Very strange animal phenomena

1,000 blackbirds Dead. They appeared on the road, scattered on the ground, as if they suddenly lost their ability to fly crashing into the asphalt. It could be a plot from the Haven series, a Fourth Millennium special or even a biblical premonition. What happened in Arkansas on Christmas Eve 2011 and in 2012 and 2013? And in Louisiana? The point is that on January 1, 2014 marked the fourth consecutive year in which the phenomenon was repeated again. The word 'apocalypse' floods the mouths of neighbors despite the theory of scientists: fireworks, horns, screams of rage for the new year, would cause the disorientation of this bird, the blackbird, a species with poor visibility, what that would make them fly aimlessly or right at night crashing with any element. That would explain, in part, these deaths. The truth is that in 2014 the record of deaths was marked: 18 million blackbirds flooded the soils of the town of Beebe. And scientists no longer know which theory to stick to. The mystery continues.

It is in Austin, Texas, where the largest urban bat colony in the world is located. In summer, the city is filled with these mammals that nest, attention, under the Bridge of Congress Avenue. Here the neighbors arrive to see the flight at sunset of an average of one and a half million bats flying trumpeted under the sound of their shrieks. And where is the largest natural colony? In Texas too, the State-Bat par excellence. An estimated 20 million bats inhabit the Bracken Cave in San Antonio. Here is a Conservation Center that organizes visits to the cave, explaining the migratory processes (they arrive every summer from the warm Mexican lands).

Australia seems to be a compendium of islands dedicated, almost thematically, to animal species. If we talked before Christmas Island and its crabs, we now discovered Fraser Island, the island of dogs. Or, rather, of the dingos. This species of wild canine is in danger of extinction. Therefore, it is not allowed to enter the island with dogs of another breed, thus preventing the purity of this canine from being lost. Fraser Island is located 200 kilometers from Brisbane and is considered the largest sand island in the world. To avoid pollution and possible degradation of the dingo habitat, the island is composed of walkways and bridges. Here the dingo rules.

Shark Bay is located in the westernmost part of Australia and is in broad strokes, a huge bay enclosed by narrow peninsulas and dotted with numerous islands. The ecosystem conditions are unique, giving rise, for example, to the most extensive seagrass meadow in the world, and to the survival of species perfectly adapted to the place, such as thousands of dolphins, sea cows known as dugongs, or the strange formations millenarian stromatolites. In Monkey Mia, an area within Shark Bay, another curiosity has been happening daily for four decades: bottlenose dolphins come to the coast accustomed to feeding by humans, a unique contact only produced in this part of the planet. In the 1960s, a fisherman began feeding the dolphins after returning from a fishing day. What was a simple habit, over time became an attraction for tourists.

Rabbit Island, the island of rabbits, officially known as Ōkunoshima, in the Japanese prefecture of Hiroshima. Why is an island in the middle of the Inland Sea infested with rabbits? The same ones that today are a claim for the visit, in their time were the 'guinea pigs' of the Japanese struggle during World War II. Unoskunoshima functioned as a military test base and it is said that rabbits were taken to the island because it was here that they manufactured and tested the chemical gases of the Japanese army. Once the war was over, the rabbits ran free around the island, procreating. And until today. Rabbits of chemical warfare. Or not? Other voices rise proclaiming that the rabbits that inhabit Ōkunoshima today have nothing to do with the military history of the island. Anyway, going to feed these animals is a show.

The rains of fish and frogs in history are not phenomena at all isolated. Although there is no knowledge of a case as repetitive and cyclical as that of Yoro, the precipitation of aquatic animals, amphibians and other much more bizarre rains took place thousands of times in the history of mankind. Yoro, Honduras. As every year for the rainy season, between May and June, the inhabitants of the town of Yoro prepare their buckets, basins and all that container capable of containing what the sky will soon bring to them. And it is not rain. At least, not in the conventional sense. What the population of Yoro expects is the annual precipitation of fish, a meteorological phenomenon so strange (perhaps a divine gift) that so far it does not find scientific explanation sufficiently finished. Today, rare rains still continue to surprise in every place in the world. Such is the case of the rain of small frogs, on Alicante, Spain, produced in 2007. Or the fall of spiders on the outskirts of the province of Salta, Argentina, photographed by a reader of The Great Epoch, in the same year . In 2008, two unconventional rains were also recorded: in Taperal de Beniganim, Spain, where it rained fish and small frogs.

What does a penguin like you do on a beach like this? We are in Boulder's Beach, in the South African city of Simon's Town, penguin territory. The origin of this curious colony took place in 1983, when a couple arrived from which the species began to proliferate. As with Fraser Island, caring for the species is the priority, so there are fenced walkways and accesses to avoid interaction with the penguins' natural environment, which have their own beach southeast of Cape Town.

Imagine a tree completely covered with butterflies until you see the branches bend by weight or walk among the wings of hundreds of thousands of (beautiful) insects. This is what happens annually from August to October, with the displacement of monarch butterflies over 4,000 kilometers from Canada and the United States to the temperate forests of Michoacán, in Mexico, and also to areas of California (Santa Cruz and Pacific Grove, fundamentally) to hibernate. The color show, between the black and orange of its wings, is sweeping.

In the Bahamas there is an area dotted with 360 islands (cays) in the Exuma district. In one of them, uninhabited, when arriving embarked there is something that does not end up fitting: on the beach there are pigs that when they see a boat approaching with tourists, they launch to swim and in some way, to give a nice welcome: In this paradise We would all expect to see idyllic beaches, reefs, explore dive sites and even caverns, but I think few would expect to sail and approach the coast to receive a community of swimming pigs. It happens in Big Major Cay, or better known as Pig Beach, a small island home of the "swimming pigs." There is not much accurate information about how pigs ended up living in this paradise, perhaps abandoned by a boat. The funny thing is that over the years, the pigs adapted to beach life, and today they got used to approaching boats with tourists traveling there just to see them and of course, give them something to eat.

How does this movement occur? Out of fear In reality, the flight accompanied by these birds responds to a dissuasive way of giving up, in front of birds of prey or any threat. Given this, they practice the saying of "union is strength" flying with complete coordination. His sense of perception is such that any change in speed in one of the components of the flock is transmitted to the rest by pure mimesis, simultaneously. Pure survival Almost magic.

The phenomenon of migration leaves us with prints such as large mammals in Kenya, zebras, antelopes, wildebeest ... moving in huge herds in search of green shoots, after the rainy season. But there are migrations that, due to their protagonists' smallness, are more than curious. This is the case of the red crab on Christmas Island, Australia. Precisely, the migration of the red crustacean begins at Christmas time, when they move from the tropical forest of the island to the coast of the Indian Ocean to reproduce. The amount of crabs in motion is such that the island is already accustomed to the closure of roads and train tracks (to avoid crushing animals) for at least a week. Awesome.