Just popping in to say there was remarkable Natural World programme last night on BBC2 all about Honey Badgers

I knew about them, how tough they are and I knew they had very large brains - but I did not realise just how incredibly smart they really are.

Check it out on the BBC I-Player if you can.

My comment was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but there's scientific evidence that ants use chemicals they produce to subdue, control and contain nearby colonies of aphids. The ants "milk" honeydew from the aphids, but also eat some of them, so they have a handy renewable source of honeydew and food on their doorstep.

The ants also protect the "farm" although there no evidence of them ever shouting "Oi you! Ge' orf moi laaand!" at any approaching ladybirds!

Thanks for the heads-up Keyser!

I'd have missed it otherwise!

Not specifically related to outright intelligence, but I love this documentary about the awesome (and pretty smart) Gulo gulo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLPDKmES4A0

Their stamina is incredible, with one tagged wolverine climbing the highest peak in The Glacier National Park in Montana in 90 minutes ... in the middle of winter ... because it happened to be in the way!

I love the comment from one of the guys who follows the wolverines ...

That's some pretty formidable terrain. The kind of stuff where even the goats were looking at him going "Don't go ... don't do it, man!"

Apparently, the wolverine ignore them!

Honey Badger and Zebras. More videos too. They are such clever and brave liitle devils!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVvSj...JqhbY6ry3JePID

An article from the National Geographic.

Slightly dated (2008) but some very interesting stuff nonetheless.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...ia-morell-text

And a few newer articles.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/10...nce-140402.htm

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...70574285382756

There is far too much recent research and articles on the web to post here but personally I think it is such an interesting subject.

There was a couple in the USA that fed the Crows- the wife adored them, but the husband did not like them, the wife went out of her way to feed them- AND in return the Crows actually gave her jewellery,she found diamond rings,golden chains, yikes where did they got that from OOPS! But the husband was getting jealous of the wife giving the Crows attention, so he did everything to get rid of them.

However, the Crows didn't like it at all, and started shitting over his car. The Crows knew, which was his/her Car.He woke up in the mornings and found shit over his car... But they still kept giving the wife jewellery.

There are quite a lot of stories like this.

Love it!

Reminds me of a bit in the quite excellent article Keyser posted a link to (#28) about my favourite animal:

"Occasionally an octopus takes a dislike to someone. One of Athena’s predecessors at the aquarium, Truman, felt this way about a female volunteer. Using his funnel, the siphon near the side of the head used to jet through the sea, Truman would shoot a soaking stream of salt water at this young woman whenever he got a chance. Later, she quit her volunteer position for college. But when she returned to visit several months later, Truman, who hadn’t squirted anyone in the meanwhile, took one look at her and instantly soaked her again."

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.p.../article/6474/

Oh she died!!! Amazing story.

Got to lighten this up. Sorry Keyser I'm lowering the tone but now cats and dogs just for me!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGdKUCSeXIc

Brilliant stuff!

I read of a crow that took a dislike to a couple of dogs.

Every day without fail the crow would bait and harass them into chasing it in the garden, it flew very low until at the last instant shot upwards and the dogs ran straight into the fence at the bottom.

The crow then watched them with sheer glee as they nursed their poorly heads (and wounded pride).

It did this time and time again and the dogs never learned their lesson.

Some truly amazing things birds do..



Some amazing stuff...

I was thinking of a thread about Animal cruelty, just to make people AWARE what is going on in the world..

Found this. A rare privilege? Beavers at work.

http://sftimes.co/?id=486

http://youtu.be/C59YIwMcg3Y

Apologies if the link doesn't work - I'm trying to learn how to copy and paste on iPad. It's a lovely vid of a dog and crow playing which was emailed to me last week.

Edit. I think it's working!

Sadly you will need a very strong stomach.

I have seen many harrowing videos of what heartless and ignorant bastards do to innocent animals around the world. Shark-finning, bear-bile farming, cooking cats and dogs alive, cutting snakes open and drinking their blood - the list goes on and on.

It makes me sick.

But thanks for the links everyone!

Corvids are fast becoming my favourites.

That's amazing, The crow is loving it and could fly off at any time of it wasn't.

Having worked in animal rescue on a voluntary basis back home in England, I despaired of the human race and the hideous cruelty they are capable of. The British have a long way to go to be classed as a nation of animal lovers.
The carnage and decimation caused by the fishing industry is shocking right across the globe.
What creatures are there as capable of such cruelty outside of man?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAhdgYe8FpE

And we are amongst the very kindest of nations.

What goes on in the majority of countries just does not bear thinking about.

What a wonderful world it would be if all the Megafauna were alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna

Life on land is so very small now thanks to us.

How did the African and Southern Asian megafauna survive best of all or am I wrong?

Because they evolved with us and knew to run as fast as bloody possible whenever they detected Homo sapiens.

Other animals on other continents did not realise the danger we represented.

Which is why over 95% of the Australian megafauna disappeared.

Animals need us to protect them.

I'm an avid follower off wildlife films but I was shocked last week to hear lions are in danger of extinction.

On the basis of "you don't miss what you never knew" what will happen?

95% is incomprehensible.

This is a sobering list

https://worldwildlife.org/species/di...inction_status

The ten most endangered on here and all basically because of man.

http://www.therichest.com/animals/to...-in-the-world/

If it wasn't for us they wouldn't need protecting.

Exactly.

I know.

What more can I do other than donate? I think maybe if, when I was young and knew what I know now my life might have taken a different course.

But no TV, an occasional visit to Dudley Zoo (where I rode on the back of an elephant) perhaps sparked my love.