments on Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists

Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists.

According to a study done by professor Richard Coss, their inability to draw could’ve been due to the fact that they didn’t have to plan as hard as Homo Sapiens to hunt down prey in their native Eurasia.

Homo Sapiens, on the other hand, chased hard to get game in the open grasslands of Africa. They developed superior hand-eye coordination as a result of drawing out their prey on cave walls. Such artistry not only made them better visualizers and hunters, but it also helped them develop smarter brains.

Survival of the fittest

Historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari also argued that while Neanderthals might have had larger brains than and an even superior tools to fellow Homo Sapiens, they lacked communication and shared stories, concepts that emerged from rounder skulls.