Answered Questions!

Don’t let their adorableness fool you, cats are still very agile and diligent hunters! Primarily, cats will hunt birds and smaller mammals such as rodents for their food. If you own a cat, you may notice it pouncing on flies, mosquitos, or other insects on occasion. In this case, they are most likely doing so for amusement rather than for food.

Did you know that mosquitos are one of the most dangerous animals on the planet? These troublemakers serve as vectors for disease. In other words, they are known to spread diseases like malaria, Zika, and yellow fever around the globe and commonly give cats heartworm disease. So while cats have the dexterity to catch these small insects, it might not be for their best interest!

Do you think your cat has the skill level to catch a mosquito? Play the linked video and put their talent to the test!

I want to start by saying that if you leave snakes alone they will leave you alone!

Unfortunately there are no set rules for identifying if a snake is venomous or not. This is because of a concept in biology called mimicry, which means that some of the non-venomous snakes in an area will start to look like whatever venomous snakes are in that area. We think this is because when other animals that would normally eat eat snakes think a snake has the spicy spit*, they are more likely to leave that snake alone! One classic example in the United States is the coral snake and the kingsnake (see the picture on the right!)

The safest way to know if a snake is venomous or not is to learn to identify the venomous species in your area! You can do this by searching for your local fish and wildlife website and navigating to the snakes page! If you have questions about the snakes in your specific area of the world feel free to contact me here and I'll be happy to help you track down the correct information!

*bonus fact: venom glands in snakes evolved from the glands in other animals that make saliva. Both venom and saliva help animals to digest the food that we eat!

Great question! Evolution is complicated but technically apes did not evolve into humans because we humans are still apes! We are part of the group of primates classified as Hominidae, or more commonly called the 'great apes'. The other members of our Hominidae family are the orangutans, gorillas, chimps and all of our ancestors that came before us!

Our closest living relative of this group are the chips. You can think of chimps as our VERY distant cousins and we shared a common ancestor with the chips about 7 million years ago. This means that for the past 7 million years chimps have had their own set of branches on the family tree and we humans have been doing the same thing on our own branch! Before humans and chimps split off on separate family branches, the chimp/human branch of our family tree shared a common ancestor with gorillas about 8 million years ago. The very first split of the great ape family tree happened about 12 million years ago and split the orangutans from the chimp/human/gorilla part of the tree.

For the past 7 million years there have been lots of different Homo species on our branch of the Hominid family tree, but our species (Homo sapiens) is the only one that hasn't gone extinct! Some of the adaptations that have shown up only on our branch of the family tree include the size of our skull relative to the size of our bodies and the shape of our pelvis and leg bones that helps us to walk upright.

The way these adaptations came about is the same way all adaptations come about, random mutations in the genes of our ancestors occurred that just so happen to help the individuals that had those mutations survive and reproduce to pass those genes onto the next generation. Over millions of years those small changes add up to large differences between different branches of our family tree!

This video does a really good job of explaining what we know and what we don't know about our branch of the family tree that split off from chimpanzees! Like I said, this topic is complicated and if you have any more questions I would love to talk with you about them! Please reach out on the ask a question page!

Both venomous and poisonous creatures are able to make toxins or substances that will harm other plants or animals. The difference is that venomous creatures have some way to inject their toxin, while the toxins from poisonous plants and animals must be eaten or absorbed for their toxins to work!

There are some grey areas though. For example, a spitting cobra's toxin is BOTH venomous and poisonous. If the snek spits at you and the toxin is absorbed through your skin, you have been poisoned! But if the danger noodle bites you, then you have been envenomated!

Examples of venomous creatures: Bees and snakes

Examples of poisonous creatures: Frogs and mushrooms

Find out more about these toxins and about some crazy evolutionary arms race from the brain scoop here!

Giraffe horns aren't actually horns! Those bumps on their head are called ossicones, and while they are made out of similar materials as horns, ossicones are covered in skin (like antlers) but not shed every year (like horns). While we are not sure why giraffe's are born with their ossicones, we do know that male giraffes tend to have larger ossicones than female giraffes because just like in other animals with head gear, the males use them to fight each other!

Learn more about giraffe evolution and their closest relatives here!