Top 10 longest living animals

All this while I thought tortoise is the longest living animal in the world. Apparently I'm ignorant to the scientific facts, but maybe that's the beauty of being human. Learning never stop until the very last breath that we take.

Okay, the first two doesn't make sense, their lifespans span from 2,300 years to immortal. Are you kidding me?

1. Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish


Image: mother nature network
Lifespan: immortal
Location: temperate to tropical regions of oceans

2. Giant barrel sponge

Lifespan: up to 2,300 years
Location: Garibbean waters

3. Ocean quahog

Lifespan: up to 507 years
Location: North Atlantic

4. Tortiose


Image: de engineur
Lifespan: up to 255 years
Location: worldwide

5. Tube worm

Lifespan: 250 years
Location: near hydrocarbon vents on the ocean floor

6. Koi (fish)

Lifespan: up to 226 years
Location: captivity

7. Bowhead whale

Lifespan: up to 211 years
Location: Arctic waters

8. Red sea urchin

Lifespan: over 200 years
Location: Pecific Ocean

9. Tuatara
Not to be confused with iguana.


Image: wikipedia/tuatara
Lifespan: up to 200 years
Location: New Zealand

10. Geoduck

Lifespan: up to 168 years
Location: off the west coast of North America


Source: Daily Express' Sunlife, October 6, 2013 - pp 14.

The toughest animal on the planet

Not really the kind of animal you see everyday as they are only about 1 mm to 1.5 mm long but still, they are animal.

The toughest, hardest creature is a tardigrade, also known as a water bear. They are found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans, and there are more than 900 species of them.


Tardigrades or water bear. Freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive! Image credit: Dailymail



Image credit: Dailymail


Tardigrades can dehydrate their bodies to just 1% of their normal water content. Without water, most chemical reactions happen too slowly to harm them and ice crystals can’t rupture their cells. They are extremophiles – animals that can exist in the most hostile of conditions.

They have been boiled at over 150ºC and frozen in liquid nitrogen without any noticeable harm. They can survive pressures of 6,000 atmospheres and in 2007, the Russian FOTON-M3 spacecraft took tardigrade passengers into orbit.

After 12 days exposed to the vacuum, cold and radiation of space, they hadn’t just survived; they had laid eggs that hatched! Pretty cool.


Now, for a comparison, the bears, despite their big and tough body build, is nothing compared to the toughness and survivability of the tardigrades.


The Bear that we know; only more than a thousand times bigger. Image credit: fanpop.com


References: Dailymail, Sciencefocus

Electric flowers have the power to bring in bees

It is common knowledge that flowers use bright colours and enticing fragrances to attract pollinators, but what’s not so widely known is that they also use electrical signals.

'Pollinating' - captured with Nikon D90 at | 200mm | f/4 | ISO-400 | 1/320 sec |

Nobody knew about this electrical attraction until biologists recently discovered that bumblebees can detect a charge and use it to determine which plant they visit. Charge detection may help bees decide which flowers hold plenty of nectar.

To investigate, biologists at the University of Bristol created artificial flowers, filling some with sucrose and others with quinine, which bees don’t feed on. Initially, the bees (buff-tailed bumblebees of the species Bombus terrestris) visited the flowers at random. But when a 30 volt field, typical of a 30cm-tall flower, was applied to the artificial plants containing sucrose, the bees detected the charge from a few centimetres away, and visited the charged flowers 81 per cent of the time.


Flowers use electrical signals

A bee lands on one of the electrically charged artificial
 flowers. Image:University of Bristol.

When a bee visits a flower some of its positive charge transfers to the plant, and further bees transfer more charge. This could show an incoming bee that there’s unlikely to be much nectar on offer.

“The last thing a flower wants is to attract a bee and then fail to provide nectar,” says Professor Daniel Robert, who led the research.

“It’s a lesson in honest advertising, since bees are good learners and would soon lose interest in such an unrewarding flower.”

It’s thought the electric charge supplements the other signals flowers use. Exactly how bees detect electrical fields is unknown, but the researchers speculate that the hairy bees bristle up under an electrostatic force.


Fact source: Daily Express Sunlife, 2/6/2013, pp.12

Crows can recognise human faces!

Yes they can.

In fact, scientists say many birds recognise individual humans but they probably do this by using a variety of cues, including height, build, colour, clothes or ways of walking. Crows, however, can actually recognise faces. Amazing, isn't it.

Red-eyed crows of Nexus Resort Karambunai, Sabah. Photo by de engineur

This has been confirmed by experiments in which scientists put on various masks and then trapped a group of wild crows and fixed rings to their legs. After letting the birds go, they walked around recording whom the crows mobbed or scolded with their harsh, warning cries.

The trapped crows, which had previously ignored these individuals, now reacted aggressively to anyone wearing the trappers’ masks, regardless of their size, clothes, or gait.

So, don't underestimate the statement by movie makers who portrayed crow's presence as bad omen and its aggression towards human. LOL, that's from me - don't be bothered.


ref - Sciencefocus

"Moby Dick" lizard found in Madagascar

Remember Moby Dick, the whale in a novel brought to life in film adaptations and science fiction animations many many years ago? Maybe many of us are too young to remember.

The newly found albino lizard must've reminded researchers of the great white whale when they incidentally named the unpigmented skin lizard sirenoscincus mobydick. My point is that, we know just tiny bit of our earth. That makes life interesting.

Great find!  Photo from  pskhun on Novataxa

New lizard species

Montpellier: A new lizard species has been discovered in Madagascar and named “Moby Dick” mermaid skink – after the albino sperm whale imagined by Herman Melville – for its flipper-like forelimbs and unpigmented skin, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research said Tuesday.

The CNRS said the “Sirenoscincus mobydick” presents a unique combination of anatomical features that can be found in amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds.The discovery, made by French, Malagasy, American and German researchers, was published in the Zoosystema journal at the end of December.

The centre said the “Moby Dick” lizard was discovered in the dry north-western forests of Madagascar.

Because of its life underground, the animal’s skin has lost pigmentation and its eyes have almost disappeared. And although the lizard has retained forelimbs, its hindlimbs have completely disappeared.

The centre called it a “morphological organisation” reminiscent of cetaceans, the carnivorous marine mammals such as whales and dolphins. - AFP

How do animals know where to migrate to?

What a traffic jam! Photo by National Geographic. Every year, Christmas Island's 50 million red crabs migrate to the sea to lay their eggs.


SOME BIRDS, FISH, TURTLES  and whales travel enormous distances when migrating to find food or to mate. The furthest may be the bar-tailed godwit, flying over 10,000km from New Zealand to Alaska. Starlings use a Sun compass, which means knowing the time so as to compensate for the Sun’s changing position.

By contrast, mallards can find north using the stars, an ability that is genetically programmed. Many other birds as well as salamanders, salmon and hamsters use the Earth’s magnetic field.

Loggerhead turtles can even sense the direction and strength of Earth’s magnetic field soon after hatching and later use this skill to navigate along their regular migration route.

Other animals use land features such as mountain ranges and rivers, and dolphins use the shape of the ocean floor. Wildebeest follow the scent of rain and salmon use smell to return to the very same stream where they were born.


Source: ScienceFocus, Photograph: NG/Allison Shaw

Shaking fur science: How animals shed water by shaking

When an animal shakes water off its fur, it may look like a simple instinctive action. But the hand of evolution has optimised fur shakes across the hairy mammals so they don't waste energy.

Shake it off!  Photo credit: AllPosters.com

Using a hosepice and spray bottle, researchers at Georgia institute of Technology in the US soaked 33 animals obtained from zoo, a lab and a local park, and use a high-speed camera to film at up to 1,000 frames per second as they shook away the water.

Mouse movement: Mice remove 70% of the water in their coats in less than 1 second.

Shake speed

Animal shake speed (frequency) shown in Hertz, is fastest in mice, i.e. 29Hz. To define it, a 1 Hz shaking speed means an animal shakes once every second. This means, a mouse can shake 29 times in a single second. The following list compares the speed of different animals:

• Mouse      -     29Hz
• Cat           -     9.4Hz
• Pig            -     8.2Hz
• Kangaroo -     4.9Hz
• Lion         -     4.8Hz
• Labrador  -     4.3Hz
• Bear         -     4Hz

Removing water from fur restores its power of insulation. But to do this, an animal needs to overcome the surface tension between the water and the hair. So its shake must generate sufficient centrifugal force. In a shake, centrifugal force increases with distance from the centre of the animal, which means smaller animals have to compensate, shaking harder, to shift the same amount of water as large animals.


What's the benefit of knowing all this?

Isn't that seem a bit silly for scientists to study the way an animal shakes itself dry? Maybe, but it could help engineers come up with automated-cleaning techniques to use in devices we can’t easily clean ourselves, such as the insides of cameras or distant space rovers.

Also, a better understanding of the relationship between shaking and the removal of droplets could help engineers with the design of everything from washing machine to painting devices.


Source: Daily Express Discovery page, Nov 25., 2012

Can animals be right- or left-handed?

Simple answer is Yes.

If you prefer complicated answer, read on. Animals can be right-eyed, or left-footed - some animals do not have 'hands'. In the 1930s, parrots were given slices of carrot or apple, which they picked up with one foot before eating. 75% used their left foot, and in some species every bird was found to be left-footed.

I think this Malayan tiger is left-handed. Lok Kawi wildlife park, shot with Nikon @70mm

Fish tend to dodge consistently either left or right when evading a predator, using their preferred eye to deal with the threat. Humpback whales prefer the right side of their jaws when feeding.

Cats and dogs have preferences, too. In one study, psychologists in Belfast played for weeks with 42 pet cats. Although the cats would use either paw for easy tasks they reverted to their favoured side for more complex ones. In females this was usually the right paws, and in toms the left. In a tricky task of fishing a piece of tuna out of a small jar, all 21 females used their right paw.

Dogs behave similarly until they are spayed or neutered (sterilised/castrated), when the difference disappears, suggesting hormones play a role in left- or right-handedness.

Reference: DE, November 18,2012. Q&A pp-13.

Ten fascinating facts about Spiders

If you ask me which critters are better looking: the South American tarantulas or the Falling Sky's critters, I would definitely choose tarantula.

You may disagree with me and I can't really blame you because most people would not welcome spiders in their homes. But put aside their scary reputation, spiders are actually one of the most useful and friendly critters on earth. Here, take a look at this and let's appreciate the fascinating fact about them:

Kasih Sayang Resort spider, Kota Kinabalu. Taken with Nikkor DX lens 18-200mm

Focal length 200mm | f/5.6 | ISO-200 | 1/125s |

1. The word “spider” comes from the Old English word “spinnan” which means “to spin.” Not sure if they spend their spare time spinning though.


2. Spiders are not insects. They are arachnids. Insects have three body sections and six legs; spiders have two body sections and eight legs.


3. Despite the fact that most spiders have 6 to 8 pairs of eyes, their eyesight is very poor. They use the fine hairs on their bodies to sense movement and signal when they should run or attack.


4. Most spiders live for less than six months, but the female tarantula can live up to 25 years!


5. Spiders digest their food before they eat it! They inject digestive enzymes into their prey which turns the captured critter into liquid and allows the spider to suck up the mush through a special “straw.”


6. Each year, spiders eat so many insects that the combined weight of their pray exceeds the weight of the entire global population of humans.


7. Despite its scary appearance, the tarantula is no more poisonous than a bee sting.


8. The spider’s web is made out of protein. When it’s time to spin a new web, the spider will eat the old web.


9. The golden spider spins silk that is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.


10. The black widow’s venom is 15 times more powerful than the venom of the diamondback rattlesnake.  However, because only a tiny amount is injected when she bites, very few people die from the black widow spider’s bite.

Oh, and if you live in the UK, you are lucky. The UK tops the list of countries whose populations most fears spiders! Half of all women and one in five men have an aversion to spiders.

Top 10 heaviest land animals

The following is a list of top 10 heaviest land animals of the world.

Some may argue with the order of listing but you can always do a 5-minute search and you will have better idea. The heaviest land animals can be measured and defined using a variety of methods, such as by mass, height, volume, and length.

1. African elephant
Weight: Up to 10,000 kg (22,046 lb)
Largest recorded reach a height of 4m at the shoulder

African Elephants. The bush elephant is the bigger of the two species: The African bush elephant and African forest elephant. Photo by Joubert/N. Geographic


2. Asian Elephant
Weight: Up to 5,400 kg (11,905 lb)
Can reach a height of 3m at the shoulder

Asian Elephants can easily be distinguished from their African cousins by their smaller ears.. Photo by de engineur


3. Hippopotamus
Weight: Up to 3,200 kg (7,055 lb)
Its body can reach up to 5.4m length

African hippopotamus. Photo by Nichols/N. Geographic


4. White Rhinoceros
Weight: Up to 2,300 kg (5,071 lb)
The largest of the five rhinoceros species can be up to 4m long

White rhinoceros at Singapore Zoological Gardens. Photo by: de engineur


5. Giraffe
Weight: Up to 1,932 kg (4,260 lb)
A giraffe's neck can be 2.4m long

Giraffes shot at Singapore Zoological Gardens. Photo by: de engineur


6. Walrus
Weight: Up to 1,500 kg (3.307 lb)
Its tusks can reach 1m in length

Walruses use their tusks to help pull themselves out of the water. Photo by: Curtsinger/N.Geographic


7. Black Rhinoceros
Weight: Up to 1,400 kg (3,086 lb)
Height can be up to 1.8m at the shoulder


8. Gaur
Weight: Up to 1,300 kg (2,866 lb)
Also called the Indian bison, the biggest bovid can reach 2.2m at the shoulder.

The Malayan gaur is called Seladang. Photo by: de engineur


9. Asian Bufallo
Weight: Up to 1,200 kg (2,645 lb)
It has the widest horn span of any bovid. It can span up to 2 m

Asian water buffalos are domesticated animals. Photo by: de engineur


10. Saltwater crocodile
Weight: Up to 1,000 kg (2,205 lb)
The largest reptile in the world can grow to 8 - 10m in length

The above given figures are speculative as Guinness World Record holder for largest saltwater crocodile (in captivity) is the Philippine's Lolong which measures only at 6.17m (20.24 ft) in length. Pictured above is one of the bigger crocodiles at Tuaran Crocodile Farm. Photo by de engineur

Source: Top ten list obtained from Sun Life, DE, Oct. 14, 2012 - pp 13