CREEPY ANIMAL BEHAVIOURS..

 

Animals do a lot of strange things: dogs go after their own tail for hours, some fish fly and if some people are to be believed, sheep have the amazing ability to attract New Zealanders and Scotsmen. But there are some things about the animal world that leave the smartest of us scratching their heads in puzzlement.

6. Animal Suicides:

One of the major things that separate humans from animals is that most lower life forms have an intense will to live. Unless they are defending their babies or food, most animals will prefer to run off than fight, because life is precious. Plus, given the fact that most don't really appear to be all that self aware, the likelihood of goth hamsters and emo pigeons seems pretty thin.

Then why do some animals just up and decide to off themselves sometimes? We've already shown you a bridge that seems to drive dogs into a suicidal frenzy, but that kind of thing doesn't happen often, does it? Well, recently (and by recently we mean 2009) there were a couple of major animal suicides; in Switzerland, 28 cows decided to leap off a cliff over the course of three days, and in California, dozens of monstrous squids beached themselves.

And let's not forget Jatinga, India, where hundreds of birds from several species dive into the ground to kill themselves every year.

5. Bees Are Disappearing. Worldwide:

Remember being a kid and running through the grass barefoot, where halfway across the field, you stepped on a bee and instantly developed an unyielding terror of bare skin on grass? Well, the younger generations won't get to experience that joy. It seems that the honey bee population has been on the decline for years, and no one knows why. This seems like good news at first, since barefoot field-running is a joy most of us can't get enough of, but it's bad news if you like honey, wax, food or pictures of bees. Bees are major pollinators, so without bees, food plants can't reproduce.

4. Cows Have Creepy Eating Habits. Worldwide:

When cows aren't launching themselves from cliffs, they are usually eating. Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about cows when they eat? No? Well, neither did anyone else until some German scientists started looking at satellite photos of cows using the high tech wonder-software known as "Google Earth." It turns out that all cows, everywhere, simultaneously face north (or south) while eating.

Scientists have a pretty good idea how they do this; like most every other animal on Earth that isn't a human, cows (and deer and sheep) can detect the planet's magnetic fields, so well in fact that power lines bother their feeding. The big question is why in hell do they bother?

3. Blue Whales Are Experiencing Global Puberty:

Scientists are a weird lot, and they do some strange stuff in the name of science. Case in point, back in the 60s, some scientists thought it would be cool to stick a bunch of microphones into the oceans of the world and record blue whales singing. Forty years later, someone got the idea to study four decades of whale song, presumably to keep the grant money flowing, when they made a strange discovery: Every blue whale in the world was singing deeper every year.

2. Ants With Collective Intelligence:

Ants have amazed us for centuries. They build tightly structured colonies, some farm and others use suicide bombs to protect their hive. Some scientists tried filling an underground ant colony with cement. Then to everyone’s astonishment they were in for some creepy shit when 10 goddamn tons of cement disappeared down the hole before it was full. But then around a four minute mark, they dug out a sprawling underground "megalopolis."

The scientists remarked that the tiny ants have constructed an enormous city that "looks like it was designed by an architect. A single mind." If you've ever lived in a human city, you of course realize this is a feat mankind has yet to get the hang of.

"Good for ants," you might say if you're not interested. "Why'd  the scientists have to drown them in cement?" Probably because they know about army ants. Sure, you can put 100 army ants on a table, and they will walk around in a circle until they drop dead of exhaustion, which is pretty stupid. On the other hand, when they are in groups of thousands or millions, they can regulate their collective temperature, decide when to either settle down and sleep for the night or pack up and leave. And sometimes they use their super organism intelligence to coordinate attacks.

Amazingly, the more ants there are, the smarter they are as a whole. Sort of works opposite of humans, who get dumber for every person you add to a group, until a soccer riot breaks out. Put enough army ants in an urban location, and it won't be long before they realize they've got the upper hand. The cement doesn't seem so excessive now does it?

1. Animal Earthquake Predictions:

If there is one power animals have that qualifies them as "Haley Joel Osment" creepy, it is this. Many, if not most animals have the bizarre ability to know when an earthquake is about to happen. Some can even detect something is amiss with Mother Earth up to a week in advance, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Everything from cats, to dogs to centipedes will leave the area when they sense a quake coming, leaving the humans behind scratching their heads and cleaning up lost pet shit when the big one hits.