Ants: Really Fast Or Just Really Stupid?

When people talk about animals that are fast, they usually talk about cheetahs or maybe rabbits. But ants are really really fast. If you measured their speed compared to their size, I bet it is several times faster than a cheetah. It's really not fair when you think about it. What are ants known for? Being small, and working really hard.

Well, they do work hard. At least it looks that way. I mean, like I said, they are really fast. And they run everywhere. Every time you see them they are running somewhere. And if you knock over an anthill they all take off. And they just run around in circles in complete panic. They don't seem to be going anywhere or doing anything, but on the other hand they don't all seem to be bumping into one another. Maybe the fact that they never go anywhere is why they're not known for their speed.

On second thought, maybe they don't work so hard. I mean, they run everywhere, but what are they doing? I mean, bees live in hives and it can't be easy to always be vomiting up wax and then forming it into perfect little octogons and then having to live in these little hives made out of your own vomit, but at least that takes some skill. Ants just live in little dirt piles. To bees they must be like poor people living in tar paper shacks on the outskirts of town.

Maybe ants are just stupid.

Cross-Breeding and Genetic Engineering

I've always wondered how animal breeders do it. I mean, I know intellectually how it works but it just seems amazing to me that someone can breed a toy poodle and an English sheepdog from the same gene pool. I've read that dachsunds were bred in Germany to stick their heads down holes and pull groundhogs up from their nests. Or whatever. So somehow some German guy isolated and bred genes that 1) made the dog really long, 2) gave it strong back legs, and 3) gave it a really strong desire to stick its head down holes in the ground when it doesn't even know for sure what's down there.

It just seems amazing to me that even before genetic engineering someone could do that. Now I hear that in China someone has engineered a cat that is green. In fact I've even seen pictures of it on CNN. I don't know why they did it. Maybe they were bored, or maybe some Chinese scientist could never figure out how to break the ice at parties trying to pick up women. And now instead of standing there feeling awkward he can say "I bleed gleen cat."

The thing about dogs though is that there is such a wide variety of shapes and sizes. You have some that never seem to get bigger than rats, and others that look like medium-sized bears. There do seem to be limits either way, but the variety is just amazing, which is more than you can say for practically any other animals.

I hope that none of those Chinese scientists ever get their hands on this and decide to breed a dog that's, say, three inches long, or one that's ten feet long and six feet high. That's all we need. After that killer bee thing in the 70s, I can just see something like that getting out of control. If those tiny dogs started infesting homes in China like mice, because eventually you know one of those Communists is going to bring some of them over here.

About the only other animal I can think of that has close to that much variety (or any variety at all) is the horse. Although even horses don't have 1/10th the variety that dogs do, at least they have some.

I suppose its because both horses and dogs have a variety of uses. Dogs can be trackers, pointers, guard dogs, or just pets. Horses can be draught horses and race horses, or whatever.

None of that explains the Shetland Pony, though. Especially if someone bred one on purpose. It must have been a rich, bored midget. Although you'd think he would have been practical and bred a Shetland Cow, too. That would have been cool. Maybe he died before the project was finished. Or maybe there was a Shetland Cow at one point but the secret to breeding them was lost to the ages, like the secret to making a Stradivarius violin.

Sometimes you see people cross-breeding stuff, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax. Horses and donkeys will do it naturally but they're about the only ones I can think of that do it. I've heard that you can (or scientists can, whatever) cross-breed giraffes with llamas, and cats with rabbits. I've never seen them, though. I have seen a horse crossed with a Zebra, though, but it wasn't anything spectacular; it just looked like a horse with striped socks on. Also I have looked up on the internet and seen pictures of a tiger-lion hybrid, which is so cool. But you never see a liger tamer in the circus or a professional sports team called the Tigons, so I guess its never really caught on.

Some things I've never heard of but you would think someone would have thought of by now. Like:

A chicken & a duck
A deer & a buffalo
A horse & a cow
A bear & a dog
A cow & a moose
A moose & a buffalo
A pig & a cow
A chimpanzee & a gorilla

Now why dont they give these things their own names? A horse and a donkey have a mule, and everyones heard of that. Maybe if they came up with a new name that wasnt so stupid, it would catch on.

I wonder why people don't raise moose for meat. I know people hunt moose because you always see their heads mounted on walls, and I assume they eat the rest of them. They can't be any harder to raise than cows.

Something else just occurred to me: In the song "Home On The Range", the line says "...where the deer and the antelope play". It's supposed to be a cowboy song. But antelope live in Africa.