*Fascinating Animal Stories!!!*

I was watching "Nature" on TV the other night and came across some truly interesting stories involving animals and insects. Here are the best ones! Enjoy! ---Mar

• This guy in the US had placed a yellow ribbon around a tree in his front yard in support of the troops overseas. One day, he noticed it was gone. He thought it was odd and put up another ribbon. That one, too, disappeared w/o a trace. He started suspecting a teenage vandal and sent out an email alert to the ppl in his neighborhood, warning them that some vandal/prankster was removing his yellow ribbons. This one woman got really riled up, thinking that some teenage punk was going around, doing this. So she took it upon herself to become kind of like the neighborhood patrol, checking this guy's yard throughout the day to make sure his yellow ribbon was there. Then one day it disappeared again. In a show of support, everyone put yellow ribbons around their trees in their front yards, almost daring the punk or punks to take off all the ribbons. Well, wouldn't you know it, only the ribbon around his tree went missing. Now, it was personal. This guy was determined to get to the bottom of this and rigged up a videocam to catch whoever was stealing his ribbons in action. Weeks went by w/ no activity. But then - a ribbon around the trunk of a tree in his backyard went missing. So - he repositioned his hidden camera and trained it on this tree in the backyard. Next morning - the ribbon was gone. So he played back his videotape, anxious to see who the guilty culprit was..... and it was a squirrel!!!! He saw the squirrel gnaw through the bow on the front of the ribbon, shimmy the ribbon down the tree trunk, loose it from the trunk, then scamper off w/ it. So he went investigating around his yard and found a giant squirrel's nest in a tree - w/ yellow ribbon laced through the outside, and also on the inside. Apparently it's the female squirrels who build their nests, and they use sticks and twigs to build the outside. But for the inside, they line it w/ softer material - like hair... and ribbons. And the reason only this guy's ribbons were pilfered and not any of the others in the neighborhood? Turns out the other ribbons in the neighborhood were a synthetic satin, while this guys's ribbons were cotton - easier to shred and much softer. HAHAHAHAHAH! and the camera showed a close up zoom of inside the squirrel's nest, and in the last shot, the squirrel is looking into the camera lens, looking all wide-angled and adorable, hehehe. I died laughing watching that one.

• Barn swallows usually make their nest on rocky outcroppings and ledges in nature. But recently, they've taken a liking to the much safer confines of manmade structures - such as under the eaves of Home Depot roof overhangs, which provided them w/ much more protection from the elements. Well, they seem to like the indoors even more! Store employees have noticed that they've started "migrating" to inside the actual stores, building their nests high up above, out of the reach of humans. And w/ their being adept at fluttering or hovering in place, they figured out that by doing so in front of the motion sensors by the doors (both inside and out), they can trigger the sliding doors to open, allowing them access inside or outside whenever they wanted. Some customers commented that they thought those birds were coming down to swoop on their heads and attack them, but all they were really doing was making a beeline to get inside while the doors were open. Hahahahahahahahah! And they showed actual footage of these birds doing this. The store's security cam would show the front doors closed. No one around. Then you'd see a barn swallow come flying into the picture. It would hover in front of the sensor, the doors would slide open, and the bird would continue on, flying inside. And for those birds who got locked out of the store once they closed it for the night? They waited outside until the store employees opened it up the next morning, ready to come flying back inside, haaaaaaaa! Clever birds!

• Killer, Africanized bees... somehow, more aggressive, African bees mixed w/ their more docile European counterparts, producing this hybrid called "killer, Africanized bees" - with good reason. This woman and her son were on a picnic when she noticed a bunch of bees near her son that would no go away. Sensing danger, she grabbed her son and ran inside their car and locked the door. Just then, she heard her son scream. One of the bees had followed them all the way to the car and stung her son. Elsewhere in the desert southwest, a group of guys had gone trail running outside. One guy had fallen behind the rest. Suddenly, one of the guys in front heard this other guy screaming, yelling for help. He ran back around the trail to help his friend, but when he got about 10 feet away, he saw that his friend was covered in bees who were swarming all over him. Turns out he had stumbled upon one of the killer bee hives and had been ferociously attacked. Scientists wanted to know what made this particular hybrid of bees so dangerous, since they sting their prey in the same manner as the European bees and since they emit the same amount of venom as well. So they devised a test whereby they sent out a guy dressed from head to toe in one of those white, bulky biohazard suits w/ a mesh helmet in front of his face and had him and provoke a known European honey bee hive. He used a wooden stick and rattled it through a tiny opening in this rusty metal lean-to where European bees had their hive. It took the guard bees several minutes before they mobilized out of the hive and were hovering over the entrance to their hive and decide to start attacking the guy. He then used one of those surveyor measuring wheel things to see just how far those bees would pursue him as he walked away from the hive. Those bees gave up chase at around 100 ft. He then went to a known hive of killer, Africanized bees and did the same thing. The resonse was almost immediate. Those guard bees were quick to mobilize, and they sent out about 3 times as many guard bees to attack the intruding guy than the European bees did. And, what was more frightening, they pursued him for over 1,100 feet before they gave up chase..... !!!!!!!!! Over 10 times farther! Yikes. So not only are they quick to attack if they feel threatened, but there's more of them attacking you, and they will chase after you for a good while to make sure they get you.