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Big herbivores!
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birlashashank
When on safari in India, wildlife itself may never be very easy to see. But to actually witness interaction and behavior among the larger species is something even rarer. We were lucky recently to witness such an interaction. Our reading of this: A young Asiatic water buffalo bull, eager to pass his genes on to the next generation wanted to both eliminate competition and also perhaps bring the females into heat and hence targeted the young calves of the herd. For about 30 minutes, we observed the bull make sorties trying to gore the calves but the calves managed to evade the attacks till the time we were there except for one which sustained a deep gash (no idea of events that transpired later). Nature may be soothing and calm for many of us, but it is also a harsh world for the wildlife that inhabit it. The way of life here echoing Darwin's words: Survival of the fittest.
Beverly Joubert: " Drinking water is not easy for giraffes. The long-necked mammals are forced to momentarily relinquish their graceful stature and instead adopt a rather ungainly pose, splaying their legs and bending their iconic necks towards the ground in order to lower their heads to the water’s surface. It’s a cumbersome affair. And the seemingly simply task requires special, biological adaptations. Giraffes have massive hearts, specialised muscles in their veins and very high blood pressure which helps keep them from passing out when quickly dropping and lifting their heads to drink. When a giraffe raises its head, lots of blood is pumped directly to the animal’s brain to help keep it from fainting. Luckily giraffes get most of their moisture from condensation on the leaves that they eat, so they don’t need to drink very often. "
A big, unruly bull escaped from a farm in Al-Ain (Emirate of Abu Dhabi, on the UAE's eastern border with Oman, and near the Hajar Mountains), injured 3 workers who tried to control it, and caused panic in a house that it fled to, besides the neighbourhood that it was in. It was then captured and sent back to the farm, and had got injured itself: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/abu-dha...ee-workers
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