Clouds and Amazing Animals
I took photo's of deteriorating buildings on a beautifully cloudy day.
I am currently reading a book about animals which led me to learn about an interesting animal character: David Greybeard. I love his name! David Greybeard was the first chimpanzee to let Jane Goodall observe him. One thing amazing that Jane Goodall observed David Greybeard do was that he used a tool to retrieve termites from a termite hill. Before this, people thought one of the things that made us unique from animals was that we make and use tools. But it turns out we are not alone in this skill. Sometimes it seems like people are too invested in finding the things that make us different from animals, often in the attempt to prove humans superiority to animals. But it seems as we learn more about animals, we learn either that they are similar to us in more ways than imagined, or we learn about their superiority. For example, raccoons have an amazing sense of touch. There paws have a hyper-sensitive sense of touch. Their paws are protected with a thin, horny layer that when wet is pliable. They are able to understand an object with their sense of touch in a way that humans understand objects by looking at them. The way they understand the world is even more amazing then just their hypersensitive paws. They can sense objects before they even touch them because of hair or whiskers called vibrassae located above their claws. Cats whiskers are another example of vibrassae. Whiskers are used for tactile understanding of the world.
Another example of an animals with amazing abilities that we lack are bats. Some bats use echolocation to understand their world. The bats make sounds that bounce of the objects around them, and from that they can understand the objects through sound alone. And what about the sea star? In some cases, a sea star can have it's limb amputated, and from that amputated limb, it can grow back it's entire body! Basically, the raccoon, bat and sea star have super hero powers. I think it is time for people to just give up on trying to prove their superiority over animals. Anyhow, it is more fun to live in a world where everyone is amazing, rather than just humans.
Sources:
Information about David Greybeard: "Kasakela Chimpanzee Community" Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 April 2015. Web. 30 April 2015.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasakela_Chimpanzee_Community>
Information about Whiskers: "Whiskers" Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 February 2015. Web. 30 April 2015.
Information about Bats: "Fact Sheet Bats" Defenders of Wildlife. 2015. Web. 30 April 2015.
Information about Sea Star: "Starfish (Sea Star)" National Geographic. 1996-2015. Web. 30 April 2015.