Smart Animals: Ground Squirrel Use the Sun for Navigation

A new study revealed that ground squirrels temporarily rely of the position of the sun to roughly serve as a navigational aide to find the storage place of their foods. The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed that ground squirrels either moves towards or away from the sun, with its horizontal angle of their direction deviated slightly from the direction of the sun, when searching for a suitable hiding place for its spoils.

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Do Animals Get Drunk on Purpose?

In South Africa, local legend has it that the elephants like to get drunk. They seek out the marula tree, overindulge on its sweet fruits, and enjoy the intoxicating effects of the slightly fermented juice.  Tales of the tipsy pachyderms go back at least two centuries. In the 1830s, a French naturalist called Adulphe Delegorgue described stories from his Zulu guides of mysteriously aggressive behaviour in male elephants after they fed on the marula fruits. "The elephant has in common with man a predilection for a gentle warming of the brain induced by fruit which has been fermented by the action of the sun," wrote Delegorgue.

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Top 5 Summer Pet Hazards

The recent heat wave that cooked much of the U.S. killed dozens of people across the country, but in addition to the human casualties, animals also perished in the sweltering heat and humidity. Just as heat and sun can be hazardous to human health, animals are vulnerable to the numerous risks summer poses.

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