Normally,You get to see stuffed animals specimens in a museum, But years back , I saw one in a busy street in chennai. The Milk man was using a stuffed carcass off a calf to milk the cow.
Are cows really dumb that they cannot differentiate between a dead calf & live one. I put this question to a veterinarian doctor. he said that since animal behavior was largely controlled by instincts. reasoning played any role in their responses
Recently i came across another case where babies off a animal mistook an animate object to be their mother.
Mary, Mungo, Midge and slappy are four tiny hedge hogs that are being hand rared at the wildlife park in At, a village in UK. Three of the hedge hogs came to them because their mum was sadly crushed under a truck.
The fourth one was found wandering around a back garden in the middle of the day. The home owner left it alone to find out whether it would find out its mom but after a few hours when it was brought to wild life park.
Like human babies hedgehog babies too need activities to keep them busy . But because they have very poor eyesight, the staff makes sure that the ‘play things given to them appeal to their sense of smell and touch. From among the various things provided, the babies seen to like the natural scents best. They enjoy playing with cleaning brushes soil, leaves, flower pots and the like.
But their favourite is the cleaning brush. The Staff here is amused to see the four, Four inch long babies snuggle up to the brush, and rub against, the bristles.
The Manager thinks they do it because they think it is their mother! He says the smells on the brush, which is used to sweep a yard, remind the hedge hogs of their natural habitat while the textures remind them of their mother! Don’t you think it is quite a ticklish story?
Many people think that Hedge Hogs and Porcupines belong to one family. They do not; and they don’t even look the same.
Hedge hog are easily recognized by their pointed snouts, stiff half inch long, hairlike spines and bare, small tails, When threatened they simply tighten their muscles and curl up into a ball, often jerking and huffing at the intruder, They rarely do any serious damage. HedgeHogs are insectivores and can be kept as pets.
Porcupines are herbivores belonging to the rodent family. They have stubby, rounded nose and have hair on their face, back , legs and tails. Porcupines quills are abundant and are upto five inches in length. When threatend porcupines arch their back, making the quills stand straight up.
The quills are easily detached and when a porcupine hits a predator with its tail, the barbed tips pierce the attacker.
