Nature

WTF Fun Fact 13009 – Cats Domesticated Themselves

If you’ve ever been owned by a cat (or have been given the honor of being allowed to live alongside one), you know they will do whatever they want to do. So it may come as no surprise that cats domesticated themselves. They just decided to move in with humans – and not much about them has changed since that day.

How do we know cats domesticated themselves?

If you’re skeptical about this and how we know it (or even what it all means), that’s fair.

Here’s the thing – when humans domesticate animals, we choose certain characteristics that we like about them, and the animals that end up allowing this kind of domestication often have certain kind of characteristics (whether it’s size, a tendency to be docile, etc.). Those characteristics are, to some extent, encoded in their genomes. So if we look at the genomes of those animals over thousands of years, we should see changes that indicate the selection of certain traits.

It’s not much different than modern dog breeding – purebred dogs are specifically bred to have specific genes that make them look or act a certain way. Their environment plays a role too, but we can see a lot of characteristics in their genomes.

Cat genomes? Let’s just say they haven’t changed much at all. And we know that because cats have been cherished and worshipped for thousands of years and therefore buried in ways that allow us to collect even their ancient DNA.

What do cat genomes tell us about domestication?

Of course, we can’t go back in time to check our work, but we can do pretty comprehensive studies on cats from all over the world and from different time periods. And that’s what a group of scientists did. They published their study in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution under the not-very-catchy title “The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world.” It doesn’t sound riveting, but it’s pretty cool (especially if someone summarizes it for you).

Our favorite line comes from National Geographic’s write-up on the work (cited below), noting that “[cats’] genes have changed little from those of wildcats, apart from picking up one recent tweak: the distinctive stripes and dots of the tabby cat.”

But here’s the gist of it: The researchers looked at the DNA of over 200 cats. These cats spanned a timeline of 9,000 years, the ancient cats coming from Rome and Egypt. They found that there were two major cat lineages that came together to make modern housecats. Normally, you’d expect to see A LOT more diversity than that.

Early cats likely spread into Europe from southwest Asia around 4400 BCE and hung out with people in early farming communities. Apparently, cats just decided people were largely ok to be around, and people decided cats were ok because they killed rodents that interfered with crops. If anyone tried to do anything more to domesticate cats, they clearly failed.

It was a mutually beneficial relationship. And maybe cats didn’t even like people but just liked the rodent populations we attracted. We’ll never know. But in any case, we all just grew up alongside each other. Humans “let” cats domesticate themselves. (Frankly, our guess is that cats were in charge the whole time.) — WTF fun facts

Source: “Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows” — National Geographic

WTF Fun Fact 12997 – A Bristlecone Pine Is The Oldest Tree In The World

We’re not sure what kind of tree we expected to be the oldest in the world. Maybe a redwood or an olive tree, perhaps? But, in fact, a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world (at least the oldest to be confirmed). Its name is Methuselah, and it’s likely over 4,800 years old.

Like the tallest and largest (by volume) trees in the world, the oldest is also located in the U.S. state of California. Luckily, it’s off the beaten path, which is no doubt one of the reason’s it’s managed to survive this long.

Methuselah, the bristlecone pine

Researchers put Methuselah at an amazing 4,854-year-old. Its species is the Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), and it’s named after the biblical elder Methuselah, who was said to be 969 years old and whose name is now often used for things of advanced age.

The tree Methuselah is located in the White Mountains in eastern California. It lies in “Methuselah Grove” of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest tucked inside Inyo National Forest.

And while its precise location has remained a secret for many years, it (along with the location of other majestic California trees under protection) has been leaked to the public, putting it in danger.

What is the oldest tree in the world older than?

That a bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world is already remarkable. But the fact that Methuselah is older than the Egyptian pyramids and is thousands of years older than written language is pretty mind-blowing.

Of course, there are constant challenges from people claiming to find older trees. In fact, there may be another tree nearby that’s older (some claim there is). But right now, Methuselah is the confirmed “winner” (if that’s considered a win).

Even if another tree overtakes it, it hardly matters. In fact, that might only serve to protect the tree that’s older than most civilizations that even ancient historians study (since it predates anything they could have written about themselves). You’d have to go back to cave paintings to find older ones.

The bristlecone pine is the oldest tree in the world

According to the NYT (cited below), “For decades, giant sequoias were believed to be the world’s oldest trees…” In fact, California is home to the tallest, largest (by volume), and oldest trees in the world: a redwood named Hyperion, a giant sequoia named General Sherman, and Methuselah.

Simply googling it will give you a better photo than we have permission to share. — WTF fun facts

Source: “In California, Where Trees Are King, One Hardy Pine Has Survived for 4,800 Years” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12990 – The Lake Erie Mirage Effect

No one’s eyesight is good enough to be able to see Canada from Ohio. But some people looking across Lake Erie insist that they can. It’s called the Lake Erie Mirage Effect.

What’s the Lake Erie Mirage Effect?

In Northeastern Ohio, there are days when people look out across Lake Erie and see the Canadian shoreline. However, that shoreline is over 50 miles away. It’s rare to see it, but the strange phenomenon has an explanation.

The curvature of the Earth prevents us from seeing objects that far into the distance. However, under the right conditions, the Lake Erie Mirage appears.

This is due to temperature inversion and super-refraction. Temperature inversion is a phenomenon in which temperature increases with height (normally it’s the other way around). This causes density changes in the air that make sunlight bend downward (that’s the super-refraction). As a results, the naked eye can see things far beyond the horizon.

What conditions are necessary to see the mirage?

First, the lake needs to be cooler than the air above it for the temperature inversion to occur. The cold lake makes the air right above it colder, but the farther you go up, the warmer the air is since it’s not being immediately cooled by the lake.

Warm air is less dense than cool air, so it creates a “cap” that flows over the cool air beneath it. When the sun comes out, the light rays bounce off that cap and bend down towards the surface.

This lets us see around the curvature of the Earth. But to get the Lake Erie Mirage Effect, you also need calm winds, so the mirage doesn’t get distorted.

It’s all pretty rare, but Canadians can see Clevelanders driving down the street when the conditions are right on their side too. — WTF fun facts

Source: “What weather conditions allow Northeast Ohioans to see the Canadian shoreline across Lake Erie?” — Cleveland.com

WTF Fun Fact 12989 – The History of Mums

Chrysanthemums, more commonly referred to as simply “mums,” are native to a few different north Asian and European regions. But when it comes to the flowers we know today, the history of mums begins in China. And it started thousands of years ago.

The interesting history of mums

Chrysanthemums have been cultivated in China for over 3000 years. Some of the earliest texts we have mention mum being grown as a flowering herb. That means their cultivation probably goes back much further, though we can’t be sure just how far.

Even Confucius’ 6th/5th-century BCE writings refer to “the chrysanthemum with its yellow glory.” A powerful flower, they were also known as “the golden flower.” This indicates that most early mums were yellow.

According to the UK’s National Chrysanthemum Society, the present-day mums we know began as a cross between two Chinese forms called chrysanthemum Indicum and chrysanthemum Sinese. They also note that “it was not until about AD350 that anything approaching a definite variety was involved. This was a bloom of small incurved form and at that time was recognised as the only good type of chrysanthemum, an opinion still shared by many at the present day. However, the Chinese were very reluctant to let the chrysanthemum leave their country but in AD386 it did arrive in Japan and it is to the Japanese that much is owed for the development of this wonderfully versatile flower.”

Spreading love for chrysanthemums

Mums then became very popular in Japan. And “in the ninth century AD Emperor Uda founded the Imperial Gardens where various types of chrysanthemums were steadily developed.” They kept their cultivation methods a secret, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that mums made it out of the East and into continental Europe, then to Britain.

At the same time, the chrysanthemum was proclaimed the national flower of Japan.

Despite mum cultivation being a later hobby in Europe, earlier botanist-travelers knew about the flower. Still, it wasn’t until 1827 that “seed was successfully produced in Europe by a retired French officer, Captain Bernet.” Many people had tried, but he was the first to succeed.

The history of mums intertwined with other flowers

If you get your mums mixed up with other similar flowers, don’t feel bad. They’ve been bred into many forms. Sometimes people bred them for hardiness in new climatic zones, other times they bred them for size, color, or leaf shape.

Mums were introduced in America in 1841, where they took on different meanings in different places (for example, Texas’ “homecoming mums”). In other countries, they are considered funeral flowers.

Over the last century and a half mums have been further bred to be hardy in different types of weather and soil, which is why you can find a few different varieties at your local garden center today,

But despite their ubiquity in America in the fall, they as a testament to Chinese horticulture. — WTF fun facts

Source: “History of the Chrysanthemum” — National Chrysanthemum Society (UK)

WTF Fun Fact 12987 – Japan’s Star-Shaped Sand

Have you heard of the star-shaped sand in Okinawa, Japan? It’s one of nature’s fun little surprises.

Star-shaped sand particles

You can find the star sand on the Taketomi, Hatoma, and Iriomote islands of Japan. In many ways, it’s just like other beach sand. Except it has a distinct star shape that you can see with the naked eye.

According to the website Travel Awaits (cited below): “The Taketomi, Hatoma, and Iriomote islands, home to the stars, are all part of the Yaeyama Islands located off the mainland of Japan. They are both the southernmost and westernmost inhabited islands in the country. Unlike the many popular metropolis tourist destinations on the country’s mainland, visitors to these islands experience a tropical retreat. Tourists should come ready both to relax and to discover incredible little stars on the ground.”

But these “stars” are actually exoskeletons.

“Unlike most beaches, the sand on Hoshizuna Beach and other surrounding Japanese beaches is made up not of rocks and minerals, but rather of the remnants of previous organisms. Each little star is the exoskeleton of small, single-celled organisms known as Foraminifera. This means that, though the sand is no longer alive, it once was part of a living organism in the Pacific Ocean.“

The world’s rarest sand

These specific organisms are called Baculogypsina sphaerulata, and they’re only found in the coral reefs of East Asia. That makes the star-shaped sand among the rarest in the world.

If you’re interested in other rare types of sand, you can venture to Hawaii’s Papakolea Beach to see olive green sand made of crystallized magma, head to California’s Pfeiffer Beach to see their garnet sand, or plan a trip to New Zealand’s Muriwai Black Sand Beach, which is made up of dark volcanic glass.— WTF fun facts

Source: “The Truth Behind Japan’s Star Sand Beaches” — Travel Awaits

WTF Fun Fact 12978 – How Does Temperature Affect the Color of Leaves?

Have you noticed that autumn looks a bit different every year? Sometimes the leaves fall early. Other times they’re on the trees much longer to give a full display of color. A lot of this has to do with the temperature outside. But how does temperature affect the color of leaves?

The temperature of fall and its effect on leaves

As the nights get cooler in the northern hemisphere in September and October, we begin to see the trees change. If you’re lucky enough to live around a mixture of trees, you’ll begin to see bright red, orange, and yellow leaves appear.

Without as much daily sunlight, trees don’t go through as much photosynthesis. This is aprocess that produces sugars, which trees use as energy to grow and flower.

A reduction in photosynthesis leads to a reduction in chlorophyll as well, which is the pigment that makes leaves green. As they lose chlorophyll, they lose their green color and prepare to shed for the winter so trees can conserve their energy inside the branches and bark.

How does temperature affect the color of leaves?

But that still doesn’t explain the role of temperature.

The weather leading up to shorter days is actually quite important when it comes to determining how fall plays out for leaves .

We know that a reduction in chlorophyll leads to leaves being less green, but what makes some seasons produce more vibrant red leaves than others? Why does a tree turn bright orange one year and only a dull copper the next year?

Well, it turns out that the pigments that begin to show up once chlorophyll is reduced are dependent on both temperature and moisture conditions right before days start getting shorter. For example, some weather conditions make a leaf turn red early. It also helps it stay on the tree longer, so it goes through its full range of colors before falling off.

The role of weather in fall leaf displays

According to scientists at Michigan State (cited below), lots of warm days and cool nights narrow the veins in leaves. This helps trap the sugars made during photosynthesis in those leaves. When this happens, the sugars produce more vivid pigments.

“The most brilliant leaf displays follow a period of warm days filled with sunshine and cool nights. During this weather cycle, leaves produce an abundance of sugars during the sunny days. The cooler nights and gradual narrowing of leaf veins in the fall, means that a majority of the sugars produced are trapped in the leaf. An abundance of sugar and light in the leaf lead to the production of vivid anthocyanin pigments, which produce red, purple and crimson colors. Yellow and gold leaf colors are produced by carotenoid pigments, which are ever-present in the leaves and are therefore less dependent on the aforementioned conditions.”

Other factors in fall leaves

“Soil moisture also plays a role in the timing and brilliance of leaf color. The best displays are produced when the soil has been adequately moist throughout the year coupled with the aforementioned late summer weather. A late spring, or severe summer drought can delay the onset of color. A warm period during the fall can also decrease the intensity of fall colors by triggering early leaf drop before the colors have had a chance to develop.”

Finally, MSU explains that other factors can play a role in individual trees:

“Trees on the edge of low-lying areas, where cooler air collects at night, often display colors sooner than trees in an upland forested setting. Trees that are diseased or in decline may also display fall colors earlier than their healthy neighbors.“

And that’s why no two autumns will ever look the same. — WTF fun facts

Source: “How weather affects fall colors” — Michigan State University Extension

WTF Fun Fact 12969 – Manatees Fart to Swim

Do you know a kid who loves to share fun facts about animals and just won’t stop telling you everything you never wanted to know about lizards or sharks or bugs? Well, it’s time to blow their minds with your superior animal knowledge and show them adults reign supreme in the world of truly fun facts. Manatees fart to swim.

Do manatees really fart to swim?

We’re totally serious. We even looked it up on Snopes because it seemed too good to be true.

While manatees are aquatic animals, they aren’t like fish, which can live underwater but also have something called a “swim bladder” to control their buoyancy. Instead, manatees need to float – and if you live in the water but need to stay atop it, you have three choices – be built to sit upon it (like a duck), tread water like your life depends on it (like a human), or have a mechanism that makes your body buoyant.

And since the animals we lovingly call “sea cows” eat about 100 pounds of vegetation a day, let’s just say staying perched upon a wave isn’t really an option for them. That’s why manatees developed a different mechanism to stay afloat. Farts.

Fart like your life depends on it

At Captain Mike’s Swimming with the Manatees in Crystal, Florida (whose website we’ve cited below), you’ll get a great explanation of how the fart propulsion actually works.

According to the experts who swim with the flatulent sea cows all day, all the vegetation they eat creates the same reaction in their bodies as it does in ours. Farts. Gas. Flatulence. Whatever you want to call it.

“For manatees, there is always enough gas in the body…The gas produced during digestion is stored in intestinal pouches ready for use in swimming,” note the experts.

And how does that lead to the ability to swim?

“The gas produced during digestion is lighter than water. So when the animals hold in a substantial amount of gas in intestinal pouches, they lower their overall density and float in water. On the contrary, releasing the gas from the body makes a manatee relatively denser than water and to be able to readily sink. That is why manatees fart to swim. For they have to continuously hold in enough gas in their bodies to be able to come to the surface to breathe. Then soon after, they have to fart in order to release some gas, become less buoyant, and sink underwater.”

Hold your breath

Manatees can actually hold their breath for up to 20 minutes (don’t try that one at home!). But rather than use the breath trick, they can use farts with a lot less effort.

So next time you’re in the pool, you can see how this works (without the farts – don’t use the farts). Take a big, deep breath, hold it, and then float on your back. Then release the air (from your nose or mouth, please) and notice that you sink a bit.

Then you can tell everyone around you to be grateful that you’re not a manatee. Otherwise, they would have seen a lot of bubbles from your backside. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Do manatees fart to swim?” — Swimming with the Manatees

WTF Fun Fact 12967 – Bats and Tequila

There’s a little-known but critical relationship between bats and tequila. In fact, without bats, we may not be able to create tequila at all!

How are bats and tequila connected?

If you’re a tequila fan, you probably know the crucial ingredient in the spirit is agave. This spiky plant is native to the desert regions of North and South America (but mostly Mexico). Agave nectar is also harvested to be used as a sweetener.

One of the many interesting things about the agave plant is that it has very few natural pollinators. (And you likely know that in order for plants to produce, they need to be pollinated by things like birds, bees, etc.)

The agave plant’s primary pollinator is bats. No bats, no agave. No agave, no tequila.

Is the tequila supply in danger?

To make matters even more complicated for agave plants, only a few species of bats are pollinators. These bats are being threatened by industrial farming and other threats to their natural habitats.

But while the bats and agave plants are increasingly threatened, our thirst for tequila has only gone up. According to NPR (cited below), the tequila industry has grown by 60% over the last decade. That means we need more agave plants than ever.

You might think that industrial farming would simply increase the amount of agave being grown, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

How do you solve a problem like agave?

NPR interviewed Micaela Jemison of Bat Conservation International, who said that the problem with commercial agave production is that agave stalks are harvested before they can reproduce. “That means no tasty pollen for hungry bats. And instead of plants that reproduce through bats spreading pollen from stem to stem, major tequila companies use cloned agave.”

If you only care about tequila, you might not think this is a big deal, but there are some major unintended consequences of handing a natural process over to a business.

“Growing genetically identical plants is easy and cheap for big companies, but cloned agave is vulnerable to fungus or disease that could wipe out entire crops. Bats can solve this problem by creating genetic diversity. Instead, their ecosystem has been disrupted. Fewer agave plants are allowed to flower and growers use powerful agrochemicals that can hurt the three kind of bats that feed on agave.”

The Mexican long-nosed bat and the lesser long-nosed bat are two of the major agave pollinators listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a third, the Mexican long-tongued bat, is a species of concern.

To help spread appreciation for the relationship between bats and tequila, the Tequila Interchange Project (which is made up of bartenders, scientists, industry consultants, and plain old tequila fans) is trying to promote Bat Friendly Tequila and Mezcal™. These approved brands give some of their proceeds to agave farmers who welcome the bats and help maintain their populations.

Bat-friendly tequila

The coalition notes that “Given that Tequila is a two billion USD a year industry, and that the economy of 40,000 families is linked to blue agaves (and to bats and other pollinators), it is in the best interest of all stakeholders, from producers to the government to the individual consumer and everyone in-between, to protect the future of tequila and mezcal agaves by adopting sustainable practices and protecting pollinators and genetic resources.”

According to the website, some of the bat-friendly brands include:
– Tequila 8
– Tequila Tapatio
– Tesoro de Don Felipe
– Siembra Valles Ancestral
– 7 Leguas
– Siembra Metl Cupreata
– TOCUZ Alto
– Don Mateo de la Sierra Cupreata
– Mezcal Vago Pechuga

— WTF fun facts

Source: “Bats And Tequila: A Once Boo-tiful Relationship Cursed By Growing Demands” — NPR

WTF Fun Fact 12966 – Yacouba Sawadogo

Yacouba Sawadogo is a farmer – and an environmental hero. Hailing from Burkina Faso, he and his family helped stop the desertification of his village by planting their own forest.

But there’s so much more to his efforts and what we can learn from them about the importance of trees (and caring about the land around us).

Yacouba Sawadogo, the man who stopped the desert

Sawadogo’s village, in the northern part of Burkina Faso (in the Sahel Belt), suffered from a long drought from 1972 to 1984. The land was further impacted by overfarming and overgrazing by animals, and the resulting famine killed hundreds of thousands of people.

He used an ancient African technique called zai. Zai involves planting specific trees and enriching the soil, resulting in faster forest growth and improved soil quality. But his fellow farmers who saw him planting trees in the desert thought he was losing his mind.

He and fellow farmer Mathieu Ouédraogo proved them wrong.

“Yacoub Zai”

Sawadogo has no formal science education but used traditional knowledge to plant what is now a nearly 100-acre forest with 96 tree and 66 plant species. There are edible and medicinal plants in his forest, and it’s now home to previously endangered animals.

According to LifeGate (cited below), Yacouba Sawadogo recalled getting his nickname: “Thomas Sankara [President of Burkina Faso between 1983 and 1987] launched an appeal to develop initiatives to stop the advancement of the desert, and when he came to see my work, he asked me what technique I was using, and I told him it was zai. That’s why I’m also known as Yacoub Zai”.

Trouble in the forest

There is a 2010 documentary (The Man Who Stopped the Desert) about his life, and he won the Right Livelihood Award in 2018 and the Champions of the Earth award in 2020. However, Sawadogo was still fighting for the land until very recently.

In the early 2000s, the nearby city of Ouahigouya annexed the forest as part of a larger municipal land grab. Officials offered Sawadogo and each of his family members just 1/10th of an acre of the land and no other compensation. Then, people began erecting settlements on the plot.

Sawadogo began raising money in 2008 to buy the land and keep it safe. But the value of the land (thanks to his own efforts) made it extremely valuable – more than he could afford, even with fundraising. Finally, in 2021, the environmental arm of the local government erected a protective fence around the forest to preserve it, thanks to Sawadogo’s ongoing efforts. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Yacouba Sawadogo, the African farmer who stopped the desert” — LifeGate