The "Did you know" thread.....

[Roubignol]

Ant Matabele (Megaponera analis) lives in sub-Saharan Africa and eats only termites.
During termite raids, some ants get injured by termite soldiers (biting off extremities), after the fight injured ants get carried back to the nest by nest-mates.
Lack of treatment increases mortality from 10% to 80% within 24 h, most likely due to infections. Wound clotting occurs extraordinarily fast in untreated injured individuals, within 10 min. Furthermore, heavily injured ants (loss of five extremities) are not rescued or treated; this is regulated not by the helper but by the unresponsiveness of the injured ant. Interestingly, lightly injured ants behave ‘more injured’ near nest-mates. It the first case of organized social wound treatment reported in insects through a multifaceted help system focused on injured individuals. This is not only limited to selective rescuing of lightly injured individuals by carrying them back (thus reducing predation risk), but, moreover, included a differentiated treatment inside the nest.

We must not see an empathetic behavior among the Matabele, but rather a survival instinct, say the researchers: as the death rate or injury exceeds that of the birthrate, ants have an interest in treating their congeners, so they go back to the fight.

[MaxJoker]

Most house fires happen in the home

[DTravel]

More wisdom from the Snapple tea leaves:

Jousting is the official sport in the state of Maryland.

The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

More energy from the sun hits Earth every hour than the planet uses in a year.
(I suspect this should read than humans use in a year.)

If you doubled one penny every day for 30 days, you would have $5,368,702.12.
(GIVE ME BACK MY PENNY!)

Mangoes can get sunburned.
(I think I may have posted that one before.)

Early football fields were painted with both horizontal and vertical lines, creating a pattern that resembled a gridiron.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Do you know that about 6 millions years ago, a specific female ancester had at least two children. One of these children was the ancester of all the chimpanzees living today and another child was our grand grand grand grand mother or father of all of us? (Damned I'm an Estreeter's cousin )

(Come on Estreeter... I'm kidding. )

From 2 millions years until 10'000 years ago, there were several human species (like today there are several species of foxes or bears) living on Earth at the same time.
We actually know the following ones:

Homo denisova (discovered in Siberia in 2010)
Homo erectus
Homo rudolfensis
Homo ergaster
Homo floresiensis
Homo soloensis
Homo neanderthalensis (who had a bigger brain and was stronger than us)

and us... Homo sapiens

100'000 years ago, at least 6 human species were living simultaneously on Earth.

Adding to this previous message, did you know that homo sapiens sapiens appeared to its genetic form about 200'000 years ago in Africa. That means about 10'000 biological generations (maybe between 10'000 and 12'000).
That means that about 10'000 generations ago, we (all the humans living on Earth today), for sure, had the same common ancesters.
That's really really recent.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by MaxJoker

Most house fires happen in the home

Guess it pays to live in an igloo start a fire inside and you'll still have a lovely abode

[sandhunter]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Adding to this previous message, did you know that homo sapiens sapiens appeared to its genetic form about 200'000 years ago in Africa. That means about 10'000 biological generations (maybe between 10'000 and 12'000).
That means that about 10'000 generations ago, we (all the humans living on Earth today), for sure, had the same common ancesters.
That's really really recent.

What about the ones discovered in California recently Homo Homous

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Guess it pays to live in an igloo start a fire inside and you'll still have a lovely abode

Wouldn't an igloo melt ?

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by sandhunter

Wouldn't an igloo melt ?

Great you start a fire but drown to death as a result

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

Great you start a fire but drown to death as a result

Aah-but it gets a 5 star rating under Health and Safety for being constructed from self extinguishing materials.....

[cginok]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Adding to this previous message, did you know that homo sapiens sapiens appeared to its genetic form about 200'000 years ago in Africa. That means about 10'000 biological generations (maybe between 10'000 and 12'000).
That means that about 10'000 generations ago, we (all the humans living on Earth today), for sure, had the same common ancesters.
That's really really recent.

I remember seeing a documentary several years back that they could trace all people of jewish/hebrew heritage to 13 women. For the life of me I can't remember how far back they said it was. Still, that they could trace millions of people's lineage back to that small a number of ancestors is something that I found astonishing.

I came across an article recently that they found hominid fossils in Southeast Europe, that predate the African ones by 200,000 years.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...ientists-find/

[Greenman]

Pigs cannot physically look up to the sky.