Animals

Elephants, the world’s largest land animal, are expressive animals capable of deep feelings.  They communicate with each other through not only high-pitched trumpeting sounds but also via very low-frequency rumbling vibration sounds called infrasound that are inaudible to humans.  These infrasound waves carry a long way.  Elephants can hear these sounds of communication up to 6 miles away.  Elephants are sensitive creatures that are known to grieve when a fellow herd member dies.  They are even known to walk in a pattern doing a mourning ritual around the bones of deceased elephants.  Besides elephants, a number of other animals that communicate by sending out and receiving infrasounds include crocodilians, peacocks, reptiles, rodents, insects, amphibians, scorpions, spiders, and other creatures.  Praying mantises use ultrasonics. The hippopotamus also emits low-frequency vibrating infrasound messages.

Many animal species and some birds use echolocation, a specialized built-in biological sonar skill using reflected sound.  Echolocation involves a physiological process of emitting pulses or calls out to the environment and then listening to the echoes of sound waves bouncing off objects as a means to navigate, engage in social interaction, and locate and identify objects and food.  Echolocation is used by dolphins, bats, porpoises, whales and certain birds.

Regarding form and organisms that self-repair, some organisms can completely repair even extreme damage.  Here are just a few examples:  Salamanders have the ability to grow a new limb if it is severed.  Even if a full-grown hydra is chopped to pieces, it fully reassembles itself.  And flatworms that have been cut up still develop into many complete worms.  Starfish are able to regenerate their star “legs.” Even more amazing, a severed starfish limb can actually grow into a whole new starfish.

Gecko feet have provided fascinating inspiration for many innovative products because gecko feet have very unique properties which lend themselves to useful invention.  Even while underwater, the gecko’s foot can easily attach to and navigate along almost any surface and then just as effortlessly unattached.  Geckos have millions of tiny adhesive hairs on each toe (about 14,000 hairs on every square millimeter of the gecko’s foot).  Then each of these hairs divide into hundreds more (and much smaller) tips.

Turkeys are really quite intelligent animals.  They’re capable of remembering geographical features of an area greater than 1,000 acres.  They are gentle, playful, adaptable creatures with unique individual personalities and a heightened sense of curiosity.  They form strong bonds with and show affection towards each other and enjoy socializing with human companions too.  Wild turkeys have keen eyesight.  They’re capable of 360-degree field of vision.  They can recognize each other from their different voices, and they communicate with 20 unique types of vocalizations.  Though the average male can weight between 16-22 pounds (and the female 8-12 pounds), wild turkeys can run at speeds of 25 mph and fly short distances at speeds as fast as 55 mph.

The elephant’s keenly adaptable trunk is a uniquely versatile instrument having hallmarks of divine engineering.  An elephant can use its trunk like an arm and hand to reach, grasp and hold onto objects.  It can use its trunk to easily pick up small objects or tote a tree.  The trunk can also suck up water and take a drink by squirting the water into its mouth, or by the same means spray a cooling, cleansing shower of water over its body.

It’s estimated there are a whopping 900 million to a billion dogs in the world.   Besides looking irresistibly adorable, dogs have a number of noteworthy abilities.  Surprisingly, some dogs can run faster than humans.  Greyhounds can reach speeds up to 45 mph. Some breeds of dogs are able to learn over 1,000 words.  Dogs are a healthy addition to the home.  They perceive themselves as part of the family.  They are good friends able to offer compassion and express empathy.  They enhance our immune system functioning, increase our mental health and overall level of happiness and feeling of well-being.  As far as the sense of smell, a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times greater than that of humans.  Humans have around 5 to 6 million olfactory cells located high up in our nasal passages.  Dogs have up to 300 million olfactory senses in their noses.  The sheepdog has about 220 million and is able to smell 45 times better than humans can.  Some dogs can even sniff out cancer.  Dogs sense when bad weather is approaching.  Their hearing is far more acute than humans.  They can hear low frequencies undetectable by humans, so they may be sensitive to distant thunder.