(I didn't have any pictures of the topics, so I grabbed a moon to howl at. ;~)
I saw a coyote a couple years ago on my way to dance. It was pretty cool!
A few mildly intriguing things:
- The name "Shrew", means ill-tempered and scolding women, started off as "screawa", Anglo-Saxon, for venomous animal. The word changed to shrew in Middle English. (This is where the word "shrewd" came). So why is a Shrew called a Shrew?
- A Shrew has poisonous saliva produced by glands in their lower jaw. It's not strong enough to kill a human but it can stupefy a mouse and give it convulsions.
- They are voracious insect eaters. They eat more than their weight a day. Some species, if they go with out food for a couple house, die from starvation.
- Wolves are a part of the canine clan, so they have characteristics that are found in domestic dogs.
- Wolves are carnivores, which means they are meat eaters. They are also social and prefer to travel in packs. They were/are diminishing, so many efforts are being made to keep them from extinction.
- Unlike most canines they are also coursers which means they have the body and stamina to chase prey or run for long distances!
- With wolves diminishing, coyotes have been increasing. Some people thought they were wolves, or an interbreed of wolves and dogs, but neither is true. Coyotes are coyotes.
- They used to live out west and slowly around the 1940's they started becoming established here in the East. Eastern Coyotes are merely adventurous westerners. ;~D
- They can interbreed with dogs, but as numbers have increased they aren't as likely to.
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