CURIOUS ANIMALS

Cue (NZERS), Issue 14, 31 December 1944, Page 15

CURIOUS ANIMALS

REMARKABLE though the inventive power of the human brain is, there are some oddities which out-Wells H.G. Wells. Many of them are "missing links” between different types of animals, and so of great interest to Science. ~

The Super-men:— There lived in the South of France, many thousands of years ago, • the strange and wonderful race of Cromagnon man. Averaging nearly seven feet in height, They had perfect proportions, and a greater skull capacity than we have. They were artistic, drawing for us pictures in bright colours and of pleasing composition. Until the movie camera was invented they were the only ones who realised that a horse had all four legs off the ground when galloping. History has drawn her veil across them, so all we ■ • • have left are their bones and their pictures.

The Dawn Horse. Millions of years before the story of man begins, can be found the first traces of the horse. It lived on the slopes of the Rockies just after the time when the great upheaval formed those mountains. That was 45 million years ago. It was not an animal of noble proportions about the size of a terrier with a height of 20 inches at the most. It had' no hoofs, but four .toes on its front feet and three on the back. It had pads and nails very like those on the feet of a dog.

So this little creature lived, felt the sun’s warmth, and died, leaving his successors to carry on. After about 20 million years the race lost their smallest toes and enlarged their middle ones. Another 20 million years and they had lost the other two, the nail of the remaining one forming the hoof. Their size increased and their teeth became complex. There was one branch of the family that took to chewing the cud. It was not until the Ice Age that the modern horse first galloped the plains. Then he met Man and. •. . . ._. . . .

The Caterpillar that Isn't .—Beside many a small New Zealand creek, living among the ferns and fallen logs, is a curious little beast, half worm, half insect. You have probably seen him often but have mistaken him for a caterpillar, with olive-green striped coat and stumpy antennae. His name is Perapatus; he lives in New Zealand and South America; and he. solved a big scientific problem. The insects arose from the type of worms that includes the earthworms andPerapatus is there to prove it. Perapatus has jaws like many primitive insects, breathes by means of traccae fine tubes which branch to every part

of the body, carrying air direct to the finest 3 organs— so do the insects. Yet most of his other internal arrangements are like those of the worms, especially the way he gets rid of his nitrogen waste. So there you are.

The Reptile's Cousin. — Another curious half-and-half is a bird of long ago that showed clearly in its anatomy that birds came from reptiles (the class that includes the snakes and lizards.) Archaeoptryx, as scientists call it, has feathered wings like a modern bird, but ending in a three-clawed hand, tail feathers attached to a long flexible tail, no beak, but a lizard-like head.

The Flying Lizards: — If you’re ever East of Suez, Fighting Japs in old Malay you will see the flying "dragons" flitting through the trees. Several of their ribs have been greatly prolonged/ become / movable,' and attached to membranous sheets of skin. When at

rest they are folded against the body like wings. They are carried so when, the creature is running or jumping after its insect prey. The flying membranes are as brightly coloured as the wings of a butterfly.

At no time does the animal actually fly, the wings merely serving as a parachute. As far- as we know, the only reptile ‘actually to fly is the Pentadactyl

who lived in the bad old days of the dinosaurs-and similar nightmares. ' In this case the fore-limbs were modified into wings as they are with the bats. L The First Land Animals. Life seems to have started in the water and for many millions of years the land was as bare as Cassino’g Castle Hill. The first animals to live on the land were simple wormsnow called the flat worms. You can still see them in the ,bush in New Zealand: Often when you turn over a loose stone, you see a red or green striped ribbon-shaped creature which departs rapidly, leaving a trail of slime. Farmers are only too well acquainted with their relatives-the liver and tape worms.' > The flat worms are quite harmless and very beautifully coloured with stripes and irridescent flecks. They carry their private bit of pond round with them in the form of slime which they ’’swim” in. They are the most simple creatures we know to have eyes, proper muscles and nerves. They have small stinging cells to kill, their prey, and eat it by extending a special part of their stomach like a tube. Queer beasts, but, for all that, pioneers.

"LILI MARLENE.”

Copies of the song "Lili Marlene, with the words in English. Italian an German, are now available ERS for issue, to members of 2 Those desiring copies should make direc application to HQ-ERS.