Tool Use by Non-Primates

We'll start with invertebrates and go up the evolutionary tree.  Basically, we just want to get the ants out of the way.  They have no backbones but are more industrious than all us comedy writers put together.  Presumably just to show us how it's done, they have farms, ranches, and slavery.  Wait, slavery?  Okay, so maybe we're a couple centuries more advanced than ants, but still. 

• Gardening ants collect leaves or dead material and use them to grow fungus in their home.  The fact they grow the fungus intentionally probably qualifies them as farmers, but on the other hand, they're still living in a moldy basement, which might make them college freshmen.

Also, they're tasty.

• Rancher ants corral their own herds of aphids.  They house and protect them, and the aphids provide "honeydew," which is a nice way of saying, "plant juice that's already been through one digestive tract."  Ants tap the aphids with their antennae, and that signals the little green bugs to piss/poop yummy ant food.

 

See all those little hairs?  That's where the ants collect the poop.

• Conomyrma bicolor stones its enemies.  Yep, stones them, like in the Old Testament.  Presumably it will move on to more humane assault weapons when it discovers gunpowder and can make grenades.

• Several ant species use slavery.  Usually, the slave raiders invade a nest, kill all the adults, and take the larvae home to pupate.  It can get pretty rough, especially when the adult slaves stage a rebellion.  Apparently, slave ants in New_York are more uppity than their southern counterparts, giving the Civil War a whole new invertebrate angle.

 

Except this time it's the black ones taking the white ones as slaves.

• The Assassin bug (named for stealth and general badassery) uses camouflage to sneak up on termites and avoid predators.  He also uses a cruel baiting technique where he kills one termite, then leaves the body just outside a termite hole.  When the next little bug comes out to collect the body so they can have a proper funeral and then eat it (why waste a perfectly good meal?), the assassin kills that one, too.  When the Assassian grows up, he stops bothering with camouflage and kills termites in his birthday suit.  And honestly, who can blame him?  Why would you want to look like something scraped off the bottom of a deep fryer:

 

when you could look like this:

• Tree crickets make megaphones out of leaves, so their pick-up lines can still be inflicted on females who have retreated to the other side of the bar.

What girl wouldn't go for this?

• Some squid species collect luminous bacteria and store them in a "light organ."  The squid bosses around the bacteria, telling them when to light up and when to be dark.  The enzyme used is called luciferase, from the root word lucifer, which you may recognize as Satan's other name.  Where does this squid live? In the dark depths of the sea, not at all the sort of place something sinister would lurk.

• Octopi are the smartest invertebrates, and as such have a history of scientific puppeteering involving the usual mazes and puzzles often used to harass_mice.  They can open jars, play with pill bottles, and throw rotten food down the drain.  They can also destroy their exhibits and escape from their aquariums.  Some escapes are motivated by the need to grab some snacks from the other aquariums, some are searching for love, and some are just bored.  And, as if they weren't cool enough for being so smart, this one can seriously fuck you up:

Blue-ringed_octopus

• Opposable thumbs are often cited as the reason humans are more capable of breaking things with with heavy objects than, say, a fish, which doesn't even have arms.  Wait--members of four different genera (Cheilinus, Corus, Halichoeres and Thalassoma), pick up normally well-defended things like sea urchins, oysters, and scallops and smash them to bits on convenient rocks.

Spines, schmines

• Damselfish, despite having possibly the weaniest name in the ocean, cultivate algae gardens.  Surgeonfish regularly raid these gardens and steal the food.  It's unclear if they do this because they're hungry or because they are called surgeonfish, thus obviously more awesome.  So far, scientists have been unable to locate the knightinshiningarmorfish, so the damsel will just have to live with it.

She's even bright blue.  Totally asking for it.

• Archer fish discovered the weaponry potential of water a few years before we here at Cracked did the research to back up their findings.  They fire (spit) water at bugs on branches above the water, and then accurately predict where the prey will land so they can get there to catch it.

• The woodpecker finch uses cactus spines to fish bugs out of their hiding places.  He's realized putting hard, straight objects in holes results in a prize and uses that knowledge to find sustantance.

• Egyptian vultures use rocks to crack ostrich eggs.  They also stone tortoises.   Why got to that effort when dead corpses are so much easier?  Fuck you, that's why.

• Pied kingfishers, black kites, sunbitterns, and several species of heron, including this green heron, use bait while fishing.  Some use sticks, but this enterprising fellow has stolen bread from a human and is fishing with it.

• Burrowing owls also use bait.  However, instead of fluffy white bread, they collect poop.  Then they plant it around the entrances to their burrows and wait for dung beetles to come along and try to eat it.  It's no wonder they never stop scowling.

• Honeyguides have realized that people are the best animals to call on when you need a good ransacking.  So when they find a beehive, they go locate a suitable human, lead him to the hive, and stand by while the obliging human destroys it and takes most of the honey.  Then he eats the remaining honey.  If a human is unavailable, he'll find a honey badger, which is afraid of nothing (expect being called 'chicken').

Honey badgers love honey more than Winnie the Pooh and have been found stung to death by bees they were trying to steal from.

• Bowerbirds know what rich playboys, like Batman, know: that shiny objects and a cool house will attract the ladies.  They build and decorate bowers, using flowers, berries, bug carapaces, feathers, bones, and even bottle caps.  They are known to paint, and their favorite color is blue.

This one thinks blue clothespins are the way to a woman's heart.

• Members of the crow family (ravens, crows, magpies, jays, etc.) are particularly adept tool-users.  They use twigs, rocks, pine cones, grass, and anything else available to bomb annoying humans or birds sitting on tasty eggs.  They follow wolves so they can eat their kills, and they play with sticks together.  They can plug drain holes to make puddles, use sticks to fish bugs from holes, and use American and Japanese cars to crack nuts.

 

• Grey parrots are the most intelligent birds, and you might have heard of the most famous one, Alex.  If taught, one can master a human language about to the level of a three-year-old.  They can use spoons and solve complicated puzzles requiring they choose and modify a tool (string, a stick, whatever).  When all else fails, they tell the nearest human to do their bidding.

Pictured: broken clock and the bird who's going to fix it.

• Naked mole-rats may have won the award for ugliest mammal, but they don't let that stop them from using tools.  These pale and wrinkly (like an old person, but with claws) animals use their teeth for digging.  Obviously, ramming your trachea into a pile of dirt doesn't work out very well, so they lodge a wood chip or husk behind their teeth, which works like a dust mask.

Mallwalker at a nude beach.

• Sea otters carry around favorite rocks and smash animals on them.

 

 

 

Tuckered out from a long day of destruction.

• Beavers: the architects who chop down trees with their teeth.  Then they build these and completely alter their environment.   If the new lake annoys a human, 20 points.

Hoover Dam rough sketch

• Badgers use soil, snow, or plants to plug up escape tunnels used by ground squirrels, thus ensuring they'll get to eat the little furry animal after they dig down into the burrow.

    versus      

Not really a fair fight anyway

• A lion was once seen using a thorn to pick another thorn out of its paw.  A female leopard was observed dragging an impala up a tree, out of reach of her cubs.  The cubs whined, then eventually climbed up after her.

Dammit, she just wanted some peace.

• Elephants use switches to brush off flies.  They also throw dust, logs, and anything else within reach at people, leopards, cars, and places that look just a little suspicious.

When they run out of semi-threatening shadows, throwing darts at balloons works, too.

• Humpback whales swim under schools of fish in a circle and blow bubbles.  These bubble nets trap the fish together and make them easier to catch.

• Dolphins use sponges to root around in the sand for fish.  Oddly, only females and children use these tools.  Apparently males grow up to be too cool and prefer to do things the hard way.

 

What a girl