Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and much lagniappe)

March 1, 2016 • 6:30 am

First, it’s March 1, and you know what that means—or at least the comic strip Mutts does:

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I am returning to Chicago tomorrow—if the weather holds. A big blizzard (coming out of the US) is predicted to strike Montreal starting tonight.

Also, it’s World Cat Day in Russia (Russian-speaking readers are welcome to translate the tw**t below. I for one would like to know what it says.)

But in Dobrzyn, of course, it’s ALWAYS World Cat Day, with the World Cat being Hili. Today she’s thinking Deep Thoughts, but, as usual, they revolve around noms:

A: Hili, what is creative thinking?
Hili: It’s a broad knowledge and a courage to associate.
A: Give me an example.
Hili: The ability to combine a human with a refrigerator.

(Photo: Sarah Lawson)
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In Polish:
Ja: Hili, co to jest twórcze myślenie?
Hili: Rozległa wiedza i odwaga skojarzeń.
Ja: Na przykład.
Hili: Trzeba umieć połączyć człowieka z lodówką.
(Zdjęcie: Sarah Lawson)

Over in Wroclawek, Leon has a new black friend (?), Choco:

Leon: Come, Choco, I will introduce you to my fans and then we will fight.

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And in Winnipeg, Canada, Gus continues the renovations on his Ikea box. Here’s a video of The Earless One making his window bigger:

Finally, here are between 150,000 and 250,000 King Penguins huddled together for warmth on the island of South Georgia. This photo, from the Daily Mail, is by photographer Role Galitz. Note the chicks (brown) gathered in creches. It always astounds me that a parent can find its chick in this mess. I think they do it by vocalization, but I’m not sure.

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h/t: Diane G, Matthew Cobb, P. Liz.

 

26 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and much lagniappe)”

    1. I know that Emperor Penguins locate their mate and chick by vocalisation – first the adults learn each other’s calls, then each parent and the chick while the other parent is off feeding.

      I assume it’s the same for King’s. I think David Attenborough covered this in Life in the Freezer.

    2. By vocalization. Exactly right. The other chicks are very polite and deferential ‘Oh hello Mr Penguin, nice tuxedo!’ while your own just bitch about dinner’s late and ‘Not regurgitated squid, again!’

    3. And so there are between 150,000 and 250,000 different vocalizations there.

      Uh, huh.

      😉

      1. Sort of like parents being able to discern the cry of their child (or their child’s voice) from among many others. No problem.

        1. Next time there’s a cry of “Mom!” in a grocery store, have a look at all the women who turn around at full alert. 😉

  2. I’m impressed by Gus and his chewing ways. In fact it looks like he may have learned this skill from mice. Mice are good at widening small holes as well as chewing wiring and food containers. Copy cat?

  3. It looks like Gus is well on his way to creating a back door out of that window.

  4. the World Cat being Hili

    Sounds very Norse ; shades of Yggdrasil, the World Tree.
    Logically therefore, there should be a World Cat Tree for the World Cat to lounge in.

    King Penguins huddled together for warmth

    If they’re huddled together for warmth at the tropical end of their range, something is decidedly amiss.
    In the foreground, you can clearly see that they’re non-randomly spaced, at around 1 penguin-length apart. Which suggests that they are constrained by (i) not wanting to be pecked by the neighbours, and (ii) wanting to be as close to other penguins as possible, so that they are as likely to be predated as oneself. I note that constraint (i) does not seem to apply to the chicks (the brownish patches). Oddly, the BAS only lists two land animals as native to South Georgia, and endemic bird (the South Georgia pipit – Anthus antarcticus) and freshwater ducks. Which raises the question of why they are grouping together. The mid-distance rise (this side of the white cliffs) seems almost as flat as the penguin-covered ground … oh rats. Rats may well be the answer.
    Rats may HAVE BEEN the answer. But South Georgia has been the target of a rat-eradication campaign for several years, and there is some encouraging evidence of success. So, potentially this behaviour may change.

    1. Very nice observations! Yes, now that I look at the closest ranks more carefully, they almost appear, well, ranked. You can follow the rows front to back. 🙂

      1. Stop tempting me to repeat the story about the plane and the penguin colony.
        To be honest, 90% of the penguin-packing stuff I lifted directly from Jack Horner’s book about finding the Maiasaurus nesting site. But once you grok that idea, you see it in every second “natural world” documentary. Anywhere you see a densely packed colony of nesting theropod dinosaurs.
        (caveat : I’ve not watched any of the Jurassic Pork films all the way through – but IIRC Horner was a consultant on them, so I’d expect him to have got that right in the CGI.)
        Oh, similar pattern for different reasons in the “egg chamber” in Alien. That may be art imitating life, because I think it pre-dated Horner’s late 70s work.

        1. Yes, one of those concepts which once grasped is hard not to see. 🙂

          “Anywhere you see a densely packed colony of nesting theropod dinosaurs.”

          Well, ground nesters, perhaps. Cliff nesters can be cheek by jowl…malar region by mandible…?

  5. The penguins don’t seem densely packed enough to be clustering for warmth. Of course I’m no expert. Incidentally, a big group of penguins is known as a prom.

    1. Ha Ha Ha, that makes such good sense that I had to Google to find out if you were joking or not!

      A group of penguins is called a colony, a rookery or a Waddle, but these terms are typically used for a group of penguins on land.

      A group of penguins floating in the ocean is called a raft.

      I love “a Waddle.”

      (See Aidan’s post at 4 above for some interesting speculation about your packing-density observation.)

  6. That reminds me of cultural differences in how we are able to distinguish people.

    White Americans people tend to have difficulty differentiating people from China or India or Africa. They look so similar. Turns out we are just as difficult to differentiate when they look at us.

    Penguins probably think we all look exactly the same and wonder the same thing: How do you know which one is yours?

  7. I don’t get the “Must be March” punchline in the comic. Can someone explain?

        1. I didn’t get it either. Besides, it’s not how the weather works in NZ anyway.

  9. [Translation, clockwise from left:]

    Cats haven’t sweat glands all over the body, like humans. They sweat only through their paws. Cat paws are very sensitive to vibrations. They can feel an earthquake 10-15 minutes before humans.

    [Above, missing text.]
    E.g. grass seems red to cats.

    The surface of the nose is as unique for cats as fingerprints in humans. Cats come to touch humans with their heads not only as a caress but to mark territory with smell from glands located on the nose and around the snout.

    Claws show the animal’s mood. Cats bring out their claws not only for aggression but also when feeling pleasure. In a resting state, all members of the cat order (?!) except the cheetah hide their claws.

    In 7 years, one pair of cats and their progeny can produce 420,000.

    CATS OF PETERBURG

    During the [WWII] siege of Leningrad, the price of a kitten at the black market was a bread and a half.
    [The drawing shows that this was equal to] 1.5 soldier’s daily rations and 3 worker’s daily rations.

    1. Hmm. Were the kittens for eating? I know that was a desperate struggle, with civilians starving to death.

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