Category: Mammals
Despite its larger than life name, the royal antelope (Neotragus pygmaeus) is the smallest of all antelopes. Growing up to only 10″ tall and weighing about 6 pounds, they are about as big as a rabbit. Living in the dense, moist undergrowth of forests in West Africa, they are nocturnal, highly alert, and extremely shy – which can make observations of its behavior difficult. Their main strategy for avoiding predators is blending in, hiding, and failing that, zipping away through the underbrush!
The Opossum Ain’t Playing
Many people associate playing dead with the opossum - that’s where the term “playing opossum” comes from, after all. But something you might not know is that when an opossum feigns death, it really goes all out! Not content with merely closing its eyes and laying down, the opossum begins drooling profusely as if ill or even rabid, releases a putrid, greenish fluid from its anal glands that makes it smell like a decaying corpse, and after losing consciousness may even mimic rigor mortis! This is quite the elaborate routine, but it isn’t conscious: when an opossum plays dead, it has actually gone into shock due to stress.
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