The Book of Lists

11 EXAMPLES OF UNUSUAL ANIMAL MATING HABITS

Penguins prefer to be ‘married’, but they suffer long separations due to their migratory habits. When reunited, a pair will stand breast to breast, heads thrown back, singing loudly, with outstretched flippers trembling. Two weeks after a pair is formed, their union is consummated. The male makes his intentions known by laying his head across his partner’s stomach. They go on a long trek to find privacy, but the actual process of intercourse takes only three minutes. Neither penguin will mate again that year.

The male Adele penguin must select his mate from a colony of more than a million, and he indicates his choice by rolling a stone at the female’s feet. Stones are scarce at mating time because many are needed to build walls around nests. It becomes commonplace for penguins to steal them from one another. If she accepts this gift, they stand belly to belly and sing a mating song.

Hippos have their own form of aromatherapy. Hippos attract mates by marking territory, urinating and defecating at the same time. Then, an enamoured hippo will twirl its tail like a propellor to spread this delicious slop in every direction. This attracts lovers, and a pair will begin foreplay, which consists of playing by splashing around in the water before settling down to business.

Exhaustion is the frequent fate of the male Uganda kob, an African antelope. Like many species of birds and mammals, the kob roams in a social group until the mating season, when the dominant male establishes a mating territory, or lek. But the females decide which territory they wish to enter and then pick the male they think most attractive. He then mates with all the females until he is too weak to continue (usually due to lack of food) and is replaced by another.

Squid begin mating with a circling nuptial dance. Teams of squid revolve around across a ‘spawning bed’ 200 metres in diameter. At daybreak they begin having sex and continue all day long — they only take a break so the female can drive down and deposit eggs. When she returns to the circle, the two go at it again. As twilight falls, the pair go offshore to eat and rest. At the first sign of sunlight, they return to their spot and do it all over again. This routine can last up to two weeks, ensuring a healthy population of squid.

The answer to one of our oldest jokes: ‘How do porcupines do it?’ ‘Veeery carefully!’ is not quite true. The truth is more bizarre than dangerous. Females are only receptive for a few hours a year. As summer approaches, young females become nervous and very excited. Next, they go off their food, and stick close by the males and mope. Meanwhile the male becomes aggressive with other males, and begins a period of carefully sniffing every place the female of his choice urinates, smelling her all over. This is a tremendous aphrodisiac. While she is sulking by his side, he begins to ‘sing’.

When he is ready to make love, the female runs away if she’s not ready. If she is in the mood, they both rear up and face each other, belly-to-belly. Then, males spray their ladies with a tremendous stream of urine, soaking their loved one from head to foot — the stream can shoot as far as 7 feet.

If they’re not ready, females respond by 1) objecting verbally 2) hitting with front paws like boxers 3) trying to bite 4) shaking off the urine. When ready, they accept the bath. This routine can go on for weeks. Six months after the beginning of courtship, the female will accept any male she has been close to. The spines and quills of both go relaxed and flat, and the male enters from behind. Mating continues until the male is worn out. Every time he tries to stop, the female wants to continue. If he has given up, she chooses another partner, only now she acts out the male role. To ‘cool off’, females engage in the same courtship series, step-by-step, in reverse order.

It is advised never to stand close to a cage that contains courting porcupines.

Two male geese may form a homosexual bond and prefer each other’s company to any female’s. Sometimes, however, a female may interpose herself between them during such a courtship, and be quickly fertilised. They will accept her, and weeks later the happy family of three can be seen attending to its tiny newborn goslings.

These birds, native to Mexico and and Central America, are believed to be the only species besides humans to kiss. Before actually mating, male and female will lock their beaks and gently flick their tongues together. If kissing is satisfying for both parties, the male boldly takes the next step, by regurgitating his food for his girlfriend, to show his love. White-fronted parrots also share parenting, unlike many other species. When the female lays her one egg, both parents take turns incubating it. When the baby hatches, the couple feed and care for their offspring together.

Why are grasshoppers so noisy? It’s because they’re singing to woo their partners. They have as many as 400 distinct songs, which they sing during their courtship and mating cycles. Some males have a different song for each distinct mating period — for example, there may be a flirting song, then a mating song.

Lesbian mating is practised by between 8% and 14% of the seagulls on the Santa Barbara islands, off the California coast. Lesbian gulls go through all the motions of mating, and they lay sterile eggs. Homosexual behaviour is also known in geese, ostriches, cichlid fish, squid, rats and monkeys.

These snakes are small and poisonous, and live in Canada and the Northwestern United States. Their highly unusual mating takes place during an enormous orgy. Twenty-five thousand snakes slither together in a large den, eager to copulate. In that pile, one female may have as many as 100 males vying for her. These ‘nesting balls’ grow as large as two feet high. Now and then a female is crushed under the heavy mound — and the males are so randy that they continue to copulate, becoming the only necrophiliac snakes!

When a male lynx spider feels the urge, he will capture his beauty in his web and wrap her in silk. Offering her this elegant meal (the silken web) is his way of wooing. When the mood is right, the female, distracted by her feast, will allow her suitor to mount her and begin mating. Oblivious, she ignores him and enjoys her supper.

10 ANIMALS THAT HAVE EATEN HUMANS

The North American bear, although smaller and less aggressive than the grizzly, can be deadly and has been responsible for many harmful attacks on humans. In 1963, when the Alaskan blueberry crop was poor, hungry black bears attacked at least four people, one of whom they killed.

Estuarine crocodiles are the most prolific man-eaters on earth, killing approximately 2,000 people a year. On the night of February 19, 1945, they were responsible for the most devastating animal attack on human beings in recorded history. British troops had trapped 1,000 Japanese infantrymen, many of whom were wounded, in a swampy area in the Bay of Bengal. The noise of gunfire and the smell of blood attracted hundreds of crocodiles, and by evening the British could hear terrible screams. The following morning, only 20 Japanese were found alive.

The giant squid is the most highly developed of the invertebrates. Its eyes are almost exact replicas of human eyes. It has 10 arms, and its body can reach up to 65 feet in length. Often confused with the octopus, which attacks humans only when threatened, the giant squid is a carnivorous predator. One notable incident occurred on March 25, 1941, when the British ship Britannia sank in the Atlantic Ocean. As a dozen survivors clung to their lifeboat, a giant squid reached its arms around the body of a man and pulled him below. Male squid sometimes eat the female after mating.

The world’s largest lizard, the Komodo dragon can reach 10 feet in length and weigh more than 300 pounds. They are the top predators on the handful of Indonesian islands where they live. Their prey normally consists of deer, wild goats and pigs, but they will eat anything they can catch, including the occasional human. Komodo dragons devour their prey completely, including the bones. All that was left of a French tourist killed in 1986 was his blood-stained shoes. All that was left of a German tourist eaten in 1988 was his mangled glasses.

Considered one of the most dangerous animals to hunt, the leopard is quick and stealthy and is seldom observed. In the central provinces of India, leopards have been known to invade native huts to find their prey. One, known as the Panawar man-eater, is reputed to have killed 400 people. It was shot in 1910 by Jim Corbett, who also killed the Champawat man-eating tigress the following year.

Like tigers, lions do not usually attack humans. Man-eating lions usually hunt in prides, or groups, although occasionally single lions and pairs have become man-eaters. In October 1943, a lone lion was shot in the Kasama District of what is now Zambia after it had killed 40 people.

Pumas have been known to catch prey seven to eight times their own size: a 100-lb female has been seen killing an 800-lb bull elk. In recent years, as people have built subdivisions in the mountains of the Western US, attacks by pumas on humans have exploded. Since 1970, there have been more than 40 attacks, at least 7 of them fatal. In 1994, two female joggers in California were killed and partly consumed by female pumas.

Pythons are quite capable of killing people, and several such incidents have been reported since they became a trendy pet in the 1990s. However, most reports of pythons actually eating humans have proven untrue. A picture circulating on the internet of a boy allegedly recovered from a python’s digestive tract is a hoax. However, there is at least one credible report. In 1992, a group of children playing in a mango plantation near Durban, South Africa, was attacked by a 20-foot rock python, which swallowed one of them. Craig Smith, the owner of a snake park, declared, ‘I’ve dealt with a few cases like this and I always dispel them as absolute rubbish. But in my opinion this one did happen.’

Of the 200 to 250 species of shark, only 18 are known to be dangerous to humans. The most notable are the great white, the mako, the tiger, the white-tipped, the Ganges River, and the hammerhead. The best-known of all individual ‘rogue’ shark attacks occurred on July 12, 1916. Twelve-year-old Lester Stilwell was swimming in Matawan Creek, New Jersey, 15 to 20 miles inland, when he was attacked by a great white shark. Both he and his would-be rescuer were killed. In 10 days four people were killed over a 60-mile stretch of the New Jersey coast. Two days after the last attack, an 8½ foot great white was netted just 4 miles from the mouth of the creek. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, between 1670 and 2003 there were 833 confirmed unprovoked shark attacks in the United States, 52 of which were fatal.

A tigress known as the Champawat man-eater killed 438 people in the Himalayas in Nepal between 1903 and 1911. Tigers do not usually hunt humans, unless the animals are old, or injured, or have become accustomed to the taste of human flesh.

While it is almost certain that wolves have preyed on human beings at some time in history, there are no confirmed reports of unprovoked attacks on humans by North American wolves. Likewise, there are no confirmed reports of piranha-caused deaths. Observers in the river regions of northeastern South America do report that many natives have lost fingers, toes or penny-sized chunks of flesh while bathing in piranha-infested waters. A school of piranhas can strip a wounded alligator of flesh in five minutes, but they are generally sluggish in their movements.

13 PLACES WITH MORE SHEEP THAN HUMANS

Sheep Humans

1. Australia 98,200,000 19,731,000

2. Sudan 47,000,000 33,610,000

3. New Zealand 39,250,000 3,875,000

4. Mongolia 11,797,000 2,594,000

5. Uruguay 9,780,000 3,415,000

6. Mauritania 8,700,000 2,893,000

7. Turkmenistan 6,000,000 4,867,000

8. Ireland 4,828,500 3,956,000

9. Namibia 2,370,000 1,987,000

10. Falkland Islands 690,000 3,000

11. Iceland 470,000 290,000

12. Faeroe Islands 68,100 46,000

13. Montserrat 4,700 4,000

World Sheep Population: 1,024,039,610

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT, 2003

4 PLACES WITH MORE PIGS THAN HUMANS

Pigs Humans

1. Denmark 12,984,944 5,364,000

2. Samoa 201,000 178,000

3. Wallis and Futuna Islands 29,000 14,000

4. Tuvalu 13,200 10,000

World Pig Population: 956,016,932

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAOSTAT, 2003

AVERAGE ERECT PENIS LENGTHS FOR 10 SPECIES

Animal Average erect penis length

1. Humpback whale 10 ft

2. Elephant 5–6 ft

3. Bull 3 ft

4. Stallion 2 ft 6 in.

5. Rhinoceros 2 ft

6. Pig 18–20 in.

7. Man 6 in.

8. Gorilla 2 in.

9. Cat 3⁄4 in.

10. Mosquito 1/100 in. Source: Leigh Rutledge, The Gay Book of Lists (Boston: Alyson Publication, 1987)

THE CAT CAME BACK: 9 CATS WHO TRAVELLED LONG DISTANCES TO RETURN HOME

Sugar, a two-year-old part-Persian, had a hip deformity that made her uncomfortable during car travel. Consequently, she was left behind with a neighbour when her family left Anderson, California, for Gage, Oklahoma. Two weeks later, Sugar disappeared. Fourteen months later, she turned up in Gage on her old owner’s doorstep — having travelled 100 miles a month to reach a place she had never been. The case was investigated in person by the famous parapsychologist J. B. Rhine, who observed Sugar and interviewed witnesses.

In 1981 Mehmet Tunc, a Turkish ‘guest worker’ in Germany, went home with his cat and family for a vacation. At the Turkish border, Minosch disappeared. Sixty-one days later, back on the island of Sylt, in northern Germany, the family heard a faint scratching at the door. It was a bedraggled Minosch.

Shaun Philips, and his father, Ken, lost Silky at Gin Gin, about 200 miles north of Brisbane, Australia. That was in the summer of 1977. On March 28, 1978, Silky turn up at Mr Philips’s house in a Melbourne suburb. According to his owner, ‘he was as thin as a wisp and stank to high heavens’.

In 1978, this three-year-old Persian walked home from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, to Adelaide — a trip that took a year. Said his owner, Kirsten Hicks, 15, ‘although its white coat was matted and filthy and its paws were sore and bleeding, Howie was actually purring’.

Rusty distinguished himself by setting an American all-time speed record for a cat return. In 1949 this ginger tom travelled from Boston, Massachusetts, to Chicago, Illinois, in 83 days. It is speculated that he hitched rides on cars, lorries and trains.

Brent Todd and his family moved from Farmington, Utah, to Mill Creek, a suburb of Seattle, Washington, in April, 1996, taking with them their eight-year-old tomcat, Ninja. After a week, Ninja jumped over the fence of the new yard and disappeared. More than a year later, on May 25, 1997, Ninja turned up on the porch of the Todds’ former home in Farmington, waiting to be let inside and fed. He was thin and scraggly, but his distinctive caterwaul was recognised by the Todds’ former neighbours, Marilyn and John Parker. Mrs Parker offered to send Ninja back to the Todds, but they decided to let him stay.

In September 1994, Ernie jumped from the truck of Chris and Jennifer Trevino while it was travelling 60 mph down the highway 600 miles west of their home. A week later, Ernie showed up at the Trevinos’ home in Victoria, Texas. When Mrs Trevino called the cat by name, he came forward and rubbed his face against Mr Trevino’s leg.

The Servoz family lost their pet tom, Gringo, from their home in Lamarche-sur-Seine, France, in December 1982. The following July they learned that the cat had moved to the French Riviera. Wishing to escape the cold winter, he had made the journey south in a week and appeared at their summer home, where neighbours took care of him.

On June 23 or 24, 1985, Muddy Water White jumped out of a van driven by his owner, Barbara Paule, in Dayton, Ohio. Almost exactly three years later, he returned to his home in Pennsylvania. ‘He came and just flopped down like he was home,’ said Mrs Paule. She fed him for three days before realising he was Muddy Water White, an identification that was confirmed by the local vet.

18 CHILDREN WHO MAY HAVE LIVED WITH WILD ANIMALS

Twin brothers Romulus and Remus were allegedly raised by a wolf after being abandoned in the countryside by their uncle. A number of years later they were rescued by a shepherd, and they went on to found the city of Rome in 753 BC. Scholars long considered their childhood adventures to be mythical, but recent studies of children known to have lived with animals have demonstrated that they could well be an element of truth to the Romulus and Remus legend.

In 1344, hunters in the German Kingdom of Hesse captured a boy between 7 and 12 years of age who had been living in the wild. Wolves had brought him food and dug holes to shelter him at night. The boy ran on all fours and had an extraordinary ability to leap long distances. Treated as a freak by his human captors, he died shortly after his return to civilization because of an enforced diet of cooked food.

In 1661, in a Lithuanian forest, a party of hunters discovered a boy living with a group of bears. The hunters captured him even though he resisted by biting and clawing them. Taken to Warsaw, Poland, and christened Joseph, the boy continued to eat raw meat and graze on grass. Although he never dropped the habit of growling like a bear, Joseph acquired a limited vocabulary and became the servant of a Polish nobleman.

In 1672 a 16-year-old boy was found trapped in a hunter’s net in the hills of southern Ireland. Since running away from his parents’ home as a young child, the boy had lived with a herd of wild sheep. He was healthy and muscular even though he ate only grass and hay. After his capture he was taken to the Netherlands, where he was cared for in Amsterdam by Dr Nicholas Tulp. The boy never learned human speech, but continued to bleat like a sheep throughout his life.

In 1767 two hunters captured a girl who attacked them after they shot her bear companion in the mountains near the village of Fraumark, Hungary. The tall, muscular 18-year-old girl had lived with bears since infancy. Later she was locked up in an asylum in the town of Karpfen because she refused to wear clothes or eat anything but raw meat and tree bark.

In 1800 hunters captured a 17-year-old boy who had lived alone in the forest of Aveyron, France, since he was an infant. Given the name Victor, the boy was not happy living in civilised society and repeatedly tried to escape. He also growled and gnashed his teeth at first, but later became adjusted to being with humans. When he died at the age of 40, he had learned only three words.

In 1867, a hunting party found a seven-year-old boy living with wolves in a cave in the jungles of Bulandshahr, India. Taken to the Sekandra Orphanage near Agra and given the name Dina Sanichar, the boy refused to wear clothes and sharpened his teeth by gnawing on bones. For 28 years he lived at the orphanage, but he never learned to talk. In 1895 he died of tuberculosis aggravated by the one human habit he had adopted — smoking tobacco.

An intriguing but not fully substantiated case is that of Englishman William Milding, the 14th Earl of Streatham. (One authority believes the name of this child was actually William Russell.) Shipwrecked on the West African coast at the age of 11 in 1868, Mildin lived with apes for 15 years before being discovered and returned to England. Mildin may have inspired Edgar Rice Burroughs to create his most famous character — Tarzan of the Apes.

In October 1920, the Reverend J.A.L. Singh captured two girls, one about three years old and the other about five, who had lived with a pack of wolves near the village of Midnapore, India. Named Amala and Kamala by Singh, the girls were mute except for occasional growling sounds, walked on all fours and loved to eat raw meat. After a year in civilization, Amala died. Kamala eventually acquired a 45-word vocabulary before her death in 1929.

In December 1933, a woodcutter captured a boy about five years of age in the jungles of Ahuachapan Province in El Salvador. The boy, nicknamed ‘Tarzancito’, had lived alone since infancy, subsisting on a diet of wild fruit and raw fish. Newspaper correspondent Ernie Pyle, who met Tarzancito, reported that when the boy first returned to human society, he communicated by howling and frequently attacked and bit people. Eventually Tarzancito learned to talked and adjusted to human life.

In 1938 an English sportsman found an eight-year-old boy living with a leopard and her cubs in the north Cachar Hills of India. The boy, who had been carried off by the leopard five years earlier, was returned to his family of peasant farmers. Although nearly blind, he could identify different individuals and objects by his extremely well-developed sense of smell.

When she was seven years old, Misha’s mother and father were seized by Nazis. She was hidden in a safe house, but, worried that she might be turned over the Germans, she ran off and lived in the wild. For the next four years, as World War II raged, Defonesca wandered through Europe, covering more than 3,000 miles. During this time she lived on raw berries, raw meat and food stolen from farmhouses. On occasion, she lived with packs of wolves. She later recalled: ‘In all my travels, the only time I ever slept deeply was when I was with wolves… The days with my wolf family multiplied. I have no idea how many months I spent with them, but I wanted it to last forever — it was far better than returning to the world of my own kind… Those were the most beautiful days I had ever experienced.’

In September, 1960, Basque poet Jean Claude Armen discovered and observed a boy who was approximately eight years old living with a herd of gazelles in the desert regions of the Western Sahara. For two months Armen studied the boy, whom he speculated was the orphaned child of some nomadic Saharan Moorish family. The boy travelled on all fours, grazed on grass dug roots, and seemed to be thoroughly accepted by the gazelles as a member of the herd. Since the boy appeared happy, Armen left him with his gazelle family. American soldiers attempted to capture the boy in 1966 and 1970, but without success.

This boy was taken to the Catholic mission at Sultanpur, a town in Punjab, India, by a man who allegedly had found him living in a forest with wolves. The boy, estimated to be three or four years old at the time, was covered with matted hair and had calluses on his elbows, palms, and knees. According to Father Joseph de Souza, Shamdeo learned to stand upright in five months, and within two years he was doing chores around the mission. He communicated by sign language. Father Joseph also noted that the boy no longer caught and ate live chickens, but he was still drawn by the scent of blood. That Shamdeo actually lived with wolves has not been authenticated.

In 1991, Ugandan villagers treed and captured a little boy living with a pack of monkeys. One of the villagers identified the child as John Ssebunya, who had fled the village three years earlier when his father had murdered his mother and then disappeared. John was adopted by Paul and Molly Wasswa, who ran an orphanage. Several experts who studied John were convinced that John really had lived with monkeys. When left with a group of monkeys, he approached them from the side with open palms in classic simian fashion. He also had an unusual lopsided gait and pulled his lips back when he smiled. He tended to greet people with a powerful hug, the way that monkeys greet each other. After some time in the orphanage, John learned to talk and to sing. In 1999, he visited Great Britain as part of the Pearl of Africa Children’s Choir. That same year, he was the subject of a BBC documentary, Living Proof.

In 1996, a boy about two years of age was found by hunters living with chimps in the Folgore forest in Nigeria. He was taken to the Maliki Torrey children’s home where the staff named him Bello. Mentally and physically disabled, with a misshapen forehead, sloping right shoulder and protruding chest, he was apparently abandoned by his parents, members of the nomadic Fulari tribe. When he first arrived at the home, Bello walked like a chimp, moving on his hind legs and dragging his feet on the ground. As of 2002, he still could not speak, but made chimp-like noises.

THE DAY OF EXTINCTION FOR 8 BIRDS

The great auk was a large, flightless bird which lived in the Arctic regions of the North Atlantic. It was the first bird known as a ‘penguin’ and, when explorers from the northern hemisphere came across the similar but unrelated species in the Antarctic, they transferred the name to the new bird. The last recorded breeding place of the great auk was Eldey Island, off the coast of Iceland. At the beginning of June 1844, three men, part of an expedition funded by an Icelandic bird collector called Carl Siemsen, landed on the island. They found and killed two auks among other birds gathered on the island’s cliffs and took away an egg, which was later sold to an apothecary in Rykjavik for £9. There has since been no confirmed sighting of a great auk on Eldey Island or anywhere else.

A small black and white duck indigenous to North America, the Labrador was considered to be a strong and hardy species, and its decline is still mysterious. The duck bred on the east coast of Canada but flew as far south as Philadelphia in the summer. Hunting no doubt contributed to its demise. The last reported Labrador duck was shot down over Long Island in 1872.

A large brown hawk with a black head and grey striped wings, the caracara was last seen alive and collected by R. H. Beck in 1900. One of the few cases where a bird was deliberately exterminated, the caracara was poisoned and shot by goatherds, who thought it was killing the kids in their herds.

These brownish-gray pigeons were once so numerous that a passing flock could darken the sky for days. As recently as 1810, an estimated 2 billion pigeons were sighted in one flock. But massive hunting by settlers and a century of forest destruction eliminated the passenger and its native forest habitat. In 1869, 7,500,000 pigeons were captured in a single nesting raid. In 1909, a $1,500 reward was offered for a live nesting pair, but no one could be found. Martha, the last of the passenger pigeons, died of old age in 1914 in the Cincinnati Zoo.

The striking green and yellow Carolina parakeet was once common in the forests of the eastern and southern US, but because of the widespread crop destruction it caused, farmers hunted the bird to extinction. The last Carolina parakeet, an old male named Incas, died in the Cincinnati Zoo. The zoo’s general manager believed it died of grief over the loss of Lady Jane, its mate of 30 years, the previous summer.

An east coast US relative of the prairie chicken, the heath hen was once so common around Boston that servants sometimes stipulated before accepting employment that heath hen not be served to them more than a few times a week. But the bird was hunted to extinction, and the last heath hen, alone since December 1928, passed away in Martha’s Vineyard at the age of eight, after the harsh winter 1932.

Known only from two specimens and one sighting, Euler’s flycatcher was an 8½-inch olive and dusky yellow bird. The flycatcher was believed by James Bond (the authority of Caribbean birds, not Ian Fleming’s 007) to have perished on Jamaica in 1955 during Hurricane Janet.

This sparrow was once common in the marshes of Merritt Island, Florida, and along the nearby St John’s River. In the 1960s, Merritt Island was flooded to deal with the mosquito problem at the Kennedy Space Center, while the marshes along the St John’s were drained for highway construction. Pesticides and pollution also contributed to the bird’s demise. In 1977, the last five dusky seaside sparrows were captured. Unfortunately, they were all male, with no female to perpetuate the species. The five were relocated to Disney World’s Discovery Island to live out their last days. The last one, an aged male blind in one eye, named Orange Band, died ten years later.

8 EXAMPLES OF STRANGE ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

Nile crocodiles, although physically and morally capable of killing humans, are tender guardians of their own babies. Newborn crocodiles average 28 cm (11 inches) in length and weigh 100 grams (3½ ounces) — tempting prey for a wide range of predators. To protect them when they emerge from their shells, a mother crocodile delicately picks up the hatchlings with her deadly jaws and slips them into a pouch inside her mouth. Then she carries the chirping babies to the water where they are greeted by a roaring chorus from the adult males.

The female gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus), which flourished in Queensland, Australia, until its recent extinction, swallowed her fertilised eggs, transformed her stomach into a uterus, carried the developing tadpoles in her stomach, and then gave birth to fully formed young through her mouth.

Aphids produce a sugary excrement, which has come to be known as honeydew, by licking the leaves and stems on which it has fallen. But some ant species have learned to gather the aphids into their nests, feed them, and then when the ants are hungry, to stroke the aphids with their feelers so that they produce the honeydew, which the ants then drink fresh.

The female mite known as Histiostoma murchiei creates her own husband from scratch. She lays eggs that turn into adults without needing to be fertilised. The mother then copulates with her sons within three of four days of laying the eggs, after which the sons die rather quickly.

Female cuckoos deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds, who then incubate the eggs and raise the offspring until they are able to fly away on their own. Curiously, each individual cuckoo mother chooses the same species to adopt all of her children and is able to lay eggs that resemble the eggs of the foster family.

As soon as they mature sexually, male angler fish begin a desperate search to find a mate in the dark water 6,000 feet below the surface. As soon as they locate likely prospects, certain species of angler fish attach themselves to the females — literally. The male latches on to the much larger female and never lets go for the rest of his life. In fact, their vascular systems become united and the male becomes entirely dependent on the female’s blood for nutrition. In exchange, the male provides the female with sperm.

Several species of tree ants in Southeast Asia have evolved a bizarre method for building their nests. While one brigade of ants holds together two leaves, another brigade grabs hold of ant larvae and squeezes out of their young bodies a sticky thread that is used to hold together the edges of the leaves.

Ichneumon wasps are the sort of beings that inspire horror films. At the worst, an ichneumon mother picks a victim, usually a caterpillar, and injects her eggs into the host’s body. Often she also injects a poison that paralyses the victim without killing it. When the eggs hatch, the wasp larvae begin eating the caterpillar. Because a dead caterpillar would be useless to developing wasps, they contrive to keep the unfortunate victim alive as long as possible by eating its fatty deposits and digestive organs first and saving the heart and central nervous system for last.

MAXIMUM RECORDED LIFESPAN OF 58 ANIMALS

1. Tortoise 188 years

2. Lake Sturgeon 152 years

3. Human 122 years, 5 months

4. Fin Whale 116 years

5. Blue Whale 110 years

6. Humpback Whale 95 years

7. Elephant (African) 80 years

8. Turtle (eastern box) 75 years

9. Parrot (African grey) 73 years

10. Alligator 66 years

11. Horse 62 years

12. Chimpanzee 59 years, 5 months

13. Orangutan 59 years

14. Eagle (eastern imperial) 56 years

15. Seal (Baikal) 56 years

16. Hippopotamus 54 years, 4 months

17. Gorilla 54 years

18. Camel 50 years

19. Grizzly Bear 50 years

20. Rhinoceros (Indian) 49 years

21. Brown Bear 47 years

22. Condor (California) 45 years

23. Goldfish 43 years

24. Hyena (spotted) 41 years, 1 month

25. Boa constrictor 40 years, 3 months

26. Vulture 39 years

27. Polar Bear 38 years, 2 months

28. Giraffe 36 years, 4 months

29. Dolphin 35 years

30. Rhinoceros (Sumatran) 35 years

31. Cat 34 years

32. Ant (queen) 30 years

33. Kangaroo (red) 30 years

34. Panda (giant) 30 years

35. Dog 29 years, 6 months

36. Lion 29 years

37. Porcupine (Old World) 27 years, 4 months

38. Tiger 26 years, 4 months

39. Wombat 26 years, 1 month

40. Aardvark 24 years

41. Sheep 24 years

42. Jaguar 22 years

43. Raccoon 20 years, 7 months

44. Frog 20 years

45. Koala 20 years

46. Porcupine (normal) 20 years

47. Vampire Bat 19 years, 6 months

48. Pigeon 18 years, 6 months

49. Rabbit 18 years

50. Duck-billed Platypus 17 years

51. Guinea Pig 14 years, 10 months

52. Hedgehog 14 years

53. Shrew (non-human) 12 years

54. Hamster 10 years

55. Gopher (eastern pocket) 7 years, 2 months

56. Anchovy 7 years

57. Partridge 6 years, 3 months 58. Mole 5 years

Primary Source: Max Planck Institute web site http://www.demogr.mpg.de/; also Longevity Records: Life Spans of Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Fish, by James R. Carey and Debra S. Judge

7 EXTINCT ANIMALS THAT ARE NO LONGER EXTINCT

This ocean-wandering bird nested exclusively on the islets of Bermuda. Also known as the Bermuda petrel, the last of the cahows was believed to have been killed during the famine of 1615, when British colonists built cook-fires into which the unwary cahows flew by the thousand. On January 8, 1951, the cahow was rediscovered by Bermuda’s conservation officer, David Wingate. Under his protection, the existing 18 birds were encouraged to breed, and now number more than 150.

A marsupial mouse, the dibbler was listed as extinct in 1884. In 1967 an Australian naturalist hoping to trap live honey possums, caught instead a pair of dibblers. The female of the captured pair soon produced a litter of eight, and they were then bred in captivity.

The last known dwarf lemur was reported in 1875, and was regarded as extinct. Then in 1966 the small tree-dwelling marsupial was once again seen, near the city of Mananara, Madagascar.

This small marsupial was considered to have been extinct for 20,000 years until Dr Kenneth Shortman caught one in the kitchen of his skiing lodge, Mount Hothan, in southeast Australia in 1966. Three more of the tiny possums were discovered in 1970.

A primeval forest horse of central Asia and long extinct, the tarpan was recreated by brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck, curators of the Berlin and Munich zoos, respectively. By selective crossbreeding of Polish primitive horses with Swedish Gotlands, Icelandic ponies and Polish Konik mares, they created a strain of wild horse identical in appearance to what we know of the mouse-gray tarpan. The first colt was born on May 22, 1933. By this same method, the aurochs, a European wild ox which died out in Poland in 1627, have also been duplicated.

A flower-eating South American bird, the guan was thought extinct for a century until sighted in September of 1977. An American ornithologist and his Peruvian associate located four of the pheasant-sised birds in remote northwestern Peru.

11 LARGE ANIMALS DISCOVERED BY WESTERN SCIENCE SINCE 1900

In 1812, the ‘Father of Paleontology’, Baron Georges Cuvier, rashly pronounced that ‘there is little hope of discovering a new species’ of large animals and that naturalists should concentrate on extinct fauna. In 1819 the American tapir was discovered, and since then a long list of ‘new’ animals has disproved Cuvier’s dictum.

By saving a group of Congolese Pygmies from a German showman who wanted to take them to the 1900 Paris Exhibition, Sir Harry Johnston gained their trust. He then began hearing stories about the okapi, a mule-sized animal with zebra stripes. In 1901, Sir Harry sent a whole skin, two skulls and a detailed description of the okapi to London, and it was found that the okapi had a close relationship to the giraffe. In 1919, the first live okapi were brought out of the Congo River basin, and in 1941, the Stanleyville Zoo witnessed the first birth of an okapi in captivity. The okapis, striking in appearance, are now rare but popular attractions at the larger, more progressive zoological parks of the world.

First discovered in the high mountains of southern Ethiopia in 1910, the mountain nyala remains a relatively unknown species. The male has gently twisting horns almost 4 ft long and can weigh up to 450 lb. The coat is a majestically greyish-brown, with white vertical stripes on the back. After it was described by Richard Lydekker, the eminent British naturalist, it was ruthlessly hunted by field biologists and trophy seekers through some of the most inhospitable terrain in existence. The mountain nyala lives in the Arussi and Bale mountains at heights above 9,000 ft, where the sun burns hotly in the day and the night temperatures fall to freezing. Its existence is presently threatened by illegal hunting.

Karl Hagenbeck, a famous German animal dealer, established a zoological garden near Hamburg that was the prototype of the modern open-air zoo. In 1909, Hagenbeck send German explorer Hans Schomburgk to Liberia to check on rumours about a ‘giant black pig’. After two years of jungle pursuit, Schomburgk finally spotted the animal 30 ft in front of him. It was big, shiny and black, but the animal was clearly related to the hippopotamus, not the pig. Unable to catch it, he went home to Hamburg empty-handed. In 1912, Hans Schomburgk returned to Liberia, and to the dismay of his critics, came back with five live pygmy hippos. A full-grown pygmy hippopotamus weighs only about 400 lb, a tenth of the weight of the average adult hippopotamus.

These giant monitor lizards are named for the rugged volcanic island of Komodo, part of the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia. Unknown to science until 1912, the Komodo dragon can be up to 12 ft long and weigh over 350 lb. The discovery of the giant lizard was made by an airman who landed on Komodo island and brought back incredible stories of monstrous dragons eating goats, pigs and even attacking horses. At first no one believed him, but then the stories were confirmed by Major P.A. Ouwens, director of the Buitenzorg Botanical Gardens in Java, who offered skins and photographs as proof. Soon live specimens were caught and exhibited. The world’s largest living lizard is now a popular zoo exhibit.

Some animal discoveries are made in museums. In 1913, the New York Zoological Society sent an unsuccessful expedition to the Congo in an attempt to bring back a live okapi. Instead one of the team’s members, Dr James P. Chapin, brought back some native headdresses with curious long reddish-brown feathers striped with black. None of the experts could identify them. In 1934, Chapin, on another of his frequent visits to the Congo, noticed similar feathers on two stuffed birds at the Tervueren Museum. They were labelled ‘Young Indian Peacocks’, but Chapin immediately knew that was not what they were. A mining company in the Congo had donated them to the museum and labelled them ‘Indian peacocks’, but Chapin soon discovered that they were a new species. The following year he flew down to the Congo and brought back seven birds. Chapin confirmed them as the first new bird genus discovered in 40 years. They were not peacocks at all, but pheasants. The Congo peacock is now commonly found in European and North American zoos.

The kouprey is a large wild ox that was found along the Mekong River in Cambodia and Laos and has been the source of much controversy. It first came to the attention of Western scientists in 1936, when it showed up as a hunting trophy in the home of a French vet. The following year, the director of the Paris Vincennes Zoo, Professor Achille Urbain, went to northern Cambodia and reported that a new wild ox, unlike the gaur and the banteng, was to be seen in Cambodia. Other naturalists felt he was wrong and suggested that the kouprey might be just a hybrid of the gaur and the banteng. Finally, in 1961, a detailed anatomical study of the kouprey proved it to be so different from the area’s other wild oxen that it might belong in a new genus, although many scientists continue to insist that it does not. Urbain’s 1937 discovery was upheld. The Vietnam War was responsible for the death of many koupreys. A 1975 New York Zoological Society expedition was unable to capture any, although they did see a herd of 50. The kouprey has not been observed by scientists since 1988, although kouprey skulls occasionally show up at local markets. It is now considered critically endangered.

This 5-ft-long, 127-lb, large-scaled, steel-blue fish was brought up in a net off South Africa in December 1938. The huge fish crawled around on deck for three hours before it died. The only problem was that the coelacanth was supposed to have been extinct for 60 million years. Ms M. Courtenay-Latimer and ichthyologist James Smith of Rhodes University, South Africa, identified the coelacanth after it was already dead and had begun to decay. Professor Smith then began years of searching for a second living coelacanth and was finally rewarded in December 1952, when a fishing trawler off the Comoro island of Anjouan, near Africa’s east coast, brought up an excellent specimen. Dr Smith was soon shocked to learn that the local inhabitants of the Comoros had been catching and eating the ‘living fossils’ for generations.

Brazilian scientists found the black-faced lion tamarin monkey in June 1990 on the island of Superagui, along Brazil’s heavily populated Atlantic coast, where less than 5% of the country’s original Atlantic forest still remains. The amazing discovery led biologist Dr Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, to say, ‘It’s almost like finding a major new species in a suburb of Los Angeles.’ The monkey has a lion-like head and a gold coat. Its face, forearms and tail are black. Prior to its discovery, there were only three known species of the lion tamarin monkey. It is estimated that fewer than two dozen of the new primate species exist. In 1992, two years after this species’ discovery, another new species of monkey, the Maues marmoset, was found in Brazil — this time in a remote part of the Amazon rain forest. First spotted near the Maues River, a tributary of the Amazon, by Swiss biologist Marco Schwarz, the tiny monkey has a pink koala-like face and faint zebra-like stripes.

According to British biologist John MacKinnon, who discovered the sao la in May 1992, the mammal ‘appears to be a cow that lives the life of a goat’. Skulls, horns and skins of the sao la were found by MacKinnon in the Vu Quang Nature Reserve, a pristine 150,000-acre rain forest in northwestern Vietnam near the Laotian border. Known to the local Vietnamese as a ‘forest goat’, the sao la — also called the Vu Quang ox — weighs about 220 lb. Smaller than a cow but larger than a goat, the mammal has a dark brown shiny coat with white markings on its face. It has dagger-like straight horns about 20 in. long and two-toed concave hooves that enable it to manoeuvre through slippery and rugged mountain areas. Scientists did not see a live example of the new species until June 1994, when a four-month-old female calf was captured. Unfortunately the calf, and another adolescent sao la that was subsequently captured, died in October 1994; both from an infection of the digestive system. Despite the illegality of hunting and trapping soa la, by 1998 their population was estimated at just 120–150, and they are threatened with extinction. This is partly due to the bounties offered local hunters by TV crews and scientists trying to capture or view live specimens of this popular species.

Muntjacs, or barking deer, are a common food in Vietnam. But in April 1994, the World Wildlife Fund and the Vietnamese Ministry of Forestry announced that a new species of the mammal — the giant muntjac deer — was discovered in Vu Quang Nature Reserve, the same rain forest where the sao la had been found two years earlier. One and a half times larger than other muntjacs, the deer weighs about 100 lb and has 8-in. antlers that are bowed inward. It has a reddish coat and large canine teeth. A live animal was captured in Laos by a team of researchers working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, and in August 1997 another mountjac, the Truong Son or dwarf muntjac, was located in the Vu Quang Nature Reserve. Weighing only 30 lb, it has black fur and extremely short antlers. It is expected that other new species of animals will be found in the Vu Quang Nature Reserve, which miraculously survived bombing and herbicide spraying during the Vietnam War. British biologist John MacKinnon calls the area ‘a corner of the world unknown to modern science’ and ‘a biological gold mine’.

This large, black and white whistling tree kangaroo was first described by zoologist Dr Tim Flannery in 1995. The local Moni tribe in West Papua (Irian Jaya) on the island of New Guinea had long revered the bondegezou as their ancestor.

5 OF THE WORLD’S MOST OFT-SIGHTED LAKE AND SEA MONSTERS

‘Nessie’, the world-famous serpent-like creature of Loch Ness, Scotland, was first photographed in 1933, after decades of rumours that something odd lived in the lake. Since then, ‘Nessie-watching’ has become an international sport, and there now exist a variety of photographs, an official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club and numerous theories. One of the most popular theories is that the snake-like neck and lizard-like head point to this beast being one of a race of as many as 30 remaining pleiosaurs, a type of dinosaur previously believed to be extinct. However, Loch Ness could not provide sustenance for a pleiosaur, and other theories are hotly debated. Nay-sayers believe all the photos to be no more than bark, driftwood and seaweed. The latest theory, proposed by cryptozoologist Jon Downes, is that Nessie is actually a European eel, grown to an enormous size. Occasionally, these eels become sterile and lose their biological imperative to move from a lake to the Sargasso Sea and breed — thus they are called ‘eunuch eels’. Downes proposes that there is something in the waters of Loch Ness and nearby lakes that causes this condition. These eels can cross long distances on land, which might account for the numerous out-of-water sightings.

This creature apparently lives in a lake which knifes from New York to Canada. Only a few photographs and videos of ‘Champ’ exist. However, a 1977 photo, taken by one Sandra Mansi, is considered the most impressive photo of any sea or lake ‘monster’. Ms Mansi was taking a leisurely drive with her family along the lake when she saw a disturbance in the water. She ‘saw the head come up… then the neck, then the back’. Her fiancé began to scream, ‘Get the kids out of the water!’ Sandra had the nous to take a picture, which she tucked away in the family album for four years until it was published in the New York Times. Since then, over 130 further sightings have been reported. Books, seminars and arguments followed, and many strongly believe Ms Mansi took a photo of a piece of driftwood. Arguing against this is her statement that ‘the mouth was open when it came up and water came out’. Champ is most often seen in early mornings in summer.

Canada is said to be home to numerous famous lake monsters. There are usually several sightings a year of the Ogopogo, rumoured to live in the Okanagan Lake in British Columbia. Author Mary Moon lists hundreds of sightings, beginning in the late 1700s. The creature is 30–50 ft long (9–15 m.), with an undulating, serpent-like body, a long, thin neck, and a rather horse-like head. It is reputed to swim extremely fast, appearing as several humps, or arches, on the surface. Native American legends tell of the Ogopogo attacking humans, and some swimmers in the lake have disappeared without a trace.

Sea monster lore includes myths of giant squid, the most famous of which is the terrifying Kraken, the subject of Norse myth and a poem by Tennyson — ‘There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep’. Modern scientists speculate that the Kraken is actually a school of giant squid breaking the surface, or several schools, fanning out together.

Cadboro Bay in British Columbia supposedly sports a pair of aquatic reptiles nicknamed ‘Caddy’ and ‘Amy’. Caddy’s overall length is estimated at 40–70 ft (12–20 m.). There have been more than 50 years of sightings, beginning in the 1940s, continuing with at least half a dozen a year. In 1946 sightings were so common that a plan developed to catch one of the creatures and put it on display in Vancouver’s swimming pool; happily, Caddy and Amy’s friends vetoed the idea. In 1994, Dr Ed Bousfield published a book about Caddy — Cadborosaurus — Survivor from the Deep.

5 PIECES OF ADVICE ON HOW TO SURVIVE AN ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR

The following situations may occur anywhere in bear country. This recommended behaviour is generally advised, but is no guarantee of averting a mishap. Above all, remain calm and give the bear the opportunity to learn that your intentions are not hostile.

Do not run. Bears can run faster than 30 miles (50 kilometers) per hour — even faster than Olympic sprinters. Running can elicit a chase response from otherwise nonaggressive bears.

If the bear is unaware of you, detour quickly and quietly away from it. Give the bear plenty of room, allowing it to continue undisturbed.

If the bear is aware of you but has not acted aggressively, back away slowly, talking in a calm, firm voice while slowly waving your arms. Bears that stand up on their hind legs are usually just trying to identify you, and are not threatening.

Do not run; do not drop your pack. A pack can help protect your body in case of an attack. To drop a pack may encourage the bear to approach people for food. Bears occasionally make ‘bluff charges’, sometimes coming to within ten feet of a person before stopping or veering off. Stand still until the bear stops and has moved away, then slowly back off. Climbing trees will not protect you from black bears, and may not provide protection from grizzlies.

If a grizzly bear does actually make contact with you, curl up in a ball, protecting your stomach and neck, and play dead. If the attack is prolonged, however, change tactics and fight back vigorously. If it is a black bear, do not play dead; fight back.

Source: Denali National Park and Preserve, Denali Park, Alaska

10 MOST INTELLIGENT BREEDS OF DOG

In The Intelligence of Dogs (New York: The Free Press, 1994), Stanley Coren ranked breeds of dogs for working intelligence. The rankings were based on questionnaires completed by 199 obedience judges from the American and Canadian Kennel Clubs.

• Border Collie

• Poodle

• German Shepherd

• Golden Retriever

• Doberman Pinscher

• Shetland Sheepdog

• Labrador Retriever

• Papillon

• Rottweiller

• Australian Cattle Dog

10 LEAST INTELLIGENT BREEDS OF DOG

• Afghan Hound

• Basenji

• Bulldog

• Chow Chow

• Borzoi

• Bloodhound

• Pekingese

• Mastiff

• Beagle

• Basset Hound

Source: The Intelligence of Dogs Stanley Coren (New York: The Free Press, 1994)