by Bill McLain
Most blue-eyed white cats are deaf.
The frequency of a cat’s purr is about 26 cycles per second, the same frequency as an idling diesel truck engine.
If your cat’s name ends in an “ee” sound, such as “Rocky,” it will respond more readily than to any other name.
Cats are now the number one pet in the United States, and 37 percent of homes have at least one cat.
A cat can jump the height of up to five times the length of its tail.
The ancient Egyptians, the first to tame cats, used them to control pests around 3000 B.C. When the family cat died, family members shaved their eyebrows in mourning.
A domestic cat can sprint at about 30 mph for a short distance.
A typical cat spends one third of its life grooming itself.
DID YOU KNOW?
Many scientists believe that cats have a very complex language. In addition, each cat has a unique voice. Not only does pitch and loudness vary among cats, different cats even pronounce vowels differently. Although dogs can produce 10 different vocal sounds, a cat can produce almost 100 different sounds.
But to truly understand cat communication, it is easier to interpret body language, especially that of the tail. A rapidly twitching tail means irritation, a slowly moving tail means contentment, a tail between the legs signifies worry, a tail held straight out is a warning, a tail held low with hairs fluffed indicates fear, and a tail held fully erect means “I’m glad to see you.”
Ears are another barometer of a cat’s feelings: back when angry, flat when scared, and forward when happy or alert.
There are many other forms of cat communication, but we will probably never know them all until the independent cat decides to tell us.
Is it true that elephants are afraid of mice? (You can tell by looking in their eyes.)
There is no evidence that elephants are afraid of mice. Elephants ignore mice and other small creatures because they have poor eyesight and can’t see them. An elephant relies mainly on its sense of smell and mice do not smell enough to attract an elephant’s attention. The only creatures an elephant fears are humans and large cats such as tigers.
The myth about elephants fearing mice dates back to the ancient Greeks. A Greek fable told about a mouse that crawled up an elephant’s trunk and drove it insane. There is no truth to the story.
Another fable tells about a village overrun with mice. The villagers brought in cats to get rid of the mice but the village was eventually overrun with cats. To control the cats, the villagers brought in dogs but soon there were too many dogs. Bulls were used to control the dogs but the town ended up with too many bulls. Finally, in desperation, the villagers brought in elephants to solve their dilemma. Unfortunately, there were soon too many elephants and the villagers brought in mice to scare the elephants away and return the village to its original condition.
FACTOIDS
Elephants are also called “pachyderms,” which means thick-skinned.
Elephants are nomadic because they quickly eat up all of the food in any area where they are grazing. Each elephant eats between 300 and 500 pounds of vegetation a day.
An average elephant is from 6 to 12 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs from 5,000 to 14,000 pounds.
An elephant’s trunk has over 40,000 muscles and is so sensitive that an elephant can use it to pick up a small coin.
Of all the animals living on earth, the elephant has the largest brain. It is four times the size of a human brain.
An elephant’s body language is the same whether it is upset or happy. The elephant holds its tail straight out, flaps its ears, and often trumpets. The emotions of irritation, anger, and joy show only in the elephant’s eyes.
Although lions or tigers might kill a baby or young elephant, the only true elephant predators are humans.
In ancient Asia white elephants were extremely rare and regarded as holy animals. It was very expensive to keep one because the elephant required special food and its owner also had to serve the numerous pilgrims that would come to worship it. If a king was displeased with one of his administrators, he would give him a white elephant as a gift. The administrator could not refuse a gift from the king but the upkeep of the elephant could financially ruin its new owner. This is the origin of the expression “white elephant.”
The expression “an elephant never forgets” has no factual basis. An elephant’s memory is good, but no better than the memory of a cat, dog, or human.
DID YOU KNOW?
Many people have seen films of elephants participating in a tiger hunt or working by hauling logs or other burdens. However, very few people have ever watched elephant polo.
Each December the annual tournament of the World Elephant Polo Association is held on an airstrip in Nepal, just north of the Indian border.
Elephant polo is quite similar to horse polo. Players wear traditional polo hats and use a polo ball and mallets. There are four players on each side. Any elephant, baby, young adult, or mature adult may participate in the game. The largest elephant is always given to the referee because it gives him an excellent vantage point from which to watch the game.
Because of the unique nature of the game, special rules have been instituted. Because one team trained a baby elephant to dribble the ball with its front foot, elephants are no longer allowed to touch the ball with their trunk or feet. Another team trained an elephant to lie down in front of the goal, which now draws a penalty.
The most interesting rule is “Rule 14,” which states, “Sugarcane or rice balls packed with molasses and rock salt shall be given to each elephant at the end of the match and a cold beer, or soft drink, to the elephant drivers, and not vice versa.”
It sounds like a fascinating sport to watch, if you just happen to be in Nepal in December.
On a turkey, what is the name of that red thing that hangs down over the beak? (Make a wish.)
The red fleshy growth from the base of a turkey’s beak that hangs down over the beak is officially called a “wattle.” However, people in the turkey industry usually use the nickname “snood.”
If you remember much about World War II, you’ve probably heard the word “snood” before. The word originated in the Victorian era as a name for the hair nets women wore for decoration. In the 1930s, a snood came to mean a netlike bag that held the back of a woman’s hair at the base of the neck. Snoods became very popular during World War II among women working in factories, to prevent their hair from being caught in the machinery.
It’s not known whether the woman’s netlike bag hairpiece or the turkey’s growth was the first to be called a snood. However, if you look at both, you’ll see a distinct resemblance.
Turkeys are native to North and Central America and have been around for approximately 10 million years. The Aztecs in Mexico domesticated the turkey centuries ago and used them for sacrifices to the Aztec gods.
After the conquistadors conquered Mexico in 1520, they took turkeys back to Spain. The turkeys rapidly spread throughout Europe and reached England about twenty years later.
No one knows for sure why they are called turkeys. One explanation is that the North American turkey was confused with the “turkey hen,” a bird native to Turkey.
Another explanation is that the name mimics the noise a turkey makes when scared, which sounds like “turk, turk, turk.”
Others believe that the Native American word for the bird was firkee, which sounds similar to turkey.
FACTOIDS
Domesticated turkeys can’t fly because they have been bred to have a large amount of breast meat, which makes them too heavy to get off the ground. However, wild turkeys can fly at speeds of up to 55 mph for short distances and can run on the ground at speeds up to 25 mph.
Turkeys have excellent hearing and eyesight and see in color. However, they have a poor sense of smell.
Although a mature turkey has around 3,500 feathers, Apaches thought the bird was cowardly and refused to eat it or use its feathers on
their arrows. However, Native Americans in the Southwest revered and respected the turkey.
Only male turkeys gobble; female turkeys make a clicking sound. Males gobble in the spring and fall to attract females. They also gobble whenever they hear a loud noise.
The first meal that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ate on the moon was roast turkey in foil packets.
In the early 1900s, there were only about 30,000 wild turkeys left in the United States. Wildlife preservation efforts have been so successful that there are now more than 4 million wild turkeys in this country.
DID YOU KNOW?
Although we’ve all tried to win the game of breaking a turkey’s wishbone so that our wish will come true, few people know how this custom originated.
The Etruscans started it in 322 B.C. In those days, anyone who wanted an egg would wait for a hen to “cluck” and an egg soon followed. This gave the Etruscans the idea that a hen could foretell the future.
If an Etruscan needed an answer to an important question, he or she would draw a circle on the ground and divide it into 24 sections, one for each letter of the alphabet (that’s the right number, Etruscans had a shorter alphabet than we do). A kernel of corn was then placed in each section and a hen was placed in the center. The first kernel the hen ate indicated the answer. For example, if an Etruscan was seeking a spouse, the first kernel eaten would indicate the first letter of the future spouse’s name.
After the hen ate the kernel, it was sacrificed to a god and its collarbone was saved and dried. The person who had drawn the circle was allowed to make a wish on the bone. Two other people were then allowed to break the bone in the same way we do. The person who got the longer part got his or her wish.
This tradition carried down through Roman times. When the Romans conquered England, the wishbone custom came with them. We got the custom from the English.
We know that people have been breaking wishbones for well over 2,000 years, but we have no idea how many wishes came true.
Is there a land animal that has a body the color of purple grape juice? (A horse of a different color.)
The animal that is usually mentioned as being the color of purple grape juice is the South African blesbok, a type of antelope. The blesbok is actually bright brown in color but because its fur has a purple sheen, the animal looks purple.
Blesboks are medium-sized antelopes but with stronger bodies than similar-size springboks or impalas. They live primarily in Namibia in herds of about 30 animals. The main enemy of the blesbok is the cheetah. One cheetah can completely destroy an entire herd over a period of time. Man is also an enemy of the blesbok and has hunted the animal to near extinction.
Colored animals not only appear in fiction—such as pink elephants, calico cats, Paul Bunyan’s blue ox, and Barney the purple dinosaur—but also appear in real life. There are red foxes, orange tigers, and even pink walruses. If you ever see a walrus that appears to be blushing all over, it’s only an indication that the animal is warm. When a walrus is warm, its skin turns pink.
Cattle can be red or blue, such as the Estonian Red and the Belgian Blue. Horses have always come in a variety of colors: white, black, gray, chestnut, bay, cremello, buckskin, and palomino.
When a white animal is born to a species that normally does not produce white animals, it is called an albino. This condition occurs if the animal does not have the pigment melanin in its body. Albinos are pure white and usually have pink eyes.
FACTOIDS
The only white koala bear in captivity was born at the San Diego Zoo in California. The koala has white fur, a pink nose, and pink eyes. He is called Onya-Birri, which means “ghost boy” in the language of the Australian aborigines.
There are white alligators with blue or black eyes and dark blotches on their skin but true albino alligators are extremely rare. The only known collection of albino alligators with white skin and pink eyes is at Alligator Adventure in South Carolina.
DID YOU KNOW?
When buffalo roamed the plains of the United States in enormous herds, the odds of a white buffalo being born were 1 in 10 million. Because the buffalo herds were hunted to near extinction in the late 1800s and only 500 were left in the early 1900s, scientists believed that the white gene was lost and there would never be another white buffalo.
In August 1994, a white female buffalo was born on a farm south of Janesville, Wisconsin. The buffalo, named Miracle, was not an albino. Over time, the fur changed color until it became almost black.
A Native American myth explains that White Buffalo Calf woman came to them during a great famine and brought the buffalos, which provided food and shelter. The legend also says that White Buffalo Calf woman would return someday and unite the nations of the four colors: black, red, yellow, and white.
Another Native American myth says that when the earth was created the four colors of man were given the job of caring for the world’s life forces. Africans were to care for fire, Europeans were to take care of the air, Asians were to care for the water, and the people of America were to protect the land.
Is a pinto a breed of horse or just a color? (That’s a horse of a different color.)
The pinto, traditionally associated with Native Americans, is a color rather than a breed. Pintos were among the horses that the Spanish explorer Cortés took to South America in the early 1500s. The name comes from pintado, which is the Spanish word for “painted.”
Pinto coloring falls into two types, predominately white with patches of any other color (called “tobiano”); and a dark color, such as black, with white patches (called “overo”). Another horse that is a color rather than a breed is the palomino.
Some horses look exactly like pintos but are called “paints” rather than pintos. If the horse is a quarter horse or an Arabian horse it is called a paint. Horses of all other breeds are pintos. Pintos are typically used as cow ponies as well as for pleasure riding, showing, racing, and trail riding.
Each pinto or paint horse has a unique pattern and color combination that makes it look unlike any other horse.
Some of the pintos introduced by Cortés escaped and their descendants eventually produced large herds of wild horses that roamed the Great Plains of the Midwest. These horses were popular with Native Americans because they were tough and their coloring was good camouflage when the horses were part of a war party. Over time these hardy horses were also sought by cowboys.
FACTOIDS
Over 50 million years ago the ancestor of the modern horse was only 10 to 14 inches tall.
In Asia and the Middle East horseshoes were actually reed or grass sandals. These were used until the nineteenth century.
An ancient Arabian king entered a battle with his soldiers riding black horses while enemy troops rode white and gray horses. After losing the battle, he reasoned that it was because black horses grew weak in the heat. He ordered all his black horses killed and persuaded other Arab tribes to do the same. As a result, true black Arabian horses are extremely rare, even today.
The brass trim on many draft horse harnesses was originally intended to protect the horse from evil spirits.
The record for horse longevity goes to Old Billy. Born in 1769, he worked as a towing horse until his retirement in 1819. He died three years later at the age of fifty-three.
Horseshoes have been considered lucky for centuries. Although most people hang a horseshoe over a doorway open side up so the luck won’t run out, some hang it open side down so that the luck spills over all who enter the house.
Many amazing tales are associated with man’s involvement with horses. Once such tale recounts the story of the ancient Greek “dancing horses.”
The Greek citizens of Sybaris devised a form of riding in which their horses performed to music. Although spectators loved the performance, the dancing horses caused the downfall of the city.
The legend says that a neighboring town, Crotona, was planning to engage the Sybarites in battle. The Crotona general had a
brilliant plan. In addition to his troops, he entered the battle with a group of musicians. As the battle raged, the musicians played tunes familiar to the Sybarites’ horses. Suddenly, the entire Sybarite army was in disarray because all the horses had started dancing. As a result, the Crotona general won the battle.
However, Sybaris was not destroyed forever. The Greek town still exists today.
Is it true you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? (Every dog has its day.)
Most experts believe that this old saying is completely false. In fact, some say that an older dog might be easier to teach than a puppy because a mature dog has a longer attention span. However, it’s best to teach a dog to socialize when it’s a puppy. A number of books tell you how to teach an old dog new tricks.
A factor often overlooked in teaching a dog new tricks is the breed of the dog. For example, some of the brightest dogs are the Border collie, poodle, German shepherd, golden retriever, and Doberman pinscher. They usually can understand a new command with five repetitions or less and, once they have learned it, will obey it the first time 95 percent of the time.
On the other hand, dogs with the lowest intelligence are the basset hound, bulldog, bloodhound, chow chow, and Pekingese. It usually takes 80 to 100 repetitions or more before they learn a new command. Once they have learned it, they will obey the command the first time less than 25 percent of the time.
Whether a dog, old or otherwise, learns a new trick really depends on the owner. It is the owner’s responsibility to educate the dog and learn to communicate with it. Whenever the owner interacts with the dog, the dog learns something. If the owner is not teaching proper behavior, the dog is learning the wrong behavior.