Happy Tortie Tuesday, Missians!
Today's day 2 of our animals "giving" theme; but unlike yesterday, our focus isn't about animals giving to humans, but instead about animals giving to other animals. In this post, we introduce you to some of the most generous animals on the planet. Would I want the gifts they give to each other? Definitely not! LOL. But long as their animal counterparts like them, that's all that matters.
Today's animal givers come from two sites--Listverse (10 Examples of Gift-Giving in the Animal Kingdom), and The Dodo (So Generous! Meet 7 Animals Who Love Giving Gifts).
https://www.thedodo.com/you-shouldnt-have-7-gift-giver-885506158.html
https://listverse.com/2018/02/08/10-examples-of-gift-giving-in-the-animal-kingdom/
The Grey Strike:
The great grey shrike is an adorable little bird who woos his partner with presents during courtship. Males offer the females food like crickets, lizards and small animals. These tiny morsels go a long way, as females who are offered more nutritious meals can lay more eggs. It's the gift that keeps on giving!
Bonobos:
Bonobos give food like apples and bananas to other bonobos who aren't a part of their group. These cuddly primates give presents to strangers because they enjoy having new interactions and expanding their social network. Bonobos from different groups will even travel together for days at a time.
Cowbirds: (These little dudes give away their own kids as gifts)!
Cowbirds generously offer their own offspring as gifts - whether you like it or not! These tiny birds lay their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting birds, which then become the oblivious foster parents of cowbird chicks. The chicks oftentimes hatch quicker, grow faster and eat more than the host chicks. While that doesn't make them the best houseguests, at least they're incredibly cute.
Moths:
Whether it’s for a birthday, Valentine’s Day, or an anniversary, who among us can say we don’t enjoy getting a big box of cyanide? Six-spot burnet moths produce their own cyanide, which they use as a defense mechanism. But it also uses a lot of their energy and nutrient reserves.
Today's day 2 of our animals "giving" theme; but unlike yesterday, our focus isn't about animals giving to humans, but instead about animals giving to other animals. In this post, we introduce you to some of the most generous animals on the planet. Would I want the gifts they give to each other? Definitely not! LOL. But long as their animal counterparts like them, that's all that matters.
Today's animal givers come from two sites--Listverse (10 Examples of Gift-Giving in the Animal Kingdom), and The Dodo (So Generous! Meet 7 Animals Who Love Giving Gifts).
https://www.thedodo.com/you-shouldnt-have-7-gift-giver-885506158.html
https://listverse.com/2018/02/08/10-examples-of-gift-giving-in-the-animal-kingdom/
The Grey Strike:
The great grey shrike is an adorable little bird who woos his partner with presents during courtship. Males offer the females food like crickets, lizards and small animals. These tiny morsels go a long way, as females who are offered more nutritious meals can lay more eggs. It's the gift that keeps on giving!
Bonobos:
Bonobos give food like apples and bananas to other bonobos who aren't a part of their group. These cuddly primates give presents to strangers because they enjoy having new interactions and expanding their social network. Bonobos from different groups will even travel together for days at a time.
Cowbirds: (These little dudes give away their own kids as gifts)!
Cowbirds generously offer their own offspring as gifts - whether you like it or not! These tiny birds lay their eggs in the nests of unsuspecting birds, which then become the oblivious foster parents of cowbird chicks. The chicks oftentimes hatch quicker, grow faster and eat more than the host chicks. While that doesn't make them the best houseguests, at least they're incredibly cute.
Moths:
Whether it’s for a birthday, Valentine’s Day, or an anniversary, who among us can say we don’t enjoy getting a big box of cyanide? Six-spot burnet moths produce their own cyanide, which they use as a defense mechanism. But it also uses a lot of their energy and nutrient reserves.
For this reason, males looking to mate will use their cyanide-producing chemicals to attract females. The females can detect how much of these chemicals a male has through his pheromones and opt to mate with those who have the highest levels.
Since the chemical levels go down in males and up in females after mating, the prevailing theory is that the chemicals are transferred through the sperm. When the eggs are laid, the mother will transfer some of these chemicals to her newborns, giving them a powerful defense and a much better chance at survival.
Penguins:
As probably the most famous example of animals giving presents to their loved ones, males of various penguin species will use pebbles as a way of courting females. Penguins are well-known for mating for life and so have become a symbol of romanticism in the animal world. But like all good things, the Internet has needlessly distorted the truth around this story.
You’ve likely seen some sort of meme or trivia site claiming that males will search far and wide for a beautiful pebble to present to his potential mate, with the females apparently viewing it as a piece of jewelry or art. In fact, males will work hard to find pebbles for females but for more than just aesthetic reasons.
Penguins use these pebbles to build nests. But since stones are hard to come by in Antarctica, they have to work hard to find them. When a male presents a female with a stone, she knows that he is asking her to build a nest together. So these stones are more than trinkets that the females think are pretty, the pebbles are essentially penguin proposals.
Crows:
Magpies are famous for stealing shiny objects, but it seems that they’re not the only birds with a fondness for the flashy. Over the course of several years, a young girl from Seattle named Gabi Mann developed a relationship with her local crows.
This began when Gabi was four. The crows would pick up scraps of food that she had dropped. Pretty soon, Gabi was willingly sharing her food with the crows, and after a few years, she and her brother began feeding them every morning in the backyard.
After a few years of freeloading off the little girl, the crows began offering her something in return. When all the food was eaten, the crows would leave behind shiny gifts for Gabi. These included buttons, a small lightbulb, screws, earrings, a heart pendant, and the “best” half of a “best friends” necklace.
But possibly the most impressive gift from the crows was given to Gabi’s mother, who lost a lens cap off her camera one day. When she returned home, she found the lens cap on the bird bath. CCTV showed that the crow that returned it even washed it in the bath before putting it down.
If you’d like to form a relationship with your local crows, consistently offering them unsalted shelled peanuts are apparently the best way to win their hearts.
Of course this isn't the complete list giving animals. Be sure to check out both sites listed above to see the full list, (it seems birds are the most generous on the lists).
That's it for now, Missians! I'll see you guys back here on Fursday for our next installment.
Until then,
This is your host J,
signing off...
That's it for now, Missians! I'll see you guys back here on Fursday for our next installment.
Until then,
This is your host J,
signing off...
Comments
Post a Comment