With cognitive abilities rivaling that of other highly intelligent animals such as dolphins and apes

elephants are incredibly fascinating. They are highly social and

altruistic, meaning that they are greatly concerned with the wellbeing of others.

Nothing makes this more clear than the almost human-like grief and sorrow they display at

the death of a herd member. Going so far as to covering the deceased with branches, leaves,

and dirt while remaining by their side for several days. This altruistic behavior even

extends beyond their own species as there are countless documented incidents of elephants

attempting to aid wounded people or even mourning deceased humans as one of their own.

However, this respectful and intelligent behavior may soon be a thing of the past. For many

decades now, illegal poaching and extensive habitat loss has created an increasingly turbulent

environment for all of elephant society. So much so that reports of unprovoked and lethal

elephant attacks are now commonplace and rapidly increasing all over Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.

Biologists and other experts believe this abnormal level of aggression to be an

unforeseen side-effect caused by humanity's continued mistreatment of the species.

You see, much like us humans, young elephants need guidance and time to learn from their

elders. Calves need to learn how to behave, how to communicate, what to eat and what not

to eat, what's dangerous and what's safe, and the list goes on. I mean, it should go without

saying but children need their parents. However, due to illegal poaching, a lot of calves become

orphans at an early age and thus their natural development is interrupted. Not only that

but because of their intelligence and strong familial bonds, seeing their loved ones being

brutally massacred and mutilated right in front of them is about as traumatic as it

would be for you and me. These events can significantly impair normal brain development

and cause hyperaggression and unpredictable behavior similar to that of people suffering

from PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder. So not only is humanity slowly driving the

species towards extinction, but due to our ruthless means of doing so

we may also be responsible for their mental, societal, and intellectual decline in the process.

Okay, let's forget about humanity's failures for a second. It's just too depressing. Let's focus

on one of nature's failures like the platypus. An animal that would honestly make a lot more

sense if it was inspired by Psyduck than the other way around. The platypus is one of the

only five remaining species of monotremes. Monotremes are mammals that lay eggs, as opposed

to giving live-birth, and are endemic to Australia. It was discovered by European explorers in

1798 and a specimen was later examined by zoologist George Shaw. Its strange appearance

and features made Shaw question whether or not this was a hoax. Again, how can you not.

It looks like a reversed beaver. He writes in a scientific journal from 1799 that:

"Of all the Mammalia yet known it seems the most extraordinary in its conformation; exhibiting

the perfect resemblance of the beak of a Duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped."

He also writes "it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means".

So in more modern terms, was this just another social experiment by some 18th

century YouTube prankster or could the specimen truly be that of a real creature? Evidence

for its existence and its supposed egg-laying capabilities remained highly debated topics

for almost a century. Of course, we now know that this Scrooge-McDuck-looking Pokémon-template

of an animal is more real than your hopes and dreams.

How do you tell a lion from a lioness? No, no, no.. besides looking at their genitals. Most would

argue that the easiest way to tell them apart is that a male lion has a mane while the females

do not. However, this isn't always true. Multiple maned lionesses and maneless lions have been

observed in select regions across Africa. Experts believe increased and decreased levels

of testosterone to be the cause and in the case of maned lionesses it may prove to be

quite advantageous. You see, a lion pride consists of multiple adult females, cubs,

and a small number of adult males. The amount of males in a pride is directly proportional

to how threatening that pride will seem to outsiders. So if the maned lionesses are perceived

as males they may actually boost the pride's overall threat.

It's a perfect example of how random genetic mutations can cause a species to change and evolve over time.

This is a rare sight. A fully functional parliament. As strange as it may seem, a parliament is

the collective noun for a group of owls. Besides having a permanent "How the hell did I get here?"

facial expression, owls also have a knack for necks. All 200+ owl species can

rotate their necks and heads up to 270° which makes humans and owls the only two species

capable of doing this. The only difference is that when humans do it, we die. Owls are

able to survive such extreme neck twisting as they have 14 cervical vertebrae while many

other vertebrates have a lot fewer. For example, we humans only have a laughable seven.

Like many other nocturnal species, owls do not have eyeballs instead they have eyetubes.

This peculiar shape allows for exceptional night vision. However as the eyes are non-spherical

they are completely fixed in their sockets which is why owls need such flexible necks.

If you live to be 90 years old you will be older than people who have yet to reach or surpass that age,

you will also have spent 32 of those years asleep.

Instead of dreaming about your dreams, that's 32 years you could've spent awake, not achieving your dreams.

But if you're a dolphin or a duck sleep isn't half as wasteful. A few select

aquatic and avian species has developed what's known as unihemispheric sleep. Which is the

ability to sleep with one half of the brain while the other half remains awake. This ability

can be quite beneficial for different reasons. In the case of unihemispheric sleep capable

birds, such as chickens and ducks, they literally sleep with one eye open. This allows them

to constantly keep an eye out for potential predators and it's 100% adorable. On the other

hand various aquatic animals, such as dolphins, aquaman, and whales, use this ability to surface for

air even when they are half-asleep. It's been widely scientifically unproven that if humans had this

ability, we would spend this extra time speculating over what we would do if we had more time.

When ants sporadically roam about in search for food they can travel as far as 200 meters

from their nest. To avoid getting lost most ant species leave scent trails and can thus

smell their way back home. They can also keep track of directions using the position of

the sun and by combining this information, they can work out the shortest path back to

the nest. But in certain environments, this method of navigation is not an option. Such

is the case for the desert ant. The featureless landscape along with the windy conditions

of the Saharan desert completely negates the use of scent trails. Instead, they've learned

to count the number of steps they take to keep track of travel distance. A sort

of internal pedometer. You may be wondering, how could we possibly know this? Well, a team

of researchers observed as a group of ants slowly made their way towards a piece of food.

Once they arrived the ants where collected and experimented upon. 25 of the ants received

stilts and another 25 had their legs shortened. As the ants made their way back home something

interesting was observed. The stilt-legged ants overshot the nest by more than 50%

while the amputated ants undershot the nest by nearly as much. In other words, they must

be using an internal step-counter to keep track of travel distance.

Male humpback whales can spend more than 24 hours continuously repeating the same 10-20

minute song. So what you're listening to may be one of the hottest mixtapes to hit the blue market.

Either that or Chewbacca is in dire need of help.

The purpose behind these extensive musical performances largely remains a mystery.

Researchers believe it could be to attract females, to challenge other males, or a form of echolocation.

Or perhaps, and I may be going out on a fin here, perhaps they just love to sing, right?

It wasn't part of any of the scientific articles I could find but surely it's a possibility

worth considering at least? The ocean is a pretty big place. Maybe this is how they pass

the time. I mean we sing in the shower just to pass the time and whales live in the shower so...

I don't know, I feel like they jumped the whale on this one. Like they avoided the

whale in the room. I guess now, the whale is out of the bag.. Okay I'm sorry...

What we do know is that these songs often spread amongst humpback whale society much the same

way the latest pop-music can spread across the globe in our human society. It begins with a localized

population of whales producing a unique string of melodies and after roughly two years time,

the song has moved between numerous whale populations across the pacific. And the songs

are often heavily remixed along the way. Each year, a new viral hit

takes form and the underwater music industry continues to thrive.

Ah, the very face of freedom itself. Few things can better symbolize American patriotism than

the bald eagle. As the national animal of the United States of America this bird has

become known as an American symbol and it has an equally iconic sound.

The problem is, this is not the sound of a bald eagle. Credit should instead go to another North-American

bird known as the red-tailed hawk. Whenever a bald eagle made an appearance in the early

days of television it was often dubbed over with the powerful scream of the red-tailed hawk as it has a

rather unimpressive screech of its own. This is what the bald eagle unfortunately sounds like.

Bees are capable of flapping their tiny wings with an astonishing speed. Their wing-beat

frequency has been recorded at 230 flaps per second. It's so fast that the flapping generates

a positive electrical charge. And they can actually use this ability to their advantage

as the pollen they collect from flowers is normally negatively charged and will thus

be electro statically attracted to the bee. Furthermore, it was recently discovered that

bees can actually detect the presence of floral electrical fields. What this means is that

bees can fly over a meadow and quickly determine if a flower has already been visited or not

depending on the electrical charge of the flower.

Sloths. The traffic jams of the animal kingdom. Natures response to slow motion photography.

Actually why is this shot filmed in slow motion? Did I just spend $50 on stock footage that

looks like a sloth PowerPoint presentation? Oh don't blink, or you might miss nothing.

Nothing is happening. The idleness of sloths is how they conserve energy. The reason they

need to conserve energy is due to their folivorous diet, which means they mostly eat leaves.

These leaves provide very little energy and nutrients, and take up to a month to digest

completely. In fact, when this guy is satisfied roughly 2/3 of his body weight consists of

leaves. Almost anything else would be less of a struggle to consume. You live in the

god damn jungle with tasty fruit and insects all around yet semi-edible leaves is your

food of choice. Truly the face of brilliance. About once a week, the sloth descends from

above for a quick toilet break. And by quick I mean slow. It climbs down, digs a hole in

the ground, defecates, covers the hole with leaves, and climbs back up to safety.

Now you may be wondering why would they not just simply hang from a tree branch and let gravity do

the rest? Well you're not alone as no one truly knowns. Perhaps it's to fertilize their

favorite tree, to prevent the brown from making sounds as it falls to the ground, or maybe,

and this is my personal theory, they're just a bit slow.

And this defecation ritual is truly bizarre as more than half

of all sloth deaths occurs when they climb down to poop. They are slowly pooping their

way to extinction. Speaking of poop, they also like to eat it. No, not their own. That

would be disgusting. Only the most pungent of stenches oozing from an overflowing human

latrine can drive them down from the tree tops. In it, they will bathe and fill their

stomachs to the brim with human waste. The majesty of the sloth is truly unrivaled.