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Tag: "animal"

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By Erich Vieth on October 06th, 2009

Animal sex, anyone?

These thirty stories about animal sex are stranger than fiction. I had heard of many of these stories before, but hadn’t known about all of these stories featured at “Neatorama.” I found this site looking for a video of porcupines having sex–I heard porcupine sex described by psychologist John Gottman tonight and I wanted to see it for myself. If anyone locates a video of porcupines having sex, do share!

I’ve seen videos of some of these thirty stories featured on David Attenborough’s nature documentaries. And I had previously seen a spectacular video of two flatworms mating on the video “The Shape of Life.” In fact, I found a another video of flatworms mating in the video below (as well as the mating of other invertebrates including sponges (sponges are animals!), jellies and horseshoe crabs–you’ll see the hermaphroditic flatworms double-penis-fencing at the 4:30 mark–the one who loses this battle has to be pregnant):

But back to the site featuring the 30 most unusual animal sex stories . . . I had never before seen the video of the moonwalking manakin, which made me chuckle. The clownfish story was ironic in light of Disney’s Nemo. The detachable penis of the nautilus probably wins the day. But there are so many worthy contenders for most bizarre animal sex . . . I’m glad that this website includes links to the sources of most of the stories because some of them are quite difficult to believe. But then again those other species would probably think it bizarre the way we humans display our sexuality and mate. It’s probably a matter of perspective.

Truly, all of these stories are stranger than fiction. Amazing.

Sex • nature
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Laughing rats
By Erich Vieth on June 04th, 2009

Laughing rats

A group of scientists has now suggested that laughing can be detected in mammalian species as simple as rats.

This discussion of laughing animals is discussed at Alan Boyle’s blog at MSNBC:

How do you graph the evolution of a laugh? Researchers tickled babies and six different kinds of apes, quantified their giggles, and found that the patterns fit a classic evolutionary tree.

Those patterns hint at the ancient origins of human hilarity and suggest that other social species - including apes, dogs and rats - really, truly laugh as well.

Or check out a laughing gorilla here.

Why do we laugh? Mostly, we laugh at things that are not funny. See here, for more information on the psychology of laughing.

Current Events • Psychology Cognition
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Why it matters that humans are animals.
By Erich Vieth on May 03rd, 2009

Why it matters that humans are animals.

I have written numerous posts advocating that because humans are animals they should be recognized as such (for example, see here , here, here , and here). For zoologists and others who study animals, it is obviously true that we are animals. We do hundreds of things that the other mammals do, plus a few extra. You can see it every day when you eat, breathe, emote, poop, become fatigued and fall asleep. Yet millions of Americans are horrified by the thought that human beings are animals.

Consider that we aren’t simply animals. Our species is a carefully defined type of animal. We are apes. Frans de Waal explains:

Darwin wasn’t just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes—he didn’t go far enough . . . We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament.

If you want even more detail on what type of animal humans are (we are in the ape sub-division of primates), watch this brisk video by Aron-ra.

Again, this sort of information is really disturbing to many people, especially religious conservatives.

So why don’t I simply leave religious conservatives alone? Why do I persist on standing on rooftops and proclaiming this message that humans are animals? Why don’t I just whisper this sort of information only to my closest of friends: “Pssst. Human beings are animals.” Why don’t I just let it be, and keep it all to myself? What could possibly be at stake that I feel compelled to spread the word that human beings are animals? I was in the process of assembling my own list when I just happened to read Chapter 12 of Mark Johnson’s new book, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding.

Johnson is well known for his work with metaphors and embodied cognition with George Lakoff. Chapter 12 of his new book contains a section that leaped out at me: “The Philosophical Implications of the Embodied Mind.” In that short section, Johnson sets forth nine reasons why it really and truly matters for people to acknowledge that they are animals and to fully accept that their minds are embodied, not free-floating entities independent of physical laws.

Johnson’s biggest target is the “objectivist theory of meaning,” the idea that meaning “gets defined without any connection to the experience of the creature (i.e., the human) for whom the words are meaningful. Johnson points out that those who follow the objectivist theory of meaning believe that words and sentences somehow “carry” meaning without even trying to explain how words and sentences ever come to acquire meaning. It should send up immediate red flags that the predominate theory of meaning relies on floating thoughts, a theory of meaning that is not biologically anchored. Reacting to (and rejecting) this objectivist approach, Mark Johnson premises his analysis “with a mind that is not separate from or out-of-ongoing-contact with its body and its world.” His worldview includes a specific definition of body and his impressive list of why it matters for human beings to take seriously “the embodiment of mind and meaning.” Here are those reasons (I will be borrowing liberally from Johnson’s book with these descriptions, beginning at page 279):

American Culture • Featured • Human animals • Law • Meaning of Life • Psychology Cognition • Religion • nature
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By Erich Vieth on December 23rd, 2008

What is a human “body”?

In his 2008 book, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, philosopher Mark Johnson makes a strong argument that “meaning is grounded in the body” (p. 274). That assertion, however, invites the question: “What is a human “body”?
Johnson implores us to not slip into mind/body dualism. He also warns us not to consider [...]

Human animals • Language • Psychology Cognition • Science
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By Erich Vieth on December 14th, 2008

We are gods with anuses: another look at “terror management theory.”

Gods with anuses? This post concerns some of the elaborate ways humans seem to compensate for their anxiety about death.

A 2008 Harris poll shows that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus was born to a woman who was a virgin. Thus, by a landslide margin, Americans believe that a woman named Mary got pregnant without any of that icky sperm/penis/vagina stuff (whether a human ovum was involved is keeping theologians busy ). To keep the Savior pure and holy, I can only assume that Jesus emerged into the world through some sort of Divine Cesarean rather than out of the vagina, but the Bible is not clear on the actual method of delivery. Ever since the alleged birth of Jesus, Mary (who was “without sin”) has been referred to as “Virgin Mary,” despite her long marriage to Joseph, suggesting that she kept Joseph sexually frustrated for the rest of his life.

All of this uneasiness our animal nature is typical of many religions. In order to keep people focused on the other-world, religions work hard to convince people that human animal existence is vulgar and vile. According to many religions, our earliest “ancestors” were taught that human bodies were shameful even as they were being unceremoniously booted out of the Garden of Eden.

Rather than considering our bodies to be exquisite machines that constitute and sustain us, many religions portray human bodies as ungainly, oozing, disgust-inducing earth-bound vessels from which we will eventually escape, thanks be to God! We are to God as slugs are to us. Rather than embracing the marvelous functioning of human bodies, many religions disparage them though, paradoxically, they attribute the “design” of our sordid bodies solely to God, not to natural selection. Thus, there is one notable exception to the general rule: only when Believers are trying to fight off Darwin do they consciously strive to appreciate the exquisite function of human bodies. Oh, such a tangled web religions weave . . .

Culture • Evolution • Human animals • Meaning of Life • Psychology Cognition • Religion • Reproductive Rights • Science • Sex
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By Erich Vieth on December 05th, 2008

Still mating at the age of 176

This is one impressive tortoise.   Check out his pose during the Boer War around 1900.  Fun story.

Whimsy
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Photo of Orangutan
By Erich Vieth on April 02nd, 2007

Photo of Orangutan

I photographed this older orangutan yesterday at the St. Louis Zoo.  He had moved slowly to this spot about 50 feet away from the glass, where he paused for several minutes and stared back at the humans who were staring at him.
I was pondering whether this photo needed a caption, but I decided simply to post it [...]

Science • Uncategorized • photography
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