OkcPets Magazine September 2023

16 OKC Pets • September / October 2023 the bare-nosed wombats poop in distinctive cubes. Manufacturers are interested in this for processing possibilities because wombats apparently defy the square-peg-and-round- hole belief system. A COLONY OF BEAVERS Inside the anus of a beaver is a gland that makes a raspber- ry flavor — an ingredient no longer used because of the expense. (Who on earth discovered this one?) Well, it turns out that beaver bottoms smell pretty good because of their diets. The compound comes from the castor sac, the product is castoreum, and it’s part of how beavers mark their territory. (I still want to know who came up with this.) For the adventuresome, castoreum is available via a Swedish schnapps called bäverhojt. You first. A PASSEL OF POSSUMS America’s marsu- pials have 13 nipples, arranged in a circle of 12 with one in the middle inside Mama’s pouch. She can give birth to as many as 25 babies, so the “first come, first served” rule applies for the original 13 who latch on and stay sealed to Mama for about eight weeks. At some point, their teeth start to emerge; possums have 50, the most of all mammals. A HERD OF ELEPHANTS Adult elephants are the only mammal that can’t jump. They never have all four feet off the ground, and their legs are too slender to push their weight upward to accomplish any lift. Jumping is considered a survival ability for eluding predators, but grown elephants don’t worry much on that score. (Info cred- it: the Smithsonian. I believe it.) A FLAMBOYANCE OF FLAMINGOS Flamingos have to turn their heads upside down to eat. They dip their bills and use their tongues to pump water through cone- like plates at the edges of their bills to sieve their food. Comparing Notes And now! A few comparisons: A PACK OF DOGS A coalition of chee- tahs…. A cackle of hyenas…. Although cheetahs can sprint as fast as 70 miles per hour for half a minute, greyhounds will quickly outstrip them by running 35 mph for 12 minutes. Hyenas, on the other hand, can run as fast as 40 mph. They are quite comfy at a gait of six or seven miles per hour, which they can maintain for several hours because of their powerful, back-slop- ing structure. A CONVOCATION OF EAGLES A parliament of owls…. A cast of crabs…. Amazingly strong grips are found in birds, mammals, reptiles, and crustaceans — and no human can compare. The harpy eagle and great horned owl have recorded grips of more than 530 pounds per square inch, and coconut crabs measure 750 psi. (The average human grip, for a male, is 72 psi and for a female 44 psi.) This is probably one reason these animals don’t shake hands. Another is that they don’t have hands.