Dragonflies

Dragonflies are ancient insects who took possession of the air even before dinosaurs roamed our planet.

Dragonflies can be mistaken for the related group damselflies, similar in structure, but lighter in build.

Dragonflies and damselflies are aquatic, so you will find them around ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes.

Female dragonflies deposit their eggs on the water's surface.

Do you know how dragonflies mate?

They may be tiny creatures but when it comes to intimacy things get really tough…… and messy.

Males get scratched, females get bitten, and sperm ends up everywhere.

For this reason, some females who want to avoid having sex with aggressive males, or being forced into mating, fake their own deaths and lie motionless on the ground.

Kind of like those humans who fake headaches.

This behavior is called ‘sexual death feigning’.

Dragonflies can mate in the air on flight, or they retire to a nearby perch and consummate.

This is how it happens.

The male dragonfly first grabs a female by the back of her neck with claspers at the end of his abdomen, then the pair can fly around together in tandem.

If the female is willing, she will lift her abdomen up to bring her vagina in contact with his penis allowing the male to transfer his sperm.

Together they form a heart-shaped ‘mating-wheel’ like the one in the pictures.

When finished, the male may immediately release his mate and fly away, or he may stay with her to guard her from other males while she lays her eggs in water.

In some species, the pair will stay in tandem during the whole egg-laying process.

The sad aspect of these fascinating creatures is that in Indonesia, they are caught for food, while in China and Japan they are used in traditional medicine.

In Japan, dragonflies are seen as symbols of courage, happiness, and strength, while according to European folklore, they are considered as sinister.

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Wombats

Wombats are short-legged solitary and nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, living in underground burrows during the day but coming out at night to forage on grasses and other vegetation.

These beautiful creatures sleep a lot; an average of 16 hours per day.

As wombats are nocturnal, they have very poor eyesight, so they rely on their sense of smell to navigate and find food.

Did you know that wombats are the only known animals in the world producing cube-shaped poop?

Wombats can pass up to 100 deposits of poop a night.

It has been long speculated that wombats produce these poop bricks and stack them, preventing the pieces from rolling away, as a unique way of marking their territory.

National Geographic reports that Mike Swinbourne, a wombat expert at the University of Adelaide in Australia, says: “While wombats do use their scat to mark territory it's not like they're trying to build little brick pyramids. They just poop where they poop.”

Instead, Swinbourne says the poop shape is more likely related to the dry environments that most wombats live in.

Patricia Yang is a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in bodily fluids.

In early 2018, she and her colleagues got ahold of wombat innards for their study.

They examined the intestines of two roadkill wombats.

Yang said: “At first I thought they maybe have square anus, or maybe [the cube] forms right around the stomach.”

National Geographic reports that Yang said: “As food is digested it moves through the gut, and pressure from the intestine helps sculpt the feces – meaning that the shape of the intestine will affect the shape of a dropping.”

National Geographic continues: “So Yang and the team expanded both wombat and pig intestines with a balloon to measure and compare their elasticities (or stretchiness).

The pig intestine had a relatively uniform elasticity, which would explain the animal’s rounder poo. The wombat intestines, however, had a much more irregular shape.”

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Bats

Since bats are flying creatures, many people assume that bats are classified as birds.

Bats are classified as mammals and give birth to a live creature, not eggs, once a year.

During their birthing season, also called maternity season, bats often gather into colonies called “maternity roosts”.

The birthing season takes place between late May until about mid-August.

Maternity roosts are groups of female bats who come together to take turns raising their young.

Most bats’ pregnancies last up to 9 weeks.

However, other species have a longer pregnancy, like vampire bats for instance, whose pregnancy can last up to 5 – 7 months.

Did you know that bats give birth while hanging upside down?

The mom-to-be takes her talons and grabs onto whatever perch she’s hanging from.

Then, while hanging upside down, she pushes her baby out of her womb towards her feet.

After giving birth and while she is still hanging, mama bat catches her newborn in her wings to avoid letting the baby bat fall to the ground.

Baby bats are called pups.

Pups cannot partially fly until about 3 or 4 weeks after birth, so the mom has to be really quick catching her baby.

For the period during which pups cannot fly, the mom carries them in their wings.

But, what happens if a pup is too heavy to carry?

In that case, when mama bat has to scour for food, she leaves her pup on a nearby branch, she keeps a close distance, and cries out to her baby to let them know that she is not far.

Bats can find their food in total darkness and can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes an hour.

Bat droppings, called guano, are one of the richest fertilizers.

Bats can live more than 30 years.

They are very nourishing and protective of their young and often will continue to coddle and nurture them as they form tight bonds as a family.

Video

Pest Pointers

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