animalnomenon

Today's animalnomenon is also an arachnidnomenon, aka the spider!

You are usually never over 10ft away from these cuties! To some it may seem kind of scary, but most of them aren't even harmful to humans, they are likely to be as scared of you as you are of them.

They are also very good at hunting. For example, flower spiders (like the name suggests) hide in flowers waiting for insects, wolf spiders dig burrows with trapdoors to catch insects and yellow sac spiders chase their prey!

There are around 25 tons of spiders living in the earth! There are over 47 thousand species all over the world, and together they eat from 400 to 800 tons of insects yearly.

Spiders can also dance to intimidate rivals and get them out of their territory, but Regal Jumping Spiders dance in order to attract a mate! Spiders can not only dance, but male Huntsman spiders buzz to court a female spider!

Although in some countries people don't really like spiders nowadays, in places like ancient Egypt, China and Bengal spiders were seen as benevolent! In China, they were seen as good luck because they descended from above, in Bengal, tiny spiders are thrown as confetti at weddings, and in ancient Egypt spiders were associated to the goddess Neith!

Even though they have eight eyes, they usually don't really have good eyesight, so they mostly rely on their hearing, taste and smell. They can actually pick up vibrations with their leg hairs, not only that, but they can use scent and taste to communicate with eachother

They're great swimmers! Not only that but they can climb many surfaces, their tails give them balance that allows them to walk in ropes and wires, mice can also jump over 25cm high and up to 12km/h!!

Mice can fit through very tiny spaces! They're able to flatten their bodies and fit into gaps as small as 6mm!

Mice produce their own vitamin C! Mice, along with many other animals, have genes that let them produce their own vitamin C, when these genes are switched off, they start showing signs of heart disease.

Mice have weak sight, so they rely on their other senses like touch, smell and hearing to explore and navigate their surroundings!

Mice's teeth never stop growing! They grow at a rate of 0.3mm a day, because of that, they need to keep gnawing on items to keep their teeth a reasonable size.

Mice can sing! Male mice will serenade female mice they're courting, but you won't be able to hear it, because the song is ultrasonic!

Crows are extremely intelligent! They can solve eigh-step puzzles at a great level. Crows have also been observed to drop nuts on high traffic roads to crack them! Their intelligence is rumoured to be on the same level as apes!

They can not only use tools efficiently, but they can also build them! The new Caledonian crow they use sticks and other plants to fish insects out of tiny holes!

They are social animals! They usually live and work together in groups (fyi, a group of crows is called a murder!), and have been found to have developed interspecies friendships!

Crows hold funerals for the dead! Sometimes it's only a few of them, other times it's a lot, but they gather around the corpse and stay quiet for a while, then start doing shrill caws and oscillate between these two before flying away.

Crows can hold grudges! They can recognize faces quite well, it's been observed they scold researchers that got to close to their nests, regardless of what they wear, they even tell other crows of who to avoid.

Crows have quite advanced vocalizations! They have more than 20 calls, from companion calls to calls they do while fighting over food, not only that, but they also have regional accents!

Their laugh isn't actual laughter, but a vocalization, they use it to convey excitement, submission and even when they're asking for food!

Hyenas are very smart! They live in complex societies with complex social rules, and are able to solve complex puzzles, in fact, hyenas are rumoured to be as intelligent as monkeys!

Although they are known for their necrophagic habits, they are actually highly skilled hunters and hunt most of their food!

They often hunt in groups, and are able to take down big prey because of that. They also eat various prey, from wildebeest to insects, and because of their strong jaws and teeth, theyre able to eat every part of them, even the bones (but not the horns).

Spotted hyenas are a matriarcal species! They are social mammals and live in clans of up to 80 of them, the hierarchy is very strict though! Females are ranked higher than males, and the clan is led by one strong alpha female.

Their hierarchy is reflected even on the eating order, females and cubs eat first, while adult males eat last, when males are old enough to live on their own, they're kicked out of their clan and have to find another one.

Jaguars were once found in most of the american continent, from southeast USA to central Argentina, but due to loss of habitat and being hunted, they're found from Mexico to northern Argentina, with Brazil currently having the biggest jaguar population in the world (they're also in the 50 reais bill)!!!!

They have very strong bite force! It's actually stronger then a lion's or a tiger's bite force, a jaguar's bite force is strong enough to be able to break a turtle shell!

Black panthers aren't actually their own species, they're actually melanistic variations of leopards and jaguars! In fact, if you look closely, you can even see their rosettes!

Weighting up to 184kg, jaguars are the biggest feline in the americas, and the 3rd biggest felines in the world!

Each jaguar has their own, unique rosette pattern, just no human fingerprints are the same, no jaguars look the same!

They're highly adaptable animals and thrive in multiple ecosystems, from jungles to semi desertic regions (but prefer humid places of course). In fact, researchers have observed jaguars live in trees in the Amazon up to 4 months per year (when their habitats become flooded).

Snakes aren't aggresive! They're actually quite shy, and don't go out looking for enemies, or bite out of pure evil, but can and will attack you to defend themselves when needed, they like being left alone!

They smell with their tongue! They flick their tongues in and out, with that, they collect scent particles from the ground and send them to a organ on the roof of their mouth, called the Jacobson's organ, that alllows them to smell!

Snakes don't chew! Instead they have very flexible jaws that allows them to swallow prey up to their size! Once they swallow the food, their digestive system's chemicals will be able to break down the food for them.

A snake's blood is warm, but it's warmth comes from external sources, because they are ectothermic, that means they rely on external sources, like the sun, to get energy!

They have no eyelids! They just have a thin membrane called brille to protect them, that can cause a very uncanny feeling, and it means that they don't close their eyes, not even while sleeping!

Some snakes live in the sea! About 70 species of snakes live in the Pacific and Indian oceans. They have adapted to aquatic life and can't move on land, except sea kraits, but their mobility on land is still minimal.

Frogs, known as cute amphibians by many, and brutal predators by insects, they use their long tongues and sticky saliva to catch their prey (crickets, worms, some species even eat mice!).

They have excellent hearing and sight, with them, they can rapidly detect subtle movements from both predators and prey in their surroundings.

Frogs absorb water through their skin! They have permeable skin so water can pass through, it helps them to get the vitamins and nutrients they need, while they stay damp, so that's why you'll often find frogs chilling in bodies of water.

Frogs express many emotions, just like people! They feel a range of emotions, like anxiety, stress, excitement and happiness, not only that but altruistic behaviour on frogs has been observed! Sometimes frogs might sacrifice themselves to save their young offspring!

Some frogs can make their skin transparent to hide from predators! Glass frogs are able to pack their red blood cells into their livers, since most of their blood is concentrated into one tiny place, that makes their body near invisible!

Frogs have rings on their bones that indicate their age! That happens because everytime they hibernate, a new layer of bone forms.

These animals are known for being able to live in extremely deep profundities where sunlight can't even reach them, over 1000 meters deep, thanks to that, their bodies are extremely well adapted to high pressures, pressure great enough to crush many other animals, like humans for example!

They have a huge mouth! Anglerfish have two rows of teeth, with the front row's teeth being larger than the back, their teeth are translucent and shaped like needles, not only do they shape the anglerfish's mouth, but they also help to redirect prey into the digestive tract.

Most anglerfish have a very unique male/female dynamic, females are not only way larger than males, but males have a somewhat parasitic relationship with them! When they find a female, they'll bite her, slowly the male's flesh will become part of the female's and he'll loose all his organs, except the reproductive ones, females have also been found to carry from 3 to 6 males in their lifetime.

Their stomach and jaw can expand so that they can eat prey up to twice their size! Due to the limited amount of food available to them, this also allows anglerfish to store food when there's abundance.

The females posses a modified dorsal fin (illicium), with a fleshy, shiny bulb called esca at the end, these not only help anglerfish to see in the dark deep ocean, but also works as a bait for their prey.

Anglerfish are edible! It's said they taste like lobster, and are soft and sweet! For those who wish to try it, they can be found in the market with a rather salty price.

Jellyfish are usually known as transparent floating blobs with tentacles on the ocean, but did you know, not all of them have tentacles? For example, the deepstaria enigmatica has no mouth-arms or tentacles at all!

There is a kind of "immortal" jellyfish! The Turritopsis dohrnii can't die due to old age, once it gets old or hurt, it'll drop to the seabed and use transdifferentiation to get its former cells from when it was still a polyp back, making these animals biologically immortal!

A jellyfish's size can vary a lot! For example, some jellyfish, like the irukandji, can be as small as a coin, but some can grow to be around the size of a 13 story building, like the lion's mane jellyfish.

They're made of mostly water! Since they are around 95% water, most jellyfish evaporate a few hours after being washed ashore.

Jellyfish have no brain, heart or bones, they're very simple animals and only have 3 layers, the outer epidermis, the mesoglea, and the inner gastrodermis, but although they may not have a brain or a heart, they have an elementary nervous system able to detect light, vibrations, and chemicals on the water.

They're a really old animal, it's estimated jellyfish have been around for over 500 million years, making them the oldest multi organ animal in the world, older than sharks, dinosaurs, and trees!

Although seen by some as scary predators, most shark species are actually quite harmless! Only 3 species are responsible for shark attacks out of over 400, and when those happen, they are usually due to curiosity or confusion (they might mistake people with their prey, but humans are not part of their diet!);

Sharks are reallyyyy old, in fact, they're one of the oldest creatures in the world! The first sharks have been recorded to have existed during the Devonian period, around 400 million years ago, meaning they're around older than dinossaurs, trees and survived 5 mass extinctions!

Not only very old, some sharks also have a VERY high life expectancy, the greenland shark, for example, can live up to around 500 years!!! These sharks also grow very slowly (less than 1cm per year), and age very slowly, with females only maturing at about 150 years old (the time it usually takes for them to surpass a lenght of 4m);

Since they don't have organs cabable of producing sound, sharks are quiet creatures, so they use territorial body language for communication!

They have a really good sense of smell! Some sharks can smell blood from a radius of about 400m (but don't worry, as I said, sharks are not interested in eating humans!), their heightened sense of smell and ability to track a trail of a scent through long distances help them to locate preys in vast and open waters!

Not only is their sense of smell really good, they also have a sixth sense, they're able to capture eletromagnetic currents! They have a special electroreceptor called an ampulla of lorenzini, which allows them to feel weak electric fields in the water!

That was today's animalnomenon!