Elephants. Some of the most intelligent
creatures on the planet. With cognitive abilities rivaling that of other highly
intelligent animals such as dolphins and apes elephants are incredibly fascinating.
They are highly social and altruistic, meaning that they are
greatly concerned with the wellbeing of others. Nothing makes this more clear than the almost
human-like grief and sorrow they display at the death of a herd member. Going so far as
to covering the deceased with branches, leaves, and dirt while remaining by their side for
several days. This altruistic behavior even extends beyond their own species as there
are countless documented incidents of elephants attempting to aid wounded people or even
mourning deceased humans as one of their own. However, this respectful and intelligent behavior
may soon be a thing of the past. For many decades now, illegal poaching and extensive
habitat loss has created an increasingly turbulent environment for all of elephant society. So
much so that reports of unprovoked and lethal elephant attacks are now commonplace and rapidly
increasing all over Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Biologists and other experts believe
this abnormal level of aggression to be an unforeseen side-effect caused by humanity's
continued mistreatment of the species. You see, much like us humans, young elephants
need guidance and time to learn from their elders. Calves need to learn how to behave,
how to communicate, what to eat and what not to eat, what's dangerous and what's safe,
and the list goes on. I mean, it should go without saying but children need their parents. However,
due to illegal poaching, a lot of calves become orphans at an early age and thus their natural
development is interrupted. Not only that but because of their intelligence and strong
familial bonds, seeing their loved ones being brutally massacred and mutilated right in
front of them is about as traumatic as it would be for you and me. These events can
significantly impair normal brain development and cause hyperaggression and unpredictable
behavior similar to that of people suffering from PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.
So not only is humanity slowly driving the species towards extinction, but due to our
ruthless means of doing so we may also be responsible for their mental,
societal, and intellectual decline in the process. Okay, let's forget about humanity's failures for a second.
It's just too depressing. Let's focus on one of nature's failures like the platypus.
An animal that would honestly make a lot more sense if it was inspired by Psyduck than the
other way around. The platypus is one of the only five remaining species of monotremes.
Monotremes are mammals that lay eggs, as opposed to giving live-birth, and are endemic to Australia.
It was discovered by European explorers in 1798 and a specimen was later examined by
zoologist George Shaw. Its strange appearance and features made Shaw question whether or
not this was a hoax. Again, how can you not. It looks like a reversed beaver. He writes
in a scientific journal from 1799 that: "Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most
extraordinary in its conformation; exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck
engrafted on the head of a quadruped." He also writes "it naturally excites the idea
of some deceptive preparation by artificial means". So in more modern terms, was this
just another social experiment by some 18th century YouTube prankster or could the specimen
truly be that of a real creature? Evidence for its existence and its supposed egg-laying
capabilities remained highly debated topics for almost a century. Of course, we now know
that this Scrooge-McDuck-looking Pokémon-template of an animal is more real than
your hopes and dreams. How do you tell a lion from a lioness? No, no, no..
besides looking at their genitals. Most would argue that the easiest way to tell them apart
is that a male lion has a mane while the females do not. However, this isn't always true. Multiple
maned lionesses and maneless lions have been observed in select regions across Africa.
Experts believe increased and decreased levels of testosterone to be the cause and in the
case of maned lionesses it may prove to be quite advantageous. You see, a lion pride
consists of multiple adult females, cubs, and a small number of adult males. The amount
of males in a pride is directly proportional to how threatening that pride will seem to
outsiders. So if the maned lionesses are perceived as males they may actually boost
the pride's overall threat. It's a perfect example of how random genetic mutations
can cause a species to change and evolve over time. This is a rare sight. A fully functional parliament.
As strange as it may seem, a parliament is the collective noun for a group of owls. Besides
having a permanent "How the hell did I get here?" facial expression, owls also have a
knack for necks. All 200+ owl species can rotate their necks and heads up to 270° which
makes humans and owls the only two species capable of doing this. The only difference
is that when humans do it, we die. Owls are able to survive such extreme neck twisting
as they have 14 cervical vertebrae while many other vertebrates have a lot fewer. For example,
we humans only have a laughable seven. Like many other nocturnal species, owls do not
have eyeballs instead they have eyetubes. This peculiar shape allows for exceptional
night vision. However as the eyes are non-spherical they are completely fixed in their sockets
which is why owls need such flexible necks. If you live to be 90 years old you will be older than
people who have yet to reach or surpass that age, you will also have spent
32 of those years asleep. Instead of dreaming about your dreams, that's 32 years
you could've spent awake, not achieving your dreams. But if you're a dolphin or a duck
sleep isn't half as wasteful. A few select aquatic and avian species has developed what's
known as unihemispheric sleep. Which is the ability to sleep with one half of the brain
while the other half remains awake. This ability can be quite beneficial for different reasons.
In the case of unihemispheric sleep capable birds, such as chickens and ducks, they literally
sleep with one eye open. This allows them to constantly keep an eye out for potential
predators and it's 100% adorable. On the other hand various aquatic animals, such as dolphins,
aquaman, and whales, use this ability to surface for air even when they are half-asleep. It's been
widely scientifically unproven that if humans had this ability, we would spend this extra time speculating over
what we would do if we had more time. When ants sporadically roam about in search
for food they can travel as far as 200 meters from their nest. To avoid getting lost most
ant species leave scent trails and can thus smell their way back home. They can also keep
track of directions using the position of the sun and by combining this information,
they can work out the shortest path back to the nest. But in certain environments, this
method of navigation is not an option. Such is the case for the desert ant. The featureless
landscape along with the windy conditions of the Saharan desert completely negates the
use of scent trails. Instead, they've learned to count the number of steps they take to
keep track of travel distance. A sort of internal pedometer. You may be wondering,
how could we possibly know this? Well, a team of researchers observed as a group of ants
slowly made their way towards a piece of food. Once they arrived the ants where collected
and experimented upon. 25 of the ants received stilts and another 25 had their legs shortened.
As the ants made their way back home something interesting was observed. The stilt-legged
ants overshot the nest by more than 50% while the amputated ants undershot the nest
by nearly as much. In other words, they must be using an internal step-counter to keep
track of travel distance. Male humpback whales can spend more than 24
hours continuously repeating the same 10-20 minute song. So what you're listening to may
be one of the hottest mixtapes to hit the blue market. Either that or Chewbacca
is in dire need of help. The purpose behind these extensive
musical performances largely remains a mystery. Researchers believe it could be to attract females, to
challenge other males, or a form of echolocation. Or perhaps, and I may be going out on a fin here,
perhaps they just love to sing, right? It wasn't part of any of the scientific articles
I could find but surely it's a possibility worth considering at least? The ocean is a
pretty big place. Maybe this is how they pass the time. I mean we sing in the shower just
to pass the time and whales live in the shower so... I don't know, I feel like they jumped
the whale on this one. Like they avoided the whale in the room. I guess now, the whale
is out of the bag.. Okay I'm sorry... What we do know is that these songs often spread
amongst humpback whale society much the same way the latest pop-music can spread across the globe in our
human society. It begins with a localized population of whales producing a unique string of
melodies and after roughly two years time, the song has moved between numerous whale
populations across the pacific. And the songs are often heavily remixed along the way.
Each year, a new viral hit takes form and the underwater
music industry continues to thrive. Ah, the very face of freedom itself. Few things
can better symbolize American patriotism than the bald eagle. As the national animal of
the United States of America this bird has become known as an American symbol and it
has an equally iconic sound. The problem is, this is not the sound of a bald eagle.
Credit should instead go to another North-American bird known as the red-tailed hawk. Whenever
a bald eagle made an appearance in the early days of television it was often dubbed over with the
powerful scream of the red-tailed hawk as it has a rather unimpressive screech of its own. This is what the bald eagle unfortunately sounds like. Bees are capable of flapping their tiny wings
with an astonishing speed. Their wing-beat frequency has been recorded at 230 flaps per
second. It's so fast that the flapping generates a positive electrical charge. And they can
actually use this ability to their advantage as the pollen they collect from flowers is
normally negatively charged and will thus be electro statically attracted to the bee.
Furthermore, it was recently discovered that bees can actually detect the presence of floral
electrical fields. What this means is that bees can fly over a meadow and quickly determine
if a flower has already been visited or not depending on the electrical
charge of the flower. Sloths. The traffic jams of the animal kingdom.
Natures response to slow motion photography. Actually why is this shot filmed in slow motion?
Did I just spend $50 on stock footage that looks like a sloth PowerPoint presentation?
Oh don't blink, or you might miss nothing. Nothing is happening. The idleness of sloths
is how they conserve energy. The reason they need to conserve energy is due to their folivorous
diet, which means they mostly eat leaves. These leaves provide very little energy and
nutrients, and take up to a month to digest completely. In fact, when this guy is satisfied
roughly 2/3 of his body weight consists of leaves. Almost anything else would be less
of a struggle to consume. You live in the god damn jungle with tasty fruit and insects
all around yet semi-edible leaves is your food of choice. Truly the face of brilliance.
About once a week, the sloth descends from above for a quick toilet break. And by quick
I mean slow. It climbs down, digs a hole in the ground, defecates, covers the hole with
leaves, and climbs back up to safety. Now you may be wondering why would they not just
simply hang from a tree branch and let gravity do the rest? Well you're not alone as no one
truly knowns. Perhaps it's to fertilize their favorite tree, to prevent the brown from making
sounds as it falls to the ground, or maybe, and this is my personal
theory, they're just a bit slow. And this defecation
ritual is truly bizarre as more than half of all sloth deaths occurs when they climb
down to poop. They are slowly pooping their way to extinction. Speaking of poop, they
also like to eat it. No, not their own. That would be disgusting. Only the most pungent
of stenches oozing from an overflowing human latrine can drive them down from the tree
tops. In it, they will bathe and fill their stomachs to the brim with human waste. The
majesty of the sloth is truly unrivaled.
fucking poachers
Well shit.
C'mon why does poaching even exist wtf
You need a pop filter.