Weird and Wonderful Animals

By Claire Eamer

I am fascinated by animals that surprise me, that make me rethink my assumptions about what is and isn't possible. Maybe they do something I'm sure they can't do. Or they find a completely unexpected way to survive in their bit of the world. Or they make me rethink how I survive in the world. 

Take, for example, the American dipper or water ouzel, scientific name Cinclus mexicanus.

American dipper. Photo by Ron Knight.

I used to live in Whitehorse, on the banks of the Yukon River in northern Canada. The river is huge and fast-flowing. And it's cold. In winter, it's mostly covered in ice with only a few patches of open water kept clear by the current.

Walking along a river trail one winter day, I saw a small black bird standing on the ice at the edge of the open water. As I watched, it dove straight into the (literally) icy water and disappeared. Just when I began to think it was drowned and frozen, it popped back out of the water and hopped onto the ice, looking none the worse for what should have been a near-death experience.

It was an American dipper, a species that pushes the boundaries of bird life. Dippers can stick their heads under water to search for food and swim underwater by using a flying movement with their short, strong wings. They can even walk along the bottom of a fast-moving stream, holding on with their extra-long toes and claws. 

An American dipper searches for food. Photo by David A Mitchell.

Watching that bird in Whitehorse led me to think about other animals that push boundaries, and that led to my book Lizards in the Sky: Animals Where You Least Expect Them (Annick Press). Snakes that glide from tree to tree, tiny worms that survive on glaciers, salamanders that live in the complete darkness of deep caves: they're all there.

My most recent animal book came from another kind of rethinking -- about why we find some animals or their habits disgusting and what they are really like if you don't just say, "Gross!" and turn away.

The result of my fascination with everything disgusting in the animal world was Extremely Gross Animals: Stinky, Slimy and Strange Animal Adaptations (Kids Can Press). It's full of animals that use puke and poop and spit and other gross stuff to survive. And if you look closely and ask questions, you'll find that they use it very well indeed.

I started by researching all things slimy and smelly (and found some great information), but I think my favourite beastie in the book is now the humble dung beetle. That might be because I found some in my own back yard.

It truth, dung beetles aren't all particularly humble. There are thousands of species of beetle that use dung as food or home or nest or all these. Some, like the elephant dung beetle, are big and showy. Elephant dung beetles actually eat elephant dung (thought it was just a name, didn't you?). Actually, they form it into a ball, roll it away, and bury it to make both a nest and food source for their young. 

[Take a look at Sci/Why contributor Margriet Ruurs's column about a trip to Africa, where she saw elephant dung balls -- and a lot more!] 

The dung beetles in my back yard aren't nearly as big or as showy. They don't roll the dung into balls. Instead, they dig little dens under it and use it as both protection and a food source for themselves and their young.

Two tiny dung beetles scurry away from the author.

I should explain that my back yard includes a couple of acres of forest on one of British Columbia's Gulf Islands -- and a lot of passing deer. I was curious about whether anything dung-beetle-like was using the deer droppings, so I went in search. 

I found a small pile of deer poop, about the size of a pocket wallet. It was dry on top and probably a few days old. I turned it over (using a stick, not my hand -- Come on! Some things really are a bit gross!). 

And there they were! Dung beetles -- two of them, peeking out of two little holes in the ground, the tunnels they had dug under the dung. Before I could tell them how pleased I was to discover them, they scooted away in search of another welcoming patch of deer droppings.

But I was pleased. It was a delight to meet some of the stars of my book face to face.

NOTE: The photos by Ron Knight and David A. Mitchell are licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.