Dart-Frogs

            They jump around, some being extremely dangerous and all have blindingly vibrant pigments in their skin. Poison Dart Frogs are tiny little frogs with the smallest being the size of a fingernail and largest about two inches long.  They are mostly found in Latin and South American jungles. Each different species of poison dart frog has its own vivid coloration, from midnight blue to bright yellow and everything in between.

            This week a new species of poison dart frog was found in Panama. It is tiny, really super tiny at about 12mm long. This is about the size of a nickel.  They also have bright electric orange skin. The poison of this creature is still being tested for its toxicity level in its venom due to the frog just being discovered. These creatures are remarkable and beyond attractive with their jet-black eyes and neon orange colored skin.

            The biology behind these types of frogs is complicated and interesting.  Poison on their skin is not lethal, but it can still pack a serious punch if you decide to prey on and swallow a poisonous dart frog. Terrible taste and/or a gut-wrenching stomachache are side effects of eating a Poison Dart Frogs skin. Sometimes though, the poison in poison dart frogs can be used for medicinal purposes. Painkillers are usually made from the same chemicals that are found in these frogs poison. The color of their skin also affects the way these tiny frogs can survive such a scary jungle. When an animal eats a PDF and survives these nasty side effects it will learn and interprets that the frog with a radiant colored skin should not be eaten. This is why frogs have such bright colored skin such as bright yellow or deep crimson red; animals learn to avoid these vivid pigments so they don’t end up sick.  Over time conditioning occurs and these frogs now have little to no predators.

Fun fact: Poison Dart Frogs get their cool name from actually being used to make darts poisonous. Natives extract the frog’s poison and put them onto darts used in blow-dart guns.  The poison usually gives excruciating pain to the victim and the darts can be only semi-dangerous. So Indian Jones is not going die if some Indian with a blow-dark gun hits him. 

Ivory

            Elephants are amazing creatures. They roam Africa acting like a boss with their sharp and masculine tusks weighing in around 5 tons. They are heading into extreme endangerment though due to poaching and this is not just the African elephant. Elephants have very large tusks, which are ivory.  Ivory is derived from the teeth and tusks of animals. Elephant’s tusks have some of the largest amounts of ivory making them worth tremendous amounts of money.  They are in high demand for making all kinds of art in Eastern societies and are very valuable because of how rare it is to find them due to it being illegal to obtain and elephants are dieing at outrageous rates.

            Ivory has been used for thousands of years as a luxury material. It is used mainly for sculpting figurines and other novelty things. Gigantic and intricate sculptures could be made with this material due to the toughness yet ease of carving a piece of ivory. Ivory from tusks has also been used to make dominoes, dagger and sword hilts, and smoking pipes. Ivory used to be quite a bit more abundant until about the mid 1900’s when animals producing this sought after resource became endangered.  Today we only see ivory used in jewelry and other types of small objects. Ivory smuggling and harvesting is illegal in most countries around the world making it expensive, hard to find, and morally and legally wrong to have possession of it.

            Poachers are evil people killing endangered and helpless animals just to make quick cash. They are killing off multiply species other than elephants such as rhinos, lions, and other beautiful animals by not only hunting them until extinction, they are destroying animal habitats and causing mass deforestation. Fish and birds also are being hunted for eggs, oils, and other materials. Parrots, Bald Eagles, and rare fish are examples of species that are under serious watch and still need major protection from poachers.  A lot of animals are at risk with over-hunting and action needs to take place. The poaches are the real animals in these situations, some poachers are so desperate to make money, they have been fending off and shooting rangers so they don’t have to be punished for the horrid things they've done to our world.

            Luckily, countries are now taking action to stop these heinous crimes. Smuggling is being cracked down on in most African countries, plus imports are being searched as well in most Eastern Asian countries where the ivory craze is the greatest. Rangers and hunters who track poachers are also increasing in numbers and are become better and better at their jobs at stopping poachers. Hunting poachers is becoming easier and easier with country’s military supply of highly advanced equipment. Although poaching is still destroying our nature habitats, countries are taking steps in the right direction in preserving the animal kingdom.

Dreadnaughts

            Dinosaurs dominated the earth for hundreds of years, until meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, and Mayan calendars killed them all off. Kind of sad really that such a cool group of animals ceased to exist, I always wanted a velociraptor as a pet. Dinosaurs are amazing, everyone knows that, they are giant reptile dragons that roamed the world, being all-around awesome creatures. T-Rexes, Pterodactyls, and 50-ton monsters are some of examples of the king of the reptiles, the great ones that dominated our pre-historic world with their strength and power.

            This last week, Archaeologist digging around for more fossils discovered and identified gigantic bones belonging to the mighty and not so majestic Dreadnaught. These creatures are unbelievable. First off, they’re name sounds like some cool Power Ranger super-villain. “Dreadnaught, destroyer of worlds” just fits perfectly. The tank of a creature was actually named after the largest battleship of its time, Dreadnaught (fears nothing).

           

            The Dreadnaughts fear nothing due to their mind-boggling size. Classified now as the largest land animal without doubt. More than seventy percent of its fossils have been recovered, meaning this species shows a prime example/structure to other creatures like it or even bigger than it (Brachiosaurs, Argentinosaurus, etc). No matter if it’s the biggest or not, these beasts weighed 60 tons!  That’s more than a Boeing 373.  Also it is about 20 tons heavier than the second largest animal right now, the Futalognkosaurus. Dreadnaughts are herbivores as well, which is amazing considering they gained all that weight by eating salad. Like others of its kind, Dreadnaughts must eat constantly 24/7 because they are so dang huge, luckily they have very long necks to reach for every last bit of food.  This dinosaur is almost too large for it’s own good.  If it fell over it would actually crush itself from its own weight.

            Every boy wants a dinosaur, they got cool T-Rexes on their lunchboxes, clothing, backpacks, and watches to show it. Dreadnaughts will be the next big thing in a little kid’s world because of the Dreadnaughts amazing size and their amazing name. 

The Most Dangerous Animal

            We aren't the strongest or the fastest creatures out there, yet we dominate the world. We use intelligence and advanced communication to be top of the food chain.  WE ARE HUMANS!

            Tens of thousands of years ago, our ancestors (Homo Sapiens) first began to roam the planet. Located around the East Africa/Middle East region of the world, humans hunted and scavenged, living in groups while raising kids and having a wail of a time doing pre-historical activities. Hunting was done through patience, either by getting the whole clan and slowly killing a large prey, or out-running a prey in a long distance game of cat and mouse. Humans don’t have the physical capabilities that most animals have.  We can’t jump as high and we don’t have anything special when it comes to strength.  And we definitely can’t run as fast. Human bodies are not built too kill a tiger with our bare hands or out sprint a cheetah.  Humans bodies are built to run long distances, we run on two legs that are complicated springs consisting of muscle and tendons.  No other animal has this skill set.  Being able to run long distances gives humans a huge advantage. If our ancestors wanted food, they would chase an animal for miles and miles until the prey becomes too tired to continue, leaving our ancestors a free meal.

            Humans can also adapt and learn any set of situations. We live all over the world, adapting to the cold, hot, dry and extremely wet. Humans are the only creatures that have been able to spread across the world, adapting extremely quickly to the environments around us. Using our higher intelligence and adaptation abilities and inventions such as clothing, shelters, and air conditioning can help us live with comfort in these harsh environments. 

            Adapting to not only an environment around us, but also using problem solving abilities too stay alive is what makes humans so deadly. The Fight or Flight response in our brains gives us honed decision making skills in times of stress. Weapons and other hunting techniques make it possible for humans to kill any beast, large or small. The spear for example is an example of the ingenuity to solve the problem of hunting prey. Spears and other weapons allowed humans to make any animal prey. As weapons continued to advance, some of the most physically talented animals could die in seconds at the hands of a human and his ingenuity.  

            Lastly, and most importantly, humans communicate and interact like no other species does. Teamwork wins fights, and our highly advanced communication through language and signals allows us survive much easier. Working together to adapt to an environment, hunting, or scavenging helps us as humans become stronger and dominate the animal kingdom.  Communication today along with our advanced minds and capabilities has made us dominate the world with cities of millions of people. You can’t go anywhere in the world without finding humans. We eat anything and kill anything that gets in our way of living, making us top of the food chain and the most dangerous animals on the planet.  

Big Guy

            Fear of spiders is one of the most prominent phobias in the world, with good reason too, spiders are freaking scary. They bite with venomous fangs and spin those terrorist webs to trap everything in its path. They’re also even more scary when they’re big - the bigger they are the more frightening they become. One of the biggest and scariest of all is the tarantula. They’re hairy, gigantic, and have terrifying fangs. They’re extremely popular in Hollywood and in the movies for being the prime example of the fear of spiders.

Tarantulas have over 900 different species.  They are identified by their extremely large and hairy bodies. The different types of tarantulas are dispersed all over the world, from the tip of Africa to California. Although they’re very big, there are many predators to the Tarantula. Most wasps are trained to kill these beasts even though they are a lot smaller than the arachnid. The hairs on the spider’s body are one of their only defenses against wasps and other insects such as giant centipedes. The hairs create irritation on the predator.

            Now you might be thinking these guys are not that dangerous because all they have is some hair to protect them. Technically, tarantulas do have fangs to eat their prey but the venom is quite minimal and being bitten multiple times can only cause some minor hallucinations. They actually are the gentle giants of the spider kingdom.  They are very large and scary looking but not that deadly. They are so gentle that they have become domesticated and have become quite a common pet. Removing fangs and feeding them are quite simple.  And tarantulas are easy to find and catch which makes them an inexpensive pet.  So now you don’t have to quiver in your boots whenever you run into one of these giant arachnids, they are actually sort of nice creatures. 

            

Exotic Pets

            Imagine a bald eagle flying around your home, with its 7-foot wingspan and freedom blazing from every feather. Now imagine that same freedom bird ripping your face off because he’s just a little hungry and he has been having a bad day. As a kid, I always wanted a panther, with sleek jet-black fur, and bright golden eyes. I’d ride him all over the place, go to the mall and watch everyone quiver in his or her boots over my majestic creature on his leash. As cool as it would be to have a panther or a bald eagle as a pet, they’re still wild and they will kill you if they need to, plus they’re extremely expensive. The most exotic animal that is semi-possible to obtain is probably a chimp or monkey. Even then, so much time and money would be consumed trying to keep said pet.

           

            So why do these rare pets take up so many resources? First reason is just the rarity and the difficultly of catching some wild animals. Some prices for exotic animals, such as a macaw, can cost almost ten thousand dollars.  A chimpanzee can cost more that sixty thousand dollars. That’s right, these animals cost more than a brand new car. These prices will become even higher as their habitats are being destroyed and their friends being caged to be sent to other owners. The government and other associations won’t let just anyone have these extremely dangerous pets, for good reasons. Hours upon hours of training are needed to learn about these exotic animals to finally get the approval to obtain a pet you desire.

           

            You can’t just put some rare exotic animal in a kennel and fed it hamster food. Depending on the pet you have, some people have to build special enclosures for their pets costing thousands of dollars. Animals eat a lot as well, we know that, your dog can scarf down a steak in about 10 seconds. Food is expensive and feeding your exotic animal its “rare” diet could cost you as much, if not a lot more, than feeding a kid.

            Owning an exotic pet is a lot of work. Thousands of dollars are spent on food, shelter, and transportation. As much as I love the idea of owning a panther, I probably need to wait until I win the lottery.

The War Mongers

            Australia is known for their extremely manly men. You have Steve Irwin as an example, a guy who fought freaking crocodiles and wasn't afraid of anything. Along with dangerous men in Australia, you have the animals. Jokes are always made that everything in Australia has specifically evolved to kill humans, but its semi-true, you have to be careful where you walk in the giant war zone of a country. Extremely venomous jellyfishes and octopi roam the waters while drop-bears; poisonous snakes and spiders creep around the mainland. Most manly men in Australia keep their distance from these demons because if they don’t, they will kill you like they did Steve Irwin who died to a stingray piercing him in the heart. There is another time the manly men of the Aussie nation fought back and lost embarrassingly.

            They went to war against emus. That’s right emus. Not the deadly animals that roam the streets of Sydney, they went to war against a large bird. An emu is similar to an ostrich, just a bit shorter.  Although emus can be aggressive sometimes, they are not as extremely dangerous as every other animal in that God-Forsaken place. So why would the good people of Australia go to war against these birds you ask, well over 20,000 emus chomped down all the crops of Australian farmers. In the 1930s, after another bad year of crops, the government decided to intervene by literally going to war against the birds. Machine guns and other advanced technological weapons from this era were being used, that’s right machine guns.

            Now a technologically advanced military is hunting down 20,000 birds that keep eating farmers’ crops. You think to yourself, oh this will be an easy slaughtering of FLIGHTLESS birds right? Wrong. The first attempt at killing emus failed terribly, after days of searching, the solders finally found about 1,000 birds. They round ‘em up and fire, but the guns jam and all the emus scatter. Along with this failed mission, many other missions follow leading to about 50 emus being killed over the course of a week. Emus 1, Solders 0. The military left with their heads low and the emus continued their rampage over the land.

            About another week later, after more complaints from farmers, the military comes back with their big heavy guns. Yet again the solders find little success. Killing about 50 in the first few days.  By the time the military was finished with the dim-witted war, the emu’s side suffered about 900 casualties. The military leaves feeling a little bit better about itself. 

            The media always seems to like making fun of the government, so the name Emu wars, where machine guns lost to a bunch of birds, was born.  Over the years, emus continue to ravage Australian farms, but now the government just ignores it, so they don’t have to fight the emus again.