animals (Page 14)

Attacks on humans by gulls and buzzards are increasing, meaning some birds may be learning to fear us less. Other birds are adapting to our presence by changing their songs, so they can be heard above the traffic noise.

Simon de Bruxelles writes in the Times of London that buzzards have been divebombing walkers and even attacking people in their cars. Experts say they’re protecting nests in nearby trees.

Former Royal Air Force Captain Richard Bridges, 69, had to be taken to the hospital after suffering wounds in the head. He’s been attacked twice, and was chased off by a flock of five birds a third time.
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Some strange creatures have come up from the deep lately. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered the walking coffin fish, the wonky-eyed squid and the Pacific spookfish. Researchers in Chile found a giant beached blob.

The huge, gelatinous sea creature was found stranded on the beach in Chile. Biologist Elsa Cabrera, who found the critter, thinks it’s the giant Octopus Giganteus. The last time one of these was seen was in 1896, when one washed ashore in Florida. Samples of the animal’s skin were lost, but photos of it are stored at the Smithsonian.
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When we think of dangerous pets, we imagine pet lions, alligators or boa constrictors. But a pet prairie dog can be just as dangerous. A giant Gambian rat, imported to a pet store from Africa, infected prairie dogs for sale in the same store with Monkey Pox, a smallpox-like disease found only in Africa. People who handled the prairie dogs got the disease, which eventually infected 30 people. “This is a virus that we simply don’t have a lot of information about,” says Dr. Steve Ostroff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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It’s been discovered that salamanders can count and dogs can do calculus. When salamanders have a choice between tubes containing two fruit flies or three, they always go for the tube of three. And dogs always figure out the most efficient route to take when catching a ball.

However, the mathematical abilities of salamanders are limited, according to researcher Claudia Uller, who says they “failed in the same way that babies and monkeys do” when confronted by more than three objects.
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