Mammals - Animal Questions.org

Do Aardvarks Hibernate?

Aardvarks do not hibernate. They are mostly solitary and nocturnal creatures. However sometimes they have been known to come out during the day to bask in the sun. Although, typically these creatures do not leave their burrows until late sometime in the afternoon or sometime after sunset.

Hibernation is the process that occurs in mammals such as birds during the winter. During this process they store food in the fall and then sleep throughout the winter season, and wake up in the spring. If it were not for hibernation, mammals such as the bird would not be able to find their food in the winter, so hibernation makes them sleep and not get hungry, which also slows down their heart rate thus reducing the need for food until spring arrives. Aardvarks do not hibernate and food for them is not scarce during winter months. They also reside in very hot, dry places so hibernating is typically not necessary for them as most are found in places such as deserts.

Are Aardvarks Related To Anteaters?

Aardvarks and anteaters are not related. Though it was once assumed that they were due to a few of their physical similarities. However, the truth of the matter is that the two do not have similarities as a sign of sharing a common ancestor, but rather due to convergent evolution.

All have evolved powerful digging forearms and long tongues. They also possess tube like snouts that do not consist of teeth that help the creatures make a living by raiding termite mounts. This similarity is often the people mistake that aardvarks and anteaters are related.

Furthermore, Anteaters are one of the three surviving families of a group of mammals that was once very diverse, and occupied South America. While it was geographically isolated from an invasion of animals from Northern America. The other two groups of animals being armadillos and sloths. These two creatures though they may in appearance seem to be related, are actually two very different species that differ in a number of characteristics. For one thing Aardvarks are from the family Oryteropodidae while the Anteater is from the family Cyclopedidae, Mrymecophagidae.

Aardvarks are creatures that live below the ground in burrows and unlike the Anteater possess teeth. In fact, their teeth are a cylindrical shape that will continue to grow throughout its lifetime. Aardvarks are nocturnal creatures that sleep during the day and are more active at night, whereas the Anteater is diurnal meaning that it is awake during the day and sleeps during the night.

Do Aardvarks Have Teeth?

Aardvarks do have teeth; however these teeth are located at the back of the jaw and are often referred to as “cheek teeth”. The aardvark’s teeth are actually even one of its most distinctive characteristics. Instead of having a pulp cavity in their tooth, they have a number of thin tubes of dentine (a calcified tissue of the body), each containing pulp held together by cementum (a specialized calcified substance covering the roof of the mouth.) That’s correct, you heard right, these creatures do not have enamel on their teeth, their teeth are made of a certain kind of cement.

It is because of this that their teeth are easily worn away. The aardvark’s teeth continue to grow throughout its life and new born aardvarks have some conventional teeth such as incisors and canines, however these fall out and are not replaced. An aardvark’s teeth are very soft. Another interesting thing to know about these creatures teeth is that they only possess 10 of them total.

Are Dogs Allergic to Chocolate?

Dogs are not ‘allergic’ to chocolate however chocolate does react differently to a dog’s body chemistry than it does to that of a human’s thus actually making chocolate poisonous to dogs. This is no reason to panic if Fido happens to sneak a few chocolate crumbs or an M&M off of the floor. The toxicity in chocolate to dogs varies by the type and amount of chocolate as well as the dog’s weight. You might be wondering what it is about chocolate that makes it toxic to dogs. Chocolate contains theobromine, which acts as a stimulant. Unlike a human’s body, a dog’s body does not metabolize theobromine quickly thus prolonging the process and intensifying the stimulant and having a negative effect on the dog’s heart and nervous system. In sufficient amounts this has been known to cause seizures and cardiac arrest.

When consumed in smaller amounts, theobromine in chocolate makes dogs sick and can lead to potential kidney damage. Although a six pound Papillion eating a few ounces of chocolate may have experience different side effects than say a seventy five pound golden retriever that consumes thirty something ounces of chocolate, the best rule is to keep all kinds of chocolate away from all types of dogs.

If you suspect that your dog has eaten chocolate a few signs they may be exhibiting include acting hyper, excessive excitement, irritability, frequent urination, racing heart, and symptoms may eventually progress to vomiting, lethargy, muscle tremors, and/or diarrhea. The final stages of chocolate poisoning include seizures and sometimes even death. If you know or suspect that your dog has consumed a significant amount of chocolate contact an emergency hotline or veterinarian immediately. If it has been less than two hours since the chocolate has been consumed, inducing the dog to vomit may be suggested. However if it has been longer than two hours this means that the metabolic processing has already gone too far and vomiting will not be beneficial. It is at this point that you should seek emergency professional medical care for your canine friend before fatality strikes.

Other foods that are toxic to dogs include: garlic, large quantities of onions, raw salmon, mushrooms, grapes, raisins, sugarless candies, and caffeine.

Can Elephants Swim?

Elephants, like most mammals including humans are known to be very good, untiring swimmers. Moving all four legs to swim they are able to do so quickly and efficiently and even better than most mammals. Amazingly enough, their massive bodies surprisingly provide enough floatation while their trunks act as a sort of snorkel device. It should be noted that elephants mostly swim with their face above water and their mouths below the water’s surface. As mentioned before, they use their trunks as a sort of snorkel and doing so permits them to breathe while they are underwater.

As elephants are very efficient at swimming and are also very strong, massive animals, they can swim long distances with great ease unlike some mammals who may have a harder time. Experts have even suggested that elephants may have once swam from Southern India to Sri Lankia, where they eventually settled.

Elephants love water and they also love to swim, younger elephants in particular. They also enjoy diving into the water and find great fun in fighting the waves and climbing about in the water onto the older elephant group members before splashing playfully back into the water. They can also be seen bathing in the water or wandering about, shooting water from their trunks playfully at one another and all kinds of other crazy antics.

Contrary to what some people may believe, elephants do not tire very easily when swimming. In fact, an elephant becoming tired from swimming is almost unheard of! Their trunks may even be seen every now and then peeping up above the water’s surface to take a breath, but not long after you will see it disappear beneath the surface again as they continue swimming along their way, quickly and efficiently to their next destination.

Do Cats Get Colds?

It is not uncommon for cats to come down with a cold every now and then. The symptoms of such a cold will be very similar to the symptoms humans experience when they have a cold. Your cat may exhibit the following symptoms: sneezing, coughing, wheezing, runny nose or mouth, mucous discharge, breathing problems, cold sores, and/or red teary eyes with discharge. Cat colds are very contagious and interestingly enough cats are more susceptible to catching them during the summertime.

However, don’t fret if you have a cold. Your cat cannot contract a cold that way. The cold virus is species specific which means pets and humans cannot pass a cold back and forth to each other. Your cat can however pick up a cold from the kennel, vet, groomers, or if it is an indoor/outdoor cat it can pick up the virus if it encounters a cat with a cold outside. Cold’s are serious in cats, and especially in multiple cat households.

While we can take medication for our colds to better ourselves, cats cannot. Then what can you do for your cat? First of all, never try using human over the counter remedies. These are dangerous to the cat and can be fatal. Usually a cat’s cold lasts for about the same amount of time as a human cold (7-10 days) and they will eventually get over it as we do.

However this is not to say that a cat with a cold should just be overlooked and or left untreated. As mentioned before, colds in cats can be very serious and are very contagious to other cats. If the viral infection travels to the lungs or bronchial area it can cause a lower respiratory infection or a secondary infection can occur in the mouth, nose or eyes. Once a cat gets a respiratory infection it is possible for it to reoccur time and again. This is why it is important to contact your pet’s veterinarian at the first sign of a cold. This can prevent the cold from turning into something more serious and can also save you lots of costly vet bills in the long run.

A more serious upper respiratory infection would have the following symptoms: fever, enlarged lymph nodes, yellow or green discharge from the eyes and nose, and loss of appetite. Antibiotics from a vet would be necessary to treat this infection. If your cat is experiencing any cold like symptoms or the previously listed more dangerous symptoms it needs to be seen by a vet immediately.

Another reason it is important to get your cat to a veterinarian sooner rather than later is because a cat smells their food before eating it. If your cat has a cold he will not be able to smell his food and he will stop eating or drinking. This can cause dehydration to occur and the cat will start using its own fat stores for energy. This is really not good for kitty’s health. A cat needs to eat and drink because if it does not it can come down with a condition known as hepatic lipidosis also known as fatty liver syndrome, which in turn can become life threatening. If your cat shows any signs of not eating or drinking, do not wait, call your vet immediately.

There are two types of viruses that can cause a cat to have cold like symptoms. The first is known as feline herpesvirus (FHV) and the second is feline calcivirus (FCV). Keeping your cat up to date on its vaccinations is important as there are vaccines for both FHV and FCV that can be given at regular intervals. Keeping your cat indoors is also the smartest way to ensure your cat will not get sick.

A cat’s runny nose or drippy eyes can be wiped with a warm washcloth and giving them a little extra loving care can help too. However again this does not cure kitty completely, it just helps make him or her more comfortable, so checking with your vet is the number one thing to do here to ensure your cat can make a speedy recovery without any lasting medical problems.

Do Dolphins Have Hair?

Although dolphins have blubber instead of fur that help hold in its heat and give it a streamline shape, it is true that dolphins do have hair, but only a tiny bit. The only place that they have hair is right next to their blowhole. Though most dolphins do not have hair, they do have hair follicles. These hair follicles are believed to perform some sort of sensory function. For instance, the small hairs found on the Boto river dolphin are believed to function as a tactile sense possibly to compensate for the creature’s poor eyesight.

Are Dolphins Monogamous?

The sex life and reproduction of a dolphin is quite fascinating and differs from many other mammals in a few ways. Dolphins have been found to most often reproduce during the spring, with a male-female courtship ritual playing a large part in dolphin dating. To copulate the male dolphin nudges the female dolphin from behind with his sex organ for several minutes and then mounts her from behind. After this, dolphin mating is about the same as any other mammalian mating.

However to many people’s surprise, dolphins are among the most sexual animals on earth and are not monogamous. When aroused, a dolphin male may even mate several times an hour, often with the same female but not always. Due to the fact that dolphins are not monogamous, dolphin mothers usually rely on other female dolphins which act as “midwives” to help take care of and protect them and their calves.

After eleven or twelve months, female dolphins give birth to their young with the assistance of another female dolphin or “midwife”. Birth can happen anywhere and when it does the pod will often be seen surrounding her protectively while she is in labor as a way to defend the mother and calve and fend off any predators such as sharks who may be thinking about picking up a quick meal.

Baby dolphins are born tail first to avoid drowning, and are usually single births, with the exception of a few smaller dolphin species that have been known to give birth to two calves. During the birthing process, dolphin mothers help the calves to reach the surface by swimming beneath them and then gently lifting upward to get their first breath. Afterwards, the calves typically try to feed by finding the mammary glands located in the sacs toward the mother’s rear. Nursing has been known to generally continue anywhere from twelve to eighteen months.

Calves must eat quickly, as it is important for them to get back up to the surface to breathe. It is because of this that unlike most mammals that are equipped with a way to suckle their mother’s milk, dolphin mothers instead have specialized muscle contractions that squirt milk into the calves’ mouth. Dolphin calves grow very quickly on the high fat of their mother’s milk, and in some species have even been known to double in weight within a mere two weeks.

Are Dogs Carnivores?

Dogs evolved directly from the timber wolf somewhere around 15,000 years ago and have recently been reclassified as Canis lupus familaris placing it in the same species as the grey wolf, Canis lupus. This means that by all scientific and evolutionary history, a dog is simply a domesticated wolf. Wolves, are carnivores, and by their genetic pedigree dogs also have carnivorous traits such as their teeth and digestive system. However in spite of this natural carnivorous design dogs have managed to continue evolving over the years sometimes surviving on nothing but the scraps they find which can be meat or non-meat products thus overtime it has been proven that canines are fully capable of thriving on a variety of foods and still staying healthy. It is important for pet owners to understand that dogs have the ability to eat an extremely diverse diet and such should be practiced. They have significant omnivorous ability however their bodies are also optimized to eat and digest meat.

A dog’s teeth or fangs as many people like to call them are narrow and pointy and meant for grabbing and puncturing, incisors are for nibbling, premolars for tearing, molars for crushing bone, and their jaws can only move up and down in a chopping motion, which is a helpful combination for cutting meat into smaller chunks to digest it properly. Simply put dogs do not really chew or grind, they chop or shred. Whereas if you think of your typical herbivore such as a cow, they chew their cud from side to side and have broad, flat teeth in the back which are ideal for grinding grains and plant material into finer particles. True omnivores (humans) share this combination of boxy back teeth and the sideways grinding motion that herbivores have.

Something to keep in mind is that dogs do not digest carbohydrates very well. This is due to the fact that their enzymes unlike herbivores and omnivores are produced further down the digestive track in the small intestine. Without Amylase, (the enzyme plant eating animals produce in their saliva that is needed to initiate the breakdown of starchy carbohydrates) a carnivore’s digestion of carbohydrates is more difficult. Thus feeding a dog starchy carbohydrates can place a lot of unnecessary strain on the pancreas.

Since carnivores consume fewer but larger meals they have bigger and highly elastic stomachs designed to hold large quantities of meat, bone, organs and hide. Having this kind of stomach also means that they exhibit a higher concentration of stomach acid than herbivores or omnivores do. This allows for faster digestion of animal protein. The stronger acid kills the disease causing bacteria in decaying meat and also allows for digesting large chunks of meat and even pieces of raw bone.

Today’s dog food marketplace only does more to prove the dog’s adaptive ability when it comes to their diet. Some foods feature meat while others feature only vegetables, while some foods feature both. A variety of dog foods are even made entirely of cereal grains and beans. The large variety of options available can often make it difficult for pet owners to decide on a product however taking a few things into consideration can be helpful. First of all meat-based products are closer to a dog’s natural ancestral diet.

Some pet owners prefer not to feed their dog kibble or raw food scraps and instead like to “spoil” their dog by cooking them special meals. Some may even be under the impression that this is the healthier choice in feeding their beloved Fido. However what many don’t realize and something that is extremely important to know is that when cooking these meals the heat breaks down vitamins and amino acids in the food and also can produce undesirable cross-linkages in proteins especially meat proteins. In fact at one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit two of the eight essential amino acids, tryptophan, and lysine are destroyed. Raw food is better for dogs as it does not lack the proper vitamins, minerals and enzymes. Bones are also a good raw food for dogs to have as they help clean the teeth and scrape away bacteria remaining that can cause disease.

Do Dolphins Have a Sense of Smell?

Dolphins are an interesting character and lack olfactory receptors (interestingly enough, the olfactory tract and bulb only exist in the fetal stage of development) therefore, it is true that dolphins do not have a sense of smell.

However though they lack in this department, it should not be assumed that they are not efficient in their other senses. In fact they have acute eyesight both in and out of water and they can hear frequencies ten times or more above the upper limit of adult human hearing. A dolphin’s sense of touch is also well developed, with free nerve-endings densely packed into the skin, especially around the snout, pectoral fins and genital area.

Something that is also very interesting is the fact that although dolphins lack a sense of smell, they do not lack a sense of taste as a result of not being able to smell. They also show preferences to certain kinds of fish opposed to others. Since dolphins spend most of their time underwater, tasting the water can function as smelling in that substances in the water can signal the presence of objects that are not in the dolphin’s mouth.