Favorite non-domesticated animals thread.

[BerenTebogo]

We all watch the Life specials, and Planet Earth, and all that. Some of us here may even be biologists of some field or another. But most importantly, I think everyone here on BG has some sort of fondness for some of the different or rather obscure forms of life in the world.

So, since we have pet threads, and dick threads, and threads where fat bitches need to get the fuck out of my seats, I decided it's time we have a thread where we can pay our appreciation to some of the cooler sides of nature.

Firstly, before my contribution, the obligatory:

DAMN NATURE, YOU SCARY!

Anyways, firsting with the best animal of all time, the Honey Badger.

http://www.africawildgroup.co.za/bus...y%20badger.jpg
http://neveryetmelted.com/wp-images/HoneyBadger1.jpg

The badger is among the fiercest hunters in its range, with prey including earthworms, insects, scorpions, porcupines, hares, ground squirrels, meerkats, mongooses and larger prey such as tortoises, crocodiles up to one metre in size, young gazelle and snakes (including pythons and venomous species). They also take lizards, frogs small rodents, birds and fruit.[4] The badger's ferocious reputation reflects its tendency to attack animals larger than itself; it is seldom preyed upon.

a badger named Kleinman was documented stealing a meal out of a puff adder's mouth and casually eating the meal in front of the hissing snake. After the meal, Kleinman began to hunt the puff adder, the species being one of the badger's preferred venomous snakes. He managed to kill the snake and began eating it, but then collapsed on the dead snake as he had been bitten during the struggle. After about two hours he surprisingly awoke. Once his paralysis had subsided, the badger continued with his meal and then resumed his journey.[5]

That's right. They fucking SLEEP OFF poisonous venom. They're the most fucking beast animals ever.

Here's a video of them getting bitten, sleeping off the poison, then getting up and trotting off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U

Anyways, hope this thread catches on. I love learning about the weird shit in nature.

Fuck yeah Badgers.

[BRP]

Sloth count?

[BerenTebogo]

Hell yeah. Fuck yeah sloths.

[Rhyis.]

Dolphins. They're the only animal that I know of, other then us, that fucks just for the fun of it.

Dolphins know where it's at.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...N00B/viper.jpg

Chauliodus sloani inhabits the deepest parts of the ocean, between 450 to 2700 meters (1,500-9,000 feet). Like many other deep-sea organisms, Chauliodus sloani often moves closer to the surface during the night-time, where there is more food available. Chauliodus sloani is believed to inhabit all tropical to temperate ocean waters, not including the Indian Ocean. Chauliodus sloani lives with other viperfishes, as well as other organisms that have adapted to live at such great depths. Some of these organisms are: the gulper eel, rattail fish, saber-tooth fish, sea pig, giant tube worm, giant squid, and thermophillic bacteria. Chauliodus sloani is believed to be a secondary and tertiary consumer in its niche, which means it is a carnivore.

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...2232078465.jpg

The goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni, is a deep-sea shark, the sole living species in the family Mitsukurinidae. The most distinctive characteristic of the goblin shark is the unorthodox shape of its head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like rostrum or snout, much longer than other sharks' snouts. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long, protrusible jaws. When the jaws are retracted, the shark resembles a pink grey nurse shark, Carcharias taurus, with an unusually long nose.

[BerenTebogo]

Didn't they try to fish up a goblin shark on one of the recent discovery channel specials? I'm foggy on the subject but I'm pretty sure they spent weeks drilling holes through the ice to nab one, not sure if they did or not.

[KuroTsuki]

Not sure if they count as non-domesticated, but foxes are fucking awesome. I've always loved them ever since I was a kid. Specifically black foxes like these:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/TakTik/Fox1.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/TakTik/Fox.jpg

Also, the "Birds of Paradise" are amazing. I've never been able to forget them ever since I saw them on Planet Earth.

Spoiler: show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARVbLaYbSjo

The last bird that comes in at around 2:50ish is probably the craziest out them.

[Chips]

http://quierosaber.files.wordpress.c...tis-shrimp.jpg

Smashers, [a classification of Mantis Shrimp], possess a much more developed club and a more rudimentary spear (which is nevertheless quite sharp and still used in fights between their own kind); the club is used to bludgeon and smash their meals apart. The inner aspect of the dactyl (the terminal portion of the appendage) can also possess a sharp edge, with which the animal can cut prey while it swims. [They are known to break through aquarium glass.]

[Blabj]

Always had a soft spot for Wolves. I like their plight... Roaming around in a group hunting and sustaining the pack.

You guys might not know this but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one man wolf pack...

Hueg:

Spoiler: show

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lupus_265b.jpg

[The Stig]

Eagles/Falcons.... any bird used in Falconry. They're technically not domesticated I think?; as they do not love their masters and only stick around because it's "easy food" for them. We only cage them and train them to come back for more food ...

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Didn't they try to fish up a goblin shark on one of the recent discovery channel specials? I'm foggy on the subject but I'm pretty sure they spent weeks drilling holes through the ice to nab one, not sure if they did or not.

They're extremely rare and live in pretty deep depths. On top of that they dwell in caves... I'm not sure about recent results, but a select few have been caught before, but didn't live longer than a few hours due to a lack of pressure accommodation.

[noblemountain]

Most of you know that I work at The Elephant Sanctuary. I have always been a huge fan of elephants, but working with them daily has made me truly understand what an amazing creature they truly are. Here is our missions statement for those of you not familiar with the sanctuary...

Our Mission

The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, founded in 1995, is the nation's largest natural habitat refuge developed specifically for endangered African and Asian elephants. It operates on 2,700 acres in Hohenwald, Tennessee — 85 miles southwest of Nashville.

The Elephant Sanctuary exists for two reasons:

* To provide a haven for old, sick or needy elephants in a setting of green pastures,
dense forests, spring-fed ponds and heated barns for cold winter nights.
* To provide education about the crisis facing these social, sensitive, passionately intense, playful, complex, exceedingly intelligent and endangered creatures.

The intelligence of these animals is beyond anything I thought when I first started working here. They are one of the only animals, besides us, to express empathy and grief. In the wild they have been known to remember the human who shot and killed one of their sisters...going into a village and into his hut, dragging him alone out and killing him...then leaving without hurting anyone else. They can remember up to 100 family members and very often visit the areas where their family died to touch the bones.

Here is a video of one of our girls that found a shovel one day and felt helpful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-0Pf0m9cug

and here's one about Tarra and her best friend Bella...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBtFTF2ii7U

Sorry for the long post...just really enjoy sharing about these amazing animals. It makes me sad that as "advanced" as we are as a culture, we still have these animals being tortured and killed in circuses for our entertainment. Average life expectancy for an elephant in a circus...30 years. In a zoo...40 years. In the wild...60-80 years. Seeing these girls here that have all been in the circus or a zoo and seeing how scarred they are emotionally is heartbreaking. Some of them have been here for 5+ years and still are getting over their past and trust issues with humans. If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them...again, sorry for the long post. lol

[BerenTebogo]

l

Honestly, that video alone may not look like much to many people, but seeing that elephant use the shovel is absolutely amazing to me. The usage of tools is one of the very few things that separates us from what we consider to be lower life forms, and the usage of tools to change the world around you can help to really de-emphasize the randomness of natural selection in evolution.

I don't know much about elephants but that kind of intelligence is unbelievable. I also wasn't aware we still used elephants in circuses as I was unaware that circuses still actually existed. I'm being completely serious here, that blows my mind. What the fuck do people even go to see? It's a fucking circus.

I'd like to see more if you want to post some more videos or information. The study of some of the primates recently on the publicized specials regarding their usage of tools (specifically insect-foraging sticks and cracking nuts) has really emphasized the not-so-large distance between us and them in the grand scheme of things. It's easy to get lost in the obvious difference as I type this post on a laptop, but in the scale of life on the universe, as Carl Sagan outlined, if the entire scale of the life of the Earth is proportioned out over a single calendar year the difference between humans evolving over lower primates occupies less then the last 10 seconds of the last day of the entire year.

I'm always interested in tool-usage among other animals, so if you have anymore videos like that I'd love to see it. And for those who may not think it's a big deal, ponder for a moment, how many different things you can do with a shovel. The elephant oriented it in space, properly, used the correct side of the shovel face, and basically used it as correctly as possible. Considering if it was just fucking with a toy it may have tried to poke the ground with the handle, it's quite a difference.

[BerenTebogo]

Also figure some of the more science-prone among you may enjoy this.

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/tree.jpg

There is also a scaled down, more descriptive version if people want that. I find it pretty interesting.

This tree is from an analysis of small subunit rRNA sequences sampled from about 3,000 species from throughout the Tree of Life. The species were chosen based on their availability, but we attempted to include most of the major groups, sampled very roughly in proportion to the number of known species in each group (although many groups remain over- or under-represented). The number of species represented is approximately the square-root of the number of species thought to exist on Earth (i.e., three thousand out of an estimated nine million species), or about 0.18% of the 1.7 million species that have been formally described and named. This tree has been used in many museum displays and other educational exhibits, and its use for educational purposes is welcomed.

[Rhyis.]

An elephant never forgets.™

[Conformity]

An elephant never forgets.™

saku never forgets the most violent blanket in the world, aka adcc champion ricardo arona and his awkward boxing.






I personally hate the capturing of wild animals and hate to think of elephants being held captive to take sub 100 iq individuals on rides.

[Quixon]

http://quierosaber.files.wordpress.c...tis-shrimp.jpg

I have a Peacock Mantis Shrimp at home. Very cool creature indeed.







As far as my favorite non-domesticated animal, it's really big cats in general. I can narrow that down to two, the Snow Leopard and the Siberian Tiger.

http://www.techwall.org/wp-content/u...ow-leopard.jpg

http://www.hoothollow.com/February%2...2031%20RAW.jpg




Getting away from cats.... I gotta go with the Platypus ^_^d

http://www.independent.co.uk/multime...508_27063s.jpg

[Wintermute]

An elephant never forgets.™

http://www.snorgtees.com/images/Elep..._Fullpic_1.gif


Crows and Ravens are pretty awesome too.

I remember a documentary on the Tower of London where they had a segment about the Ravens, one of them had learned to mimic the guards to say "Hello" or some such. Was pretty impressive.

[Quixon]

I was just reading about how smart crows were the other day. It's pretty crazy really:

As a group, the crows show remarkable examples of intelligence, and Aesop's fable of The Crow and the Pitcher shows that humans have long viewed the crow as an intelligent bird. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Certain species top the avian IQ scale.[13] Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing.[14] Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order.

One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food. These tools include 'knives' cut from stiff leaves and stiff stalks of grass.[15] Another skill involves dropping tough nuts into a heavy trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open, and then waiting at pedestrian lights with other pedestrians in order to retrieve the nuts.[16] On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows. It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs.[17] Crows in Queensland, Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.[18][19] Recent research suggests that crows have the ability to recognize one individual human from another by facial features.

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

[Atreides]

I'm sure there's better quality video of this out there, but if anyone was interested in watching, this person's channel has a massive number of Life videos

http://www.youtube.com/user/globalzo...20/WZV3rVt29XE