Bats: Truly Divine Beings

Bats are among the most noble and divine creatures on this planet. In Africa, they are the source of life for the Tree of Life itself. Bats affect you personally, though you may not know it. Consider fruit and nectar-feeding bats.

Do you like chocolate? Do you eat bananas, figs, or mangos? Or avocadoes (or guacamole sauce)? Have you ever had a date square? Do you ever munch on cashews or walnuts? Drink Tequila? Or chew gum? All of these foods wouldn't exist without bats, because they pollinate or otherwise help the plants that produce these fruits, nuts, and other food products! Pollen fertilizes eggs inside the flower, so the flower can produce fruit with seeds that can grow into new plants.

When a bat pokes its head into flower blossoms to drink nectar, pollen sticks all over the bat's face and body. Some of the pollen on stuck on bat's little face, head, chin, and chest will rub off on the next flower that it feeds on (nature's miraculous 3-some). This helps the plants, making it possible to grow fruit. The nectar provides bats with energy. Later, the bat licks the pollen of his fur to clean itself, and gets protein from the pollen!

We all hate to be on the receiving end of bigotry, whether its due to our appearance, choice of professions, or religion. Much as we hate experiencing bigotry, few of us defend noble beings -- bats -- though they greatly enhance our lives in magnificient ways that we probably can never be fully aware of, yet they are victims of discrimation, abuse, and even genocide at the hands of human beings. Look at the ugly and unfair depictions of bats in popular culture. The ancient Maya worshipped bats (and hummingbirds too); so should we.

Bats are closely related to primates; some scientists even classify them as such. Bats even talk to each other! We are primates. but bats can fly! Flying monkeys? They have hands just like us, with the same bones, though theirs are proportionately bigger and serve as wings.

This holiday season, I ask you to consider helping bats, since, after all, they help you in very many ways. Find out more at:
http://www.batcon.org/avscripts/script11.html
http://www.batworld.org/
http://www.batrescue.org/
http://www.batworld.org/adopt_a_bat/adopt_a_bat.html
http://www.batcon.org/home/default.asp

Bugs GIve Tips about Society and Seduction

The Robber Fly

The female robber fly is likely to attack her mate, so courtship is perilous. Some male robber flies deal with this by presenting their prospective partner with a small insect such as a midge wrapped in silk, then will mate with her while she unwraps and consumes her present.

Provide your lady with nicely wrapped gifts so she'll be happy and not bite your head off.


Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers are solitary and come together just for mating. But, under certain circumstances in crowded conditions their physical form and color changes and they become a swarming horde of locusts.

Normally harmless individuals go crazy after they've joined up with a mob.


Assassin Bugs

Various assassin bugs look much like the prey they feed on. Some use paralyzing venom as a liquid projectile.

Be paranoid. Don’t assume that someone who seems similar to you is a friend.


Damselfly

The male damselfly performs a fluttering aerial dance while facing his mate, after which she will usually consent to mate with him.

A gentleman might consider performing a Full Monty routine to impress
the ladies.

Very Greedy Birds

Cowbirds don't make their own nests. Cowbirds sneak into other birds' nests that already have eggs, and lay eggs of their own, for the other mommy birds to tend. A cowbird will even kick one or two of the other bird's eggs out of the nest. Then, the other mommy bird will take care of the cowbird's hatchlings. The cowbird hatchling is likely to kick a couple of the other hatchlings out of the nest, so its adopted mommy can feed it more food.

Wrasse Fish and Bass

Little Wrasse fish clean bass by removing and eating parasites and unhealthy flesh from the Bass's body. The wrasse gets food and the bass gets cleaned!

Clownfish and Sea Anemone

The clown fish constantly swims within the long stringy tentacles of the sea anenome. It poses as food for bigger fish that hungrily swim in, only to get grabbed by the ananemone's tentacles and eaten up by the anemone. The clown fish eats the leftovers. The feces of the Clown Fish also fertilizes the anemone (thanks, buddy!).

Swimming with the Sharks and Catching a Free Ride (and Free Lunch, too)

Remora, a kind of long flat fish, attaches itself to sharks with sticky disks. In doing so, it gets a free ride, and a bodyguard -- the shark. In exchange, the Remora helps the shark in such ways as eating parasitic crustaceans off of its body. After sharks eat their prey, the Remora also gets to feast on the remains!

The Darwin Moth and the Star Orchid

Darwin long noticed that flowers were matched with living creatures that pollinated them. In Madagascar he noticed star orchids with very long passages to their nectar, about 30 cm in length. Darwin asserted that there must be a giant moth with a proboscis – sort of like a drinking straw— long enough to reach the nectar. People laughed at him for saying this, but 41 years after his death, the moth that pollinates the star orchid was discovered. It has a super-long proboscis, just as Darwin predicted. Darwin was right, as usual.