h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Speaking of thousands of mice, a few years ago I saw a documentary about a town (unfortunately I forget exactly when or where) that was so overrun with mice and rats that what at first glance looked like a moving asphalt street, was actually thousands of the rodents crawling all over eachother. As the cars drove around, you could hear the crunching as all the mice's bones were crushed under the tires. As the people slept at night, there was a constant sound inside the walls, which they came to realize was actually the mice chewing up the insulation. And so on.

Creepy, no?

I saw some similar footage on some Discovery Channel show, once. It was a pig farm that was overrun by mice. I think it might have been in Australia, but it was too long ago to be sure. The mice literally cover the ground in layers. At one point you see mice running through a hole they've eaten through a pig's ear.

The reason for the biblical style infestation was that the farmers in the area had eradicated all of the poisonous snakes.

the clip is on youtube and is australia. i think it dates from the 80s.

People should really pay more attention to the checks and balances in the ecosystem before they go around messing with it.

this is true. however i doubt indigenous snakes would have much impact on mouse numbers in australia. it is more a function of variability of rain and so forth and the fact that in previously minimally 'fertile' situations, millions of tonnes of grain etc are now 'suddenly' available to grain feeding creatures. evolution doesn't function in these time frames in terms of provision of balancing predators, particularly in a relatively closed ecosystem like australia.

flies exploded in population numbers in australia after white settlement, consequent to the amount of cow and sheep dung being available. naturally available predation cannot match this change.

there are many examples of how human land use in the past centuries has affected animal populations, both increasing and decreasing them. foreigners are for example, often surprised to learn that koalas and kangaroos are also in plague proportions in some parts of the country.

"flies exploded in population numbers in australia after white settlement, consequent to the amount of cow and sheep dung being available. naturally available predation cannot match this change."

I don't see why not - it's the exact same process that caused the swell in fly numbers that would cause the swell in predator numbers - tonnes of extra food being made available.

in ecosystems bounded by relative scarcity, creatures tend not to have high birth rates. native australian wasps for example are not usually hiving as european wasps are. predators need to be introduced to the system if biological control mechanisms are chosen. this is how the cane toad got to australia. turned out it didn't particularly like the creatures it was brought in to consume. http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/phtm/PHTM/staff/rsbufo.htm and almost nothing in turn eats the cane toad.

managing imbalances in population numbers of creatures, particularly introduced species, as result of changed land use in australia, is an ongoing problem for the scientific community.

Slugs have four noses.

I'm reminded of this film from my childhood: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069005/plotsummary

Night of the Lepus


Yes, a horror movie about rabbits!

The only nation whose name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan

I'll inform the people of Azerbaijan immediately. Get them to change their country's name.

RF

Is Azerbaijan the past tense of Azerbaija?

Sorry !!!

Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.

Note: Both Afghanistan and Azerbaijan are considered landlocked.

Correction:

Kazakhstan and not Mongolia, thank you.

The national dog of the Netherlands is the keeshond. No other countries have a national dog.

British Bulldog?

RF

...and the national dog of Korea is dinner. Possibly.

RF

The state bird of Utah is the Seagull. I miss seagulls.

Did you know why the State bird of Utah is the seagull?

In Eighteen-oatcake, the Mormons were settling in Utah and like all the early settlers, beginning the back-breaking toil of cultivating the land. A huge swarm of locusts crossed Utah, devastating crops and vegetation on the way. Nothing the settlers could do would stop the locusts. They faced starvation and possibly the end of their settlements. Just as things looked at their worst, seagulls appeared and started eating the locusts. Curiously, there were many witness reports of seagulls picking up locusts in their beaks and dropping them in a nearby lake and returning to repeat this over and over again. The Mormons were saved and took this as a sign from their god. In Salt Lake City there is a statue of a seagull.

Locusts used to swarm a lot in North America, to devastating effect and they threatened the whole settlement of the West. Many methods were used to try to combat them, but not understanding locusts or why they swarmed, they didn't work. What actually ended the locust swarms was the act of cultivating the soil itself. The farmer's ploughs disturbed the ground that contained the locust's eggs, killing the next generation.

Well of course I know that story, I live here. I didn't know about the second paragraph though.