Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I've noticed, too, that our cats have set up a catch-and-release program
with lizards, which apparently they enjoy playing with but don't consider
very good eating. Moles, voles and fieldmice they tend to pounce and chow
down on, without too many preliminaries.
  

    
(paris), the thing about cats playing with their prey being somehow
related to not eating kittens is new to me, and I don't really
understand it, alas.

(reva), do the lizards drop their tails when the cats catch them?
  

    
They often do. I find lizards in the house with fresh and tender (well, they
=look= tender; I have no idea how they feel to the lizard) stumps, and I
occasionally find detached tails.

I also find repeat lizards. I always scoop them up and put them outside,
where they can crawl into a convenient crevice. But I swear I've seen the
same lizard, back inside where a cat has brought it, at least three or four
times. Do lizards learn? Or maybe they enjoy this game, in some weird,
twisted, reptilian way.
  

    
Maybe it's worth it for the bugs, but I doubt they enjoy their cat
interactions.  Lizards do learn, but it doesn't sound like these
lizards are learning much.
  

    

We've also found stray lizards in the house, alive, but not very happy. 
And the cats seem to enjoy bringing live moles into the house and then 
chasing them around a while.

We're captured and released two moles (or the same one, two times) so far 
this summer.
  

    
Allegedly moles, or at least British moles, taste bad enough so that
foxes who aren't desperate won't eat them.  But they will catch them
and bring them to their cubs so the cubs can practice on them.
  

    
I wonder if the moth my kitty caught last night was nasty tasting. It was a
horn worm moth (AKA tomato worm moth). I was *rooting* for the cat to kill
it, but no such luck. The cat held the moth in her jaws for about 15 second
while the moth fluttered one wing frantically. When the moth escaped, the
cat did that repetative tongue-extending thing -- sort of like a "pitouie!
pitouie! pitouie!" deal.
  

    

please talk about penquin babies.
  

    
They are wuzzy.
  

    

Do they go through an awkward phase?
  

    

define wuzzy.


I feel that penquins have a harsh tedious life.
  

    
strictly imho, a creature that gets to spend as much time
swimming as penguins do would be living, well,
a not entirely unpleasant life... ymmv, of course...
  

    
I was going to say ... I'm not sure about penquins but penguins seem
to have a pretty good time under water.
  

    
Yes, speaking of defining terms, what ar ethese "penquins"?
  

    
In the meantime, do you know of any interesting studies done with
penguins, Susan?
  

    
Actually, I didn't find any studies on learning in penguins.  I did
find a nice story in a biography of the French explorer Jean Charcot.
On an expedition in the Antarctic, naturalists in his group were
examining all kinds of birds' nests, and taking one egg from each
species.  They placed these eggs in a basket, and Charcot may have
been given the task of carrying the basket.  (I am picturing a rustic
Provencal basket, but I could well be off the mark.)  When they got to
the Adelie penguin colony, there was much flap and disturbance.
Charcot noticed that one pair of penguins was taking advantage of the
tumult to steal stones from the nests of other pairs, and add them to
their own nest ring.  (Their nests are rings of stones, sticks not being
available much in the Antarctic.)  Charcot thought this was funny and
decided to help, grabbing stones from all over and constructing a
splendid fortress-like nest ring for these two.  Then to finish the job,
he took an egg from the basket and put it in the nest.

The penguins were amazed.  They studied the egg.  Then finally one of
them gave a happy parental croak and settled on the egg while the other
one stood at hand looking proud and pleased.

"Vice, once again, was rewarded in this wicked world," wrote Charcot.
"Later, no doubt, the neighbors will all say, 'How much he takes after
you both!'"

(The learning would come in when whatever the hell species of bird that
egg was from hatched out with penguin parents and had to learn their
ways.)
  

    
What a droll French thing to do, ha ha.
  

    
Like, you know what would be bien amusant? A =skua= egg, heh heh.
  

    
my son wrote a paper on penguins a few years ago.  this was an early 
test of search engines and cut and paste pictures.

One of his pictures was a group of penguins facing each other in a small 
circle, just a few feet from the edge of the ice they were standing on.

The penguins hold each other like that to keep themselves from being 
bumped back into the water by the others.  

He also found a group called the Penguin Liberation Front down in New 
Zealand.  They thought the penguins should be freed of the obligation to 
pose for tourists.  This was before Linux.
  

    
Have you ever seen penguins on Casual Friday?
  

    
Black jeans and white teeshirts.
  

    
Exactly!  They all look alike.
  

    
So I'm catching up with magazines, and last night I read the June 12-18 New
Scientist, which has a whole section on animal cognition, including how
smart fish actually are, mind-reading among the apes, that tool-using New
Caledonian crow, the ability of sheep to recognize faces, and personality
in four legged animals.

Sheep are apparently =especially= good at distinguishing faces, both other
sheep and human. Studies show that sheep can recognize at least 50 other
sheep as individuals, though the article doesn't say how this was tested.
  

    

I suspect they use name tags when humans aren't around. The Border Collies
have to fill them out for the sheep, though.
  

    
the sheep lie.  we all look alike to them.