Back in the 1960s, while observing wood storks in Florida, biologist M. Philip Kahl, Jr. noted that on hot days the storks "have the unusual habit of frequently excreting on their legs."
He eventually concluded that, since storks don't sweat, they were doing this to cool themselves down "by means of evaporative cooling of the blood supply to the legs and feet." He named this phenomenon '
urohidrosis'.
His hypothesis is now accepted as true, and it's not only storks that cool themselves by pooping on their legs.
Turkey vultures do it too.
Reference:
Kahl, P.M., Jr. 1963. Thermoregulation in the Wood Stork, with special reference to the role of the legs. Physiol. Zool., 36: 141-151.
Read the piece here.
There should be a separate article on mechanical horses in literature. My favorite one occurs in these two novels by
Roger Zelazny.
Jens 'Art' Morrison, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was a practitioner of 'farm art'. Or, as he put it, he was a 'farmicist'. He mostly worked in ceramics and was most active during the 1970s and '80s.
By 'farm art' he meant that a) farm animals were a recurring theme throughout his work, and b) there was a heavy emphasis on quirky, folk humor in his work, as well as A LOT of bad puns (see 'farmicist'). So, 'farm art' was deliberately distinct from 'serious art'.
One of his creations was 'Juxtapachickens.' This was a series of fourteen-inch ceramic chickens. (The url
juxtapachicken.com leads to a site that consists solely of a picture of two skinned chickens in a pot. I have no idea if this was somehow inspired by or related to Morrison's work. I'm guessing not.)
Far more elaborate was his "artillogical" discovery of the "Farmounians," who he claimed were the ancient, original settlers of Iowa. As he put it:
About 450 B.C. (before ceramics), the Farmounians crossed the Boaring Straits, sailed down the River Swine, and settled in the eastern basins of Iowania, to farm the fertile fields and rolling hills. The ancient glyphs and corntainers are imporktant because they depigt the lifestyles and legends of the Farmounians: the mysteries of the Corn Cult, the age of Barcornius, and the winter dwelling or Pigloo. These frelics of the daily rituals, banal activities, and peculiar characteristics make Farmounian art unique in the western world.
He created (or 'discovered') numerous artifacts of these Farmounians, such as 'corntainers' that displayed ancient-looking ceramic reliefs he called 'Pigtaglyphs'. He said he was just providing 'infarmation' about this ancient culture.
Morrison even wrote a book about the Farmounians —
A History of Farmounia. He described it as a 'Historical Gehography'. It's an obscure work, but
there's a copy available on abebooks for $33.66 (plus $34 shipping from the UK to US).
In 1987, a wild moose fell in love with what zoologists refer to as a "biologically inappropriate object". His love interest was a cow named Jessica who lived on the Vermont farm of Larry Carrara.
For over two months the moose displayed courtship behavior towards Jessica. He followed her all around, would rest his head on her back, or would push hay toward her as a food offering.
The moose and Jessica
Over 75,000 sightseers came out to Carrara's farm to witness this interspecies romance.
Finally, after 76 days, rutting season came to an end and the moose lost interest in Jessica and wandered back into the wild.
The moose
The romance between the moose and Jessica inspired the book
A Moose for Jessica, written by Pat Wakefield with photographs by Larry Carrara.
It's available on Amazon, or
you can read it for free at archive.org.
More info:
wikipedia,
New England Living
I'm not aware of many famous snails. Gee Geronimo, as far as I know, may be the only one. Back in the 1970s, the Guinness Book of Records declared him to be the world's biggest snail. His owner was Christopher Hudson. Gee Geronimo died in 1976.
Christopher Hudson with Gee Geronimo
source: 1978 Guinness Book of Records
Connellsville Daily Courier - Nov 27, 1976
Hudson was apparently more in love with his snails than he was with his wife.
Honolulu Advertiser - Feb 4, 1977
Irénée du Pont was president of the Du Pont Company from 1919 to 1925, and remained on its board of directors until 1958.
He built a mansion named Xanadu down in Cuba, where he trained iguanas to attack and kill on his command. Details from
Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain by Gerard Colby:
the most bizarre of Irénée's pastimes was his large collection of iguanas. Irénée spent thousands of dollars to breed, feed, and keep these crocodile-like lizards in specially constructed pens. Some of these tough, vicious lizards grew to 3 feet in length under Irénée's loving care, and more than once the old industrialist was seen marching about with one of these ugly beasts crawling next to him on a leash. Irénée derived a peculiar kind of pleasure from these lizards. By barking a command, he could make them all come out of their pens and surround him, standing at attention. He had trained them, on another command, to attack a target to kill. It was an appalling example to the Cubans of the degeneracy of the idle rich. In a moment of the bizarre captured for history, a Life photographer in 1957 recorded old Irénée feeding his iguanas papaya from a jar at a time when most of the Cuban population was suffering from malnutrition.
"Irénée du Pont, 80, bends to pat an iguana on his Cuban estate where many of these lizards wander. He feeds them papaya from jar he holds"
Life - Aug 19, 1957