October 21st, 2009
Dr Bekoff of the University of Colorado, an animal behaviour researcher, claims that magpies feel grief and even hold funeral-type gatherings for their dead and lay grass “wreaths” beside their bodies.
“One magpie approached the corpse, gently pecked at it, just as an elephant would nose the carcase of another elephant, and stepped back. Another magpie did the same thing. Next, one of the magpies flew off, brought back some grass and laid it by the corpse. Another magpie did the same. Then all four stood vigil for a few seconds and one by one flew off”.
It seems that similar behaviour has been observed among other magpies and crows.
More here
September 20th, 2009
Mongabay makes an interesting comment vis-a-vis the story of a deformed sloth found in Panama on the coincidence between the lack of important news at the the end of summer, and the peak months for sightings of “strange” and “unidentified” creatures including unusual marine life, malformed animals and the mythological beasts like the Chupacabra, the Mongolian Death Worm, Big Foot, and the Loch Ness Monster. Read
September 10th, 2009
Scientists have discovered that when animals die, their corpses exude a particular “stench of death” which repels their living relatives. This ‘death recognition system’ probably evolved more than 400 million years ago as a way of avoiding predators and viruses. BBC (lots of fascinating examples)