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When there is a loss in a crow family the others understand and grieve.

Pigeons can remember people they have seen before.

Only some birds have the skill to sleep while flying.

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Think you know everything about birds? Think again

| Story by Meghan McMahon 11/28/2022 |
It makes sense that so many humans would feel such an affinity for birds, because the avian world is so vast. And with more than 10,000 described bird species in the world, some of them are bound to be a little, well, unusual. But sometimes it's the unusual that we find so endearing.

So from the weirdly wild to the wackily wonderful, here are 10 fun facts about some of our beloved feathered friends.

Crows hold funerals

Mourning is not well understood in the animal kingdom, but growing evidence suggests that some animals grieve in ways similar to humans. Elephants are the most well-known example, but crows also recognize death, holding funerals for their dead.

RELATED READING: ANIMALS, THEY'RE JUST LIKE US

A crow funeral is much like a human funeral. The birds will gather around a fallen crow and call to each other and pay close attention to their fallen peer, National Geographic reports. Why they do it, though, is not quite the same as human funerals.

While humans gather to mourn and remember lost loved ones, crows appear to do it to evaluate whether there is a threat to them, National Geographic reports. They aren't mourning so much as investigating whether their fellow crow died from something that could also pose a danger to other crows. Crows aren't alone in this behavior. It's common among corvids, a group of highly intelligent birds that in addition to crows also includes ravens, magpies and jays, according to National Geographic.

Hummingbirds can fly backward and hover in place

Teeny, tiny hummingbirds are a sight to behold, and their flight skills are nothing short of spectacular. They can, of course, fly forward and up and down, but they can also fly backward and even hover in place, the only bird with this capability, according to the National Audubon Society.

It has been said the hummingbirds' impressive flight capabilities inspired helicopters, but there is no proof of this. It is true, though, that researchers are studying how hummingbirds' flight capabilities might make drones more efficient, the Audubon Society reports.

Some birds cover themselves in ants

Many birds, particularly songbirds, are known to engage in a behavior called "anting," in which the birds pick up ants in their bills and then wipe or rub them on their feathers, often repeating the process with many ants at a time. This seemingly unusual behavior has been observed in more than 200 bird species, including cardinals, robins, crows, great horned owls and wild turkeys, according to BirdWatching.

Why birds engage in this behavior isn't exactly understood, although researchers believe it may have to do with maintaining their feathers. It also may help control parasites and other organisms on their feathers, because the species of ants used for anting typically have high concentrations of formic acid, which can help kill mites and parasites, BirdWatching reports.

Anting is most common in late summer and early fall, when many birds are molting, so scientists believe it may have to do with soothing their irritated skin when their feathers are quickly being replaced, BirdWatching reports. And while ants are the most common choice for anting, other insects have been used as well, including beetles and millipedes.

Owls swallow some of their food whole

Birds don't have teeth, so they rely on other means of eating and digesting their food. In the case of owls, they swallow small prey like mice and voles whole, letting their digestive system do the work of separating the digestible and non-digestible parts. The bits they can't digest, like feathers and bones, collect in their gizzard, a muscular part of a birds' stomach that collects and compacts the gritty, undigestible bits of their meals, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

And how do all those undigestible bits come out? The same way they went in. The owl's gizzards will contract all those bits to squeeze out most of the liquid, then the owl regurgitates the pellet, the Cornell Lab reports. Regurgitating pellets isn't unique to owls, though. Many other birds do it as well, including other birds of prey, egrets, herons and kingfishers. When an owl's catch is too big to swallow whole, they simply rip it into pieces, swallowing the more manageably sized chunks.

Northern shrikes impale their food

Life in the animal kingdom isn't always cute or dainty, and that's certainly the case with northern shrikes. These birds are unusual among songbirds in that they often eat small birds and mammals along with insects. They don't always eat their catch right away, though. Sometimes they store it for later, which they do in an unusual way.

Shrikes are ambush hunters, catching their prey with their feet and then diving to the ground with it to finish killing the animal, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. When they aren't prepared to eat their catch, they look for a sharp object - barbed wire, a sharp stick or branch or something similar - and impale it so they can keep it safe for a future meal. For this unusual behavior, they have earned the nickname "butcher birds."

Northern shrikes, mostly light gray and white with black markings on their wings and around their eyes, are a winter bird in northern Illinois, spending summers on their breeding grounds along the northern edges of Canada's boreal forests, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. On sunny winter days, look for them perched atop utility lines or at the top of bushes and trees. They stick to the same territory all winter long, so if you see one nearby you may see it occasionally throughout the season.

Woodpeckers can peck really fast

Woodchucks don't chuck wood, but woodpeckers definitely do peck wood. And they peck it for many reasons. Sometimes they are looking for an insect meal, while other times they are trying to create a

cavity for a nest or roosting spot. In the spring, woodpeckers can be downright annoying when they drum away at wood and other surfaces while trying to attract a mate, according to Mass Audubon.

All that pecking really adds up - to as much as 8,000 pecks per day, according to Birds & Blooms. And it's not just the quantity of pecks but the speed with which they can do it that is impressive. Downy woodpeckers can peck as fast as 16 times a second. Is there anything you can do 16 times in a single second?

Pigeons can recognize humans

Not good with faces? Pigeons are, and it's faces in particular that they recognize. Even with a change of clothes, pigeons are able to recognize particular faces, Live Science reports. And they seem to use this ability to stay away from people who aren't especially friendly.

Scientists tested the theory by having two researchers of similar build and skin color but wearing different colored lab coats feed pigeons, Live Science reports. One ignored the birds after providing the food, while the other chased the birds away. Then they repeated the feeding session again, but with neither person acting hostile toward the pigeons. On the second and subsequent sessions, the pigeons diligently avoided the researcher who chased them away in the first session. Even when the two researchers switched lab coats the pigeons avoided the originally hostile researcher.

Crows, too, are also said to be able to recognize people and even remember which humans are good and which are bad. Some crows have even been known to leave "gifts" for humans who feed them.

Blue jays collect paint chips

If you find patches of paint missing from your house, you might just have blue jays to blame. As unusual as it may sound, the jays sometimes hoard chips of paint, usually light-colored paint, to use as a source of calcium in the spring, according to Nature Canada. Why do they need calcium? To lay eggs. Many paints contain limestone, which is a good source of calcium.

Hoarding paint chips seems to be most common in the northeastern United States, and researchers believe it's because acid rain is common there. The acid in the rain depletes calcium content in the soil, causing blue jays to seek another source, according to Project FeederWatch.

Some birds can sleep while flying

You've probably heard the phrase "sleep with one eye open," but its's not just a silly expression in the avian world. Some birds actually can sleep with one eye open, and some can even sleep in flight. Seriously.

How do they do this? Well, birds don't sleep quite as deeply as humans do. They usually sleep for just brief spells until being startled awake by predators, other nearby birds or weather conditions, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology reports. Some birds are also capable of what is called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, or USWS. This allows birds to quickly jump into action if they are threatened but also rest if conditions are safe. So effective is this form of sleep that it allows the birds to sleep with one eye open or even while flying.

The ability to sleep in flight is particularly useful for birds during long migratory flights. One long-distant migrant, the alpine swift, can even fly for 200 straight days because of its ability to catch some shut eye while flying, the Cornell Lab reports.

Turkey vultures puke in self-defense

Turkey vultures eat dead animals almost exclusively, but it's far from their only disgusting - at least to humans - behavior. They have a pretty effective defense mechanism too. How do they keep potential threats at bay? They vomit on whatever happens to be threatening or harassing them, according to the Washington NatureMapping Program. They can really hurl too - launching their vomit as far as 10 feet. And as you might expect, puking on potential predators is pretty effective at keeping them at bay. Turkey vultures are the most well-known animal pukers, but some gulls, terns and herons have also been known to engage in the act.

You've probably already been convinced that turkey vultures are just about the grossest birds out there, but there's one more thing that might make your stomach turn. They also poop on their feet to cool off, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. When they defecate on their legs, it moisturizes the skin, and that moisture can evaporate like sweat does, which cools them.
(All images via Shutterstock)

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With more than 10,000 described bird species in the world, some of them are bound to be a little, well, unusual.

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Fish can communicate using movements and work together to hunt.

They have excellent memory.

Fish build up their ecosystem.

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Fish play diverse and significant roles in our society. Here in Canada, they're the third most popular pet after cats and dogs, and the second most common research model after mice. Millions are caught recreationally across the country every year, while at least a billion more are farmed and caught commercially. Fish are also essential to the ocean, lake and river ecosystems that we depend on.

Even though fish are so widely used, we tend to give them very little thought. When we do notice them, we often don't see past their glassy stares and gaping mouths to wonder at their inner lives. Yet, a growing body of research from around the world is revealing just how much we might be overlooking.

Fish are incredible creatures, with complex mental, emotional and behavioural abilities.

1. Fish are social and cooperative

Giant moray eels and Red Sea coral groupers often hunt together. First, the groupers make gestures to ask the eels to join them on a hunt - a kind of fish sign language. Then, once out hunting, they adopt complementary roles: the eels can squeeze into crevices too small for the groupers, while the groupers are faster swimmers in open water. Working together, the pair has a better chance of catching something to eat.

Other species of fish work together to hunt prey. Fish, such as groupers and coral trout, will send a visual signal to show other fish the location of a hidden prey. Together, they will catch prey at a higher rate than when hunting alone. Groupers don't just cooperate with other fish. They'll also invite octopuses to hunt.

2. Fish feel pleasure, not just pain

Fish interact and form relationships with each other and other fish species. For example, bluestreak cleaner wrasses provide a special service to fellow fish. The wrasses swim into the gills and mouths of their "clients" to remove and feed on their parasites. In some cases, their clients are fish who'd otherwise eat them. So, to help appease them, the wrasses will often stroke their clients with their fins. Studies have shown that being stroked by cleaner fish is not only a pleasurable feeling for client fish, it also helps them to relieve stress - almost like a therapeutic massage.

3. Fish have great memories

Contrary to popular belief, fish do have great memories. Some species of fish can recognize and remember humans that give them food rewards. Cleaner fish, as described above, can recognize their clients that they regularly clean, which can be up to 100 different fish. The clients also remember and recognize their specific cleaner.

Fish can also remember musical tunes; one group of researchers fed their fish while playing a specific song before releasing them into the wild. Five months later, the fish returned when the song played at sea.

At low tide, frillfin gobies stay close to shore in tide pools to feed. When a predator such as a heron comes along, they escape by leaping into an adjacent pool. They're remarkably accurate - missing a jump would mean being stranded on the rocks. Frillfins are able to leap from pool to pool by memorizing the layout of the tide pool while swimming over it at high tide. All it takes is one try to create this mental map, and they can still remember it more than a month later.

4. Fish are smart and can learn

Fish will avoid situations they know to cause them pain, and will seek out experiences with rewards. Fish can also learn how to use tools. Many fish, for example, use rocks to crack open bivalves such as clams, oysters and mussels for food. The archerfish specifically displays incredible intelligence. With incredible aim, archerfish can shoot powerful jets of water out of their mouths to knock down insects flying above them. They learn this impressive skill by watching and copying other archerfish - learning the correct volume based on target size.

More recently, it was discovered that archerfish can recognize human faces and tell them apart. Even more remarkably, they can still identify people with faces turned away from them.

5. Fish are flexible

Salmon and sea trout live in both saltwater and freshwater. These fish hatch in freshwater, and then swim to the sea where they mature into adults. They undergo significant body changes and have specialized organs to adapt to and excel in both freshwater and saltwater.

6. Fish are excellent communicators

Even though fish do not have vocal chords, they still excel at communicating with one another. They accomplish this through various sounds, scents, electrical pulses and motions.

Elephantfish communicate using electricity. Through unique electrical signals, they can tell each other apart. These signals say how old they are, how big they are, how far away they are and even whether they're male or female. Males use them to serenade females, and pairs "sing" duets together.

Groups of knifefish, another type of electric fish, can even change frequency to avoid jamming each other's signals. One scientist who studies them has made these signals audible and likens the adult knifefish to violins and the younger ones to flutes.

7. Fish can migrate extremely far distances

Adult salmon living in saltwater environments migrate a vast distance to return to freshwater to spawn. Salmon can travel up to 50 km per day on their spawning journeys, which is equivalent to us running more than a marathon every day. In total, their migration can reach upwards of 3,000 km from the ocean upstream through freshwater where they will spawn. Their total journey equates to driving halfway across Canada!

The migration would not be possible if salmon weren't such excellent swimmers. Swimming upriver is no easy task, but luckily salmon are great jumpers and can jump up to two meters over obstacles in their way.

8. Fish have exceptional sensory capabilities

Fish can detect movement in the water through a special row of sensory scales along their body called the lateral line. These sensory scales pick up low frequency sound waves that vibrate through the water.

Salmon are known as one of nature's best navigators due to their sensory capabilities. Salmon return to the same river, and sometimes even the same riverbed, in which they were born to spawn. They are guided by magnetic fields and their keen senses. It's believed the salmon, who can smell chemicals down to one part per million, can detect pheromones that are unique to their home stream.

9. Fish can change colour

Fish are also known to change colours depending on camouflage needs, environmental conditions and time of the year. Colours range all across the rainbow, from blues and greens to pinks and reds.

10. Fish are important to sustaining ecosystems

Salmon are the nutrient backbone to B.C.'s coastal ecosystems. Pacific salmon are semelparous, meaning that after they reproduce, they will die. Their carcasses are an essential nutrient source for many of B.C.'s resident animals - like bears, wolves and birds - and provides nutrients to the new salmon hatching.

11. Fish as farm animals

Finfish represent the largest component of the aquaculture industry in Canada, with over 26 different species of finfish farmed. The most common farmed fish species in Canada are salmon, trout and Arctic Char. Canada's first Code of Practice for Farmed Salmonids was published only as recently as 2021 by the National Farm Animal Care Council.

What does this mean for fish welfare?

Given their roles as pets, as food, as entertainment and as research subjects, fish are by far the most used vertebrate on Earth. Despite this fact, they are still not very well understood - or appreciated. They continue to be seen as simple, almost robot-like creatures with little capacity to think or feel. Yet, as the examples above demonstrate, fish are sensitive and intelligent animals whose unique welfare needs must be considered.
Read the BC SPCA's stance on fish welfare.
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Fish are thought to lack intelligence and emotional capability, but they are sentient creatures. Check out these amazing facts!

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There are a bunch of species of mammals about 5,000.

Mammals have a warm- blooded metabolism gene.

Mammals have adapted a lot.

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Mammals range in size from the vast blue whale to tiny rodents. One of the six basic animal groups,mammals live in the sea, in the tropics, in the desert, and even in Antarctica. Different as they are from one another, however, mammals have a number of important physical and behavioral characteristics in common.

Mammals Display a High Level of Parental Care

One major difference between mammals and other major vertebrate families such as amphibians, reptiles, and fish is that newborns require at least some parental attention in order to thrive. That said, however, some mammal babies are more helpless than others: a human newborn would die without close parental care, while many plant-eating animals (like horses and giraffes) are capable of walking and foraging immediately after birth.

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Do You Know These Basic Facts About Mammals?

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Mammals range in size from the vast blue whale to tiny rodents. One of the six basic animal groups,mammals live in the sea, in the tropics, in the desert, and even in Antarctica. Different as they are from one another, however, mammals have a number of important physical and behavioral characteristics in common.

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Reptiles have adapted or changed from amphibians

Not many species of the reptile group digest plants.

Like turtles some reptiles gender is determined by temperature!

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Reptiles have gotten a raw deal in the modern era-they're nowhere near as populous and diverse as they were 100 or 200 million years ago, and many people are creeped out by their sharp teeth, forked tongues, and/or scaly skin. One thing you can't take away from them though is that they are some of the most interesting creatures on the planet. Here are 10 reasons why.

Reptiles Evolved From Amphibians

Yes, it's a gross simplification, but it's fair to say that fish evolved into tetrapods, tetrapods evolved into amphibians, and amphibians evolved into reptiles -all of these events taking place between 400 and 300 million years ago. And that's not the end of the story: About 200 million years ago, the reptiles we know as therapsids evolved into mammals (at the same time the reptiles we know as archosaurs evolved into dinosaurs), and another 50 million years after that, the reptiles we know as dinosaurs evolved into birds. This "in-betweenness" of reptiles may help to explain their relative scarcity today, as their more evolved descendants out-compete them in various ecological niches.

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Reptiles have gotten a raw deal in the modern era-they're nowhere near as populous and diverse as they were 100 or 200 million years ago, and many people are creeped out by their sharp teeth, forked tongues, and/or scaly skin.

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97% of species in the world are invertebrates.

Invertebrates have helped improve science hugely.

Most Invertebrates stay together in big groups for most of their lives.

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Ask a friend to name an animal and she'll probably come up with a horse, an elephant, or some other kind of vertebrate. The fact is, though, that the vast majority of animals on earth-insects, crustaceans, sponges, etc.-lack backbones, and are thus classified as invertebrates.

There Are Six Basic Invertebrate Groups

The millions of invertebrate animals on our planet are assigned to six main groups: arthropods (insects, spiders and crustaceans); cnidarians (jellyfish, corals and sea anemones); echinoderms (starfish, sea cucumbers and sea urchins); mollusks (snails, slugs, squids and octopuses); segmented worms (earthworms and leeches); and sponges. Of course, the variation within each of these groups is so wide-scientists who study insects aren't much interested in horseshoe crabs-that professionals tend to focus on specific invertebrate families or species.

Invertebrates Do Not Have Skeletons or Backbones

Whereas vertebrates are characterized by the vertebrae, or backbones, running down their backs, invertebrates completely lack this feature. But this isn't to imply that all vertebrates are soft and squishy, like worms and sponges: insects and crustaceans support their bodily structures with hard external structures, called exoskeletons, while sea anemones possess "hydrostatic" skeletons, sheets of muscle supported by an internal cavity filled with fluid. Bear in mind, however, not having a backbone doesn't necessarily mean not having a nervous system; mollusks, and arthropods, for example, are equipped with neurons.

The First Invertebrates Evolved a Billion Years Ago

The earliest invertebrates were composed entirely of soft tissues: 600 million years ago, evolution had yet to hit on the idea of incorporating ocean minerals into exoskeletons. The extreme age of these organisms, combined with the fact that soft tissues were almost never preserved in the fossil record, leads to a frustrating conundrum: paleontologists know that the earliest preserved invertebrates, the ediacarans, must have had ancestors stretching back hundreds of millions of years, but there's no way to adduce any hard evidence. Still, many scientists believe that the first multicellular invertebrates appeared on earth as far back as a billion years ago.

Invertebrates Account for 97 Percent of All Animal Species

Species for species, if not pound for pound, invertebrates are the most numerous and widely varied animals on earth. Just to put things in perspective, there are about 5,000 mammal species and 10,000 bird species; among invertebrates, insects alone account for at least a million species (and possibly an order of magnitude more). Here are some more numbers, in case you're not convinced: there are about 100,000 species of mollusks, 75,000 species of arachnids, and 10,000 species each of sponges and cnidarians (which, by themselves, pretty much outclass all the earth's vertebrate animals).

Most Invertebrates Undergo Metamorphosis

Once they hatch out of their eggs, the young of most vertebrate animals look just like the adults: all that follows is a more-or-less steady period of growth, That's not the case with most invertebrates, whose life cycles are punctuated by periods of metamorphosis, in which the full-grown organism winds up looking very different from the juvenile. The classic example of this phenomenon is the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies, via the intermediate stage of the chrysalis. (By the way, one group of vertebrates, the amphibians, do undergo metamorphosis; witness the transformation of tadpoles into frogs.)

Some Invertebrate Species Form Large Colonies

Colonies are groups of animals of the same species that remain together throughout most of their life cycle; members divide up the work of feeding, reproducing, and sheltering from predators. Invertebrate colonies are most common in marine habitats, and the individuals are joined to the extent that the entire aggregation can seem like one giant organism. Marine invertebrate colonies include corals, hydrozoans, and sea squirts. On land, the members of invertebrate colonies are autonomous, but still joined together in complex social systems; the most familiar colony-forming insects are bees, ants, termites, and wasps.

Sponges Are the Simplest Invertebrates

Among the least evolved invertebrates on the planet, sponges technically qualify as animals (they're multicellular and produce sperm cells), but they lack differentiated tissues and organs, have asymmetrical bodies, and they're also sessile (rooted firmly to rocks or the seafloor) rather than motile (capable of movement). As for the most advanced invertebrates on the planet, you can make a good case for octopuses and squids, which possess large and complex eyes, a talent for camouflage, and widely diffused (but well-integrated) nervous systems.

Virtually All Parasites Are Invertebrates

In order to be an effective parasite-that is, an organism that exploits the life processes of another organism, either weakening or killing it in the process-you have to be small enough to climb into that other animal's body. That, in a nutshell, explains why the vast majority of parasites are invertebrates-lice, roundworms, and nematodes are sufficiently tiny to infest specific organs in their unfortunate hosts. (Some of the smallest parasites, like amoebas, aren't technically invertebrates, but belong to a family of single-celled animals called protozoans or protists.)

Invertebrates Have Widely Varied Diets

Just as there are herbivorous, carnivorous and omnivorous vertebrate animals, the same range of diets is enjoyed by invertebrates: spiders eat other insects, sponges filter small microorganisms from the water, and leaf-cutter ants import specific types of vegetation into their nests so they can cultivate their favorite fungus. Less appetizingly, invertebrates are also crucial for breaking down the carcasses of larger vertebrate animals after they die, which is why you'll often see the corpses of small birds or squirrels covered by thousands of ants and other icky bugs.

Invertebrates Are Extremely Useful to Science

We would know much less about genetics than we do today if it weren't for two widely studied invertebrates: the common fruit fly ( Drosophila melanogaster) and the tiny nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. With its well-differentiated organs, the fruit fly helps researchers decode the genes that produce (or inhibit) specific anatomical traits, while C. elegans is composed of so few cells (a little over 1,000) that the development of this organism can easily be tracked in detail. In addition, recent analysis of a species of sea anemone has helped to identify 1,500 essential genes shared by all animals, vertebrates and invertebrates alike.

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10 Interesting Facts About Invertebrates

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The vast majority of animals on earth are invertebrate animals that lack backbones and internal skeletons. Facts everyone should know about invertebrates.