Jambo, Mr. Nature here–and it’s off to the Kalahari Desert for a brief look at the remarkable Bat-Eared Fox.
Our cats, Robbie and Peep, had ears like this when we first got them, but eventually the rest of the cat caught up to the ears. For the bat-eared fox, forget it. Their ears stay supersized.
Even cooler than the ease with which a fox chows down on a live scorpion is the determination with which the father kit fox protects his daughter from mating with a stranger. But we find his attitude changes when the same suitor, much chastened, comes back and pays his respects to the father before trying again to mate with the daughter. The niceties preserved, father fox then permits the union.
I’ll bet a lot of human fathers can relate to that!
I have been having an amazing time with my two new kittens. The boy, a tabby who now weighs 7 lbs is the protector of his little sister, who is jet black and 4.7 lbs!
When he senses she is afraid, he hides her by covering her with his body. Even as a very little kitten he did this, when they came to put them into the carrier to come to me. They couldn’t find her at first because he was hiding her.
Recently, I awoke early to the sound of mewing and banging on the door to my room. Sensing something was wrong since I could only hear one kitten, I got up and checked. Sure enough, she had pushed the door closed and locked herself in the bathroom!
It was like the Lassie movie when Lassie goes racing back to the farm to get help, barking “Timmy’s in the well!!!”
We had a brother and sister cat, Buster and Missy, who always fought whenever we went out. We’d come home to find tuffets of fur scattered around the living room. But Buster did love his sister, and had a very hard time when she died. Those were good cats! We loved them very, very much, and they loved us.
Ah, so that’s why Iggy had such huge ears when he was a kitten — so he could hear the refrigerator or cupboard door opening from two rooms away. I have to say, though, that Iggy’s ears weren’t quite that long; however, they were wider. I used to call them chihuahua ears. Now that he’s grown into them, I call them gorgeous ears. (Such a sentimentalist!)
By the way, Lee, WordPress was obviously looking for reasons to kill (or disable) your comments section in your “They’re Looking for Reasons to Kill You” post when I was just there a couple of minutes ago.
Ach! Let me go and fix it.
The post “Looking for Reasons to Kill You” had comments disabled. I was going to comment how my wife told me in a jocular way that if she is ever on life-support to unplug the machine, then plug it in again to see if she starts working again (and now I have commented on it 🙂 ).
I’m going to fix it now. WordPress makes it SO COTTON-PICKIN’ EASY to miss a step! Grrrr!
Oh, the power of instincts – who can fathom them?
It’s a whole different system of wisdom, built into these animals. They may not symbolic language or math, but they are very smart.