Which animals’ tails can predict the weather?
Human beings regard themselves as the primates of all things, and often view the colorful world with a dominant mentality. The Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004 shook the earth and took away nearly 200,000 lives in an instant. But an incredible fact is that this sudden disaster "mercifully" spared the lives of most wild animals. Why can animals have such powerful abilities? Scientists are trying to explain this.
The reaction of animals during the tsunami was extremely abnormal
In Yala, southeastern Sri Lanka, there is a nature reserve covering an area of 1,000 square kilometers. When the tsunami occurred, the floods penetrated as far as 3 kilometers inland and mercilessly swallowed the lives of more than 200 local residents. However, more than 200 Asian elephants, as well as leopards, bison, wild boars, and countless wild deer and monkeys living in the nature reserve all escaped the disaster and saved their lives. Local observers from a wildlife protection organization were surprised to see that in the nature reserve after the flood, all the corpses lying strewn in the mud were human corpses: “Not a single elephant died, and there wasn’t even a hare in the reserve. Loss."
An Associated Press reporter who was covering a small island in Sri Lanka in a helicopter also observed a similar phenomenon from the air. He said: "Countless bats roost in caves on the island. They go into the caves to sleep during the day and come out to be active at night. But on the morning of the tsunami, all the bats flew out of the caves."
Similar things have been reported in tsunami-stricken countries. Some places reported that before the tsunami, all the local flamingos flew away from their nests in low-lying lake areas. Dogs were unwilling to go home. Animals in the zoo jumped out of their nests. No matter how hard the keepers frightened them, they could not get rid of them. Get it back. In one of the hardest-hit areas of Thailand, elephants performing for tourists even rescued several Japanese tourists. A mahout recalled: "On the morning when the tsunami hit, I heard the elephants screaming non-stop, and I felt very strange. The elephants were disobedient and turned their heads towards the sea." Next, The elephants broke free from the ropes and began to gallop towards higher ground, followed by many people. The mahout said: "I ran towards the mountain, and when I turned back, the first wave just hit the shore, swallowing the tourists and overturning the car. I was petrified."
Incidents of animals predicting disasters occur frequently
While humans are still indifferent, animals have already foreseen the approaching disaster. Such examples are nothing new. As early as the 2nd century AD, the Greek rhetorician Aelianus recorded in his book that five days before the earthquake in Helike City in 373 BC, residents discovered abnormalities in animals: "The rats, minks, Snakes, centipedes, and scarabs swarmed out of the city and headed south along the road. "Ellianus couldn't understand why the animals behaved abnormally before the disaster occurred.
As is the case in the West, it is also the case in the East. Japan is an island country prone to earthquakes and volcanoes, and people in Japan have a long tradition of observing fish activity to predict danger. When a volcano erupted in Japan in June 1991, the Paris Match reporter based in Japan began his report with this sentence: "Once there is a commotion in the fish tank, it must be a sign of an impending disaster. I saw the six-bearded catfish growing. They circle around the walls of the fish tank like crazy, as fast as a shooting star. Whenever they see this phenomenon, people will know that danger is around the corner... In Japan, people have long known how to predict the activities of the six-whiskered catfish. Earthquakes and volcanic activity. The more the six-bearded catfish makes a fuss in the fish tank, the more destructive the disaster will be."
Animals have also behaved abnormally in wars
B.C. In 390, the Romans lost the battle against the Gauls and were forced to retreat to the top of the steep Capitol Hill. At night, the Gallic warriors secretly climbed up from the cliff without even alerting the sentry dogs. Suddenly, the white goose raised in the Roman army quacked loudly, waking up the sleeping Roman soldiers. Thanks to the white goose, the proud Romans were able to save their capital.
During the Second World War, a white goose raised by a family in Freiburg, Germany, would quack like crazy before every Allied air raid, alerting the owner and calling neighbors to flee the city. . After the war, local residents erected a statue in the city center to thank the white goose for saving his life.
Scientists believe that animals can feel earthquakes
There is a theory that some animals, such as elephants, have much more developed and sensitive hearing than us humans, so they can hear tsunamis The huge wave before it hits. In 1984, Katie Payne, a zoologist working at the Portland Zoo (Oregon) in the United States, observed that the air around elephants "emitted some kind of regular tremors." She used instruments to analyze the wavelengths and frequencies of these air tremors, trying to uncover the reasons why elephants can anticipate dangers from the outside world. To confirm her suspicions, she stayed in Kenya and Ethiopia for ten years. Her research found that "through the sinuses located at the junction of the proboscis and the skull, elephants can emit a trill as high as 20 decibels. If there are no obstacles to block it, this trill can be sensed by another elephant 80 kilometers away." If there are obstacles in the middle, its propagation range can also reach a radius of 10 kilometers.
"Whenever danger comes, elephants will let out a piercing scream, flap their ears, raise their trunks, and even run for their lives.
In response to what happened in the Yala Nature Reserve in Sri Lanka, French Zoology Pierre Pfeiffer, an expert on elephants, has a supplementary explanation: Elephants’ ears can hear infrasound that humans cannot hear, thereby sensing that terrifying waves are approaching. The horny domes on the soles of the feet can also sense the abnormal pulse of the earth before an earthquake occurs. Through the horny domes on the soles of the feet, elephants are extremely sensitive to every vibration of the earth. Fair said: “The elephants living in the Yala Nature Reserve in Sri Lanka not only sensed danger, but also accurately judged where the danger came from, and naturally fled up the hills. ”
Whether it is marine life, birds or animals, most of them have the ability to feel subtle vibration changes in the earth, air and water, and they all have the ability to feel physical and chemical changes in the surrounding environment (such as the earth "We know that migratory birds, turtles, and some migratory fish rely on magnetic fields to navigate themselves," said Yvonne Lemaio, director of the French Center for Physiological and Ecological Energy Research. We can also speculate that basically all animals have their own 'positioning system'. Not only that, there may also be some communication methods that are currently unknown to us among similar species to pass information to each other. ”
There are differences in the ability of wild animals and domestic animals to predict disasters
Scientists often use the term “sixth sense” to describe this special skill of animals. In fact, the so-called The "sixth sense" is the ability to sense changes in light spectrum, wave spectrum, and frequency spectrum, rather than really referring to a special sense. We humans also have this ability, but it is far less developed than animals. Sometimes, we also use "." "Instinct" is an inaccurate word to describe it. Scientists have long discovered that even for the same creature, "instinct" will degenerate due to different living environments.
Yvonne LeMao said : “We have conducted research on dolphins in Japan and compared wild dolphins with dolphins in aquariums. We found that the hearing organs of wild dolphins are ten times more sensitive than domesticated dolphins. "Similarly, after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, although most wild animals escaped the disaster, the corpses of domestic animals were everywhere.
Also living in the tsunami-stricken area, the local indigenous jarawa and onge people, like Wild animals also sense danger in advance, so there are almost no casualties. Is it because they are in a more primitive living state and are more sensitive than us living in modern civilization? Or is it easier for us to observe the behavior of wild animals? What about the abnormal results? This remains to be further studied by scientists.