A Camouflage master: The Stick Insect

Before anything happens, I challenge you to see where the stick insect is, or are. You can tell me the answer either in the comment box or in my facebook at liantammy@hotmail.com

This picture was taken in the aquarium where I was volunteering my time at, I wasn't so sure what I was looking at, at first, and it took me a full minute to realize that I was staring face to face with the Stick Insects! Imagine if it took me so long to really see those creatures in a gallery, how hard is it going to be for predators to see them in the wild?!

Ok, ok, enough of the amazement shock that I was having; it's time for the real introduction for these amazing insects:

For all of us who have read the books or seen the movies of Harry Potter, we all know how sometimes we would love to disappear under the invisibility cloak, right? And you know that there are creatures who are actually quite skilled on blending into their environment so well to the extant that if not looking carefully, they are quite invisible to everyone! And one of those disguise masters is the Stick Insect.

Like the name, Stick Insect, those bugs are so stick like that they actually act like twigs too! They sway with the twigs with the wind by rocking back and forth as they move and they also even wear lichen-like markings to make their disguise more authentic. (Lichen is a kind of plant that, I'm not so sure, looks like moss.) They're typically brown, black, or green so it helps them to blend in with branches and twigs.

But once in a while that they do get attacked by predators (Like all other preys.) such as birds, although they don't bite back but don't think that they just stand there being defenseless! They can produce disgusting body fluids that's so bad tasting and bad smelling that the ones who try to eat them just spit them straight out! But other times, they just lose a leg to the predator and grow that leg back sometime later in the future. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that, too?

When it's time to reproduce, the Stick Insect don't insist one needing a male to fertilize the eggs. This behavior is called the "parthenogenesis", stick insects are a nation of Amazons, able to reproduce almost entirely without males. Unmated females produce eggs that become more females. When a male does manage to mate with a female, there's a 50/50 chance their offspring will be male. A captive female stick insect can produce hundreds of all-female offspring without ever mating. There are species of stick insects for which scientists have never found any males.

When the female lays her eggs, she doesn't lay them in one place like a crocodile or a chicken, she actually puts her eggs all over the forest floor and let whatever fate that comes to her eggs, but don't be so quick to judge all the mama Stick Insects! Some of them tend to do a better job by putting her eggs in the soil, or in the tree barks or even under some leaves!

And when those baby stick insects, called "Nymphs", hatch, they eat their own molted skin.... Well, it's still nutrient, right? And also free food for those nymphs... besides, those molted skins are a dead giveaway for predators to catch the real insect, so I guess it's the best idea to ingest (eat) everything away before anything happens.

The Free Spirited Animal: The Horse

This photo is not my property, it is taken from http://www.horsewallpapers.in/wallpaper/hd-horse-wallpaper/

Whenever I think or talk about horses, I would picture them either in a farm working for a farmer or in a wide grassland running strong and free. Speaking of farms, did you know that horses have domesticated by humans for approximately 6,000 years ago? And they are related to other horse family such as zebras, donkeys and mules.

Horses are quite social, they can get along with other animals, such as cats, sheep, cows and even dogs (that is if dogs are well behaved, because horses can easily get frightened by them.) other than their own. Although, there are about 20~25 mares (that is the female horse.) and a stallion (a male horse.) in a herd. It is also important to always have companions for horses, or else they can get depressed and quite lonely easily.

Do you know how long does a horse live? Well, there are some cases that a horse is SO long lived that they can reach to a ripe old age of 48 years old!! But their life span is around 30 years of age. And the only way so far to tell a horse's age is by and how they wore their teeth, meaning their teeth tend to get blunt with age, so it is actually kind of difficult to tell the age by the age of 12.

Here's a final little horse tip, horses can run fast, right? Did you know that they are running with their middle finger? All other toes, or fingers are degenerated over the years of evolution. They also have a very strong tendon wrapped around their hooves so they don't get tired easily while sleeping on their feet.

The colorful birds in the Tropics: The Parrots!

This picture was taken a few days ago when I went volunteering at the aquarium inside the Amazon gallery, and, boy! Those employees sure do make sure the gallery is humid and hot! Just like in the Amazonian forest. I was already sweating like crazy for only after 5 minutes in there. But the great picture was worth the sweat.

Now how many fun facts do you know about them?

• Definition: Parrots are usually brightly colored tropical birds with short hooked beaks and the ability to mimic sounds. There are about 250 different species

• Parrots are described as zygodactylous. A zygodactyl bird has the first and fourth toes directed backward the second and third pointing forward

• Many species of parrots, as cage birds, learn to imitate sounds, and to repeat words and phrases

• Parrots are omnivorous, which means they eat both vegetation and meat, such as seeds, nuts, fruit, buds, other plant material and of course, meat itself.
  

• They are highly intelligent birds, some can even reach up to the intelligence of a 6 year old.
  

• Parrots are found on all tropical and subtropical continents The Budgerigar is a small parrot and is the most popular of all pet bird species. Other parrot species that are kept as pets include macaws, Amazons, cockatoos, African Greys, lovebirds, cockatiels and parakeets

• Lifespan: 80 years

• Weight: 2.25 oz (65 g) to 3.5 lbs (1.6 kg)

• Height: 3.5 in (8.7cm) to 40 in (100 cm)

• They use their bills and toes for climbing

• Parrots are monogamous - they mate for life

• African gray parrots are the best mimics. Wild parrots do not imitate

• Parrots are the only birds that can bring food to its mouth with its foot

• The biggest parrot is the Hyacinth Macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus) which grows up to 39 inches (100cm) long and can weigh almost 5 pounds

• The smallest parrot is the buff-faced pygmy parrot (Micropsitta pusio) which is only 3.5 inches (9 cm) tall and weighs as little as 0.4oz (11,5g)

• Parrot eggs are always white

• Endangered Species: 130 species are listed as near threatened or worse by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Bats: The Flying Mammal

The picture is not my property, I do not claim it as my own. It was taken from http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/bat/pictures/bat-picture.jpg&imgrefurl=http://animal.discovery.com/mammals/bat/&usg=__7hRrXsVuvzJNmXIJTRx84tu0gX8=&h=450&w=625&sz=35&hl=en&start=61&sig2=rPLk4bwWLA_kq0FqOS392w&zoom=1&tbnid=qIuDH4iSFsq0zM:&tbnh=135&tbnw=180&ei=X_7ETbSuPJGasAP-hNzrAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbat%2Bpictures%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DlTd%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D601%26tbm%3Disch0%2C1482&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=921&vpy=312&dur=300&hovh=189&hovw=264&tx=197&ty=172&page=4&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:19,s:61&biw=1366&bih=601


Many of us tend to go "Eeek!" or "Ahhh!!" when we think of or talk about bats, which is quite normal! Because they are quite scary looking, and some of those bats (Of course NOT every one of them, some are actually quite gentle and they rather eat fruits or insects.) are vampire bats, who actually do drink blood for their main course. But just think, just because of those vampire bats and some really sick people back in the old days, who just needed some blood transfusion, there came some of those great stories about Batman, the vampires stories like Dracula and the now very popular movie franchise, Twilight.

As I mentioned before that there are different bats around the world, except for really cold places, as the matter of fact, there are over 1,000 species of them flying around! And did you know that bats are the ONLY mammal who can fly? Their wings are made of a layer of skin, stretched between those long slender fingers, (yes, they do have hands and fingers and they do fly with them.)

In the traditional scary vampire movies, we are being taught that vampires sleep during the day and awake at night, right? Well, it's quite true, because it's the same thing goes with the real bats. Which means, they are nocturnal and they prefer to come out at night.

You might wonder if they got good eye sight if moving around at night without bumping each other. To tell you the truth, for those bats who eat fruit, yes, they do see very well because they have very large eyes, which help them to collect the dimmest light around them to see the environment. But for those who eat insects, they don't see quite as well, but they make up for a build-in sonar system, called the echolocation, to help them see and hunt.

So, the next time when you see or hear a bat, just think they are the inspiration of many great stories that we love today.