For you to enjoy on this rainy, windy autumn (already!) day, some of the best of Mudfooted’s favorite videos! This is the third in a series of nature video posts that feature the most interesting, fascinating, weird and beautiful videos on the web. Go to Mudfooted’s youtube channel to see my favorite nature videos! Watch Part 1 and Part 2!
The Indonesian Mimic Octopus. This fascinating creature was discovered in 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia and is the first known species to take on the characteristics of multiple species.
For you to enjoy on your relaxed saturday afternoon, 10 of the most amazing nature videos! This is the first in a series of nature video posts that feature the most interesting, fascinating, weird and beautiful videos on the web. Go to Mudfooted’s youtube channel to see my favorite nature videos!
I simply had to share this amazing video of a dog dancing the merengue. Not only is it very funny, it is fascinating how the dog learned how to pull off this feat.
A crazy video of an amazing feat, but even when your dog would be able to do these amazing moves, you just shouldn’t dress it like a person. Go here if you want to learn the Merengue yourself!
For more than three minutes the dog seems to successfully perform a line of dance moves as if it is the most normal thing in the world – and all that just on its hind legs! Is the dog just reacting to subtle movements of its ‘dance partner’ with individual behaviours learned to perform in response or does it actually know different sequences of dance moves and how they possibly can be connected? Even walking on hind-legs for a dog is a very unusual feat that takes a lot of training, not even talking about the ability to walk backwards or sit just on its two hind legs!
Update: An important point was raised in the comments by Linda, that it might be harmful for the dogs hips to spent so much time on its hindlegs. I think indeed a dogs hips are not meant to bear the whole weight of the dog. I expect the dog has been trained from a young age which would mean that the dogs muscles will have developed in a slightly different way which makes it better able to walk on its hind legs, but at the same time it also means that the dog will probably wear through its hip muscles at a much earlier age. Especially since I think this breed of dog is more susceptible to hip injury.
Tool use is generally considered a sophisticated behaviour that is limited to mammals and birds. However, australian scientists discovered that some octopuses carried coconuts to later use as shelter. This unusually sophisticated behaviour for an invertebrate animal was published last week in the journal of Current Biology.
Cephalopods (octopuses, squid and cuttlefish) are widely regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates. Not only do they have their dramatic and complex colour and shape change abilities, recent observations show unexpected behavioural flexbility and the capacity to physically manipulate their environment.
