BBs Blog

Elephants are painting self portraits, and a horse named Cholla has had some of his paintings sold and exhibited in several art shows. Are we discovering that animals are smarter, and perhaps have much more of an aesthetic sense that we previously believed? According to a story I read, elephants have been drawing pictures in the sand using sticks and other objects for a long time. However, in all the years I have owned and been around horses, I have never seen nor heard of horses doing that. Yet after being given a paintbrush, Cholla took to painting, well, like a duck to water. If animals do have a more developed aesthetic sense than we humans previously realized, will giving them tools like watercolors and paintbrushes allow them to evolve in new and exciting ways? Are we causing the artistic evolution of animals by providing them with such tools? Or are we simply helping them express an artistic ability that has always been within some of them? And if some animals do indeed have an aesthetic sense, as well as a true artistic ability, does this also prove that those animals have souls?

As if elephants and horses with artistic talent aren’t enough to make you wonder what the heck is going on in the animal kingdom, there has now been a second recorded case of immaculate conception among sharks. The first such case occurred when a hammerhead shark gave birth to a shark pup at a zoo in Omaha Neb. The second, and most recent case, which occurred 16 months ago, involved a black tip shark named Tidbit. Tidbit died while undergoing a yearly checkup. A necropsy revealed she was in late stages of pregnancy. Since there had been no male black tipped sharks in the aquarium with her during the 8 years she had been there, the late term pregnancy came as quite a surprise. DNA testing proved the 10″ shark pup contained no genetic material from a male shark. Scientists theorize that shark pups lacking the chromosomes present in male sperm would have reduced genetic diversity, and be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild.

My best friend Moonie recently witnessed an incident involving a gray fox that seems to show just how thoroughly at least one fox has adapted to surviving city life. The fox was spotted by her early one morning in downtown Midland, Tx. She watched as the fox stopped at the crosswalk, waited for the light to change, then trotted across the street. At first she thought it was a fluke, and the fox had merely been watching something else, and just happened to cross the street as the light changed. However, when the fox came to the next crosswalk, it once again paused, then crossed the street only after the crosswalk light changed to green.

I’ve seen a couple of stories lately as well where ACORN and some other folks have been accused of registering animals to vote. And who knows, if this evolutionary phase some species of animals seem to be going through continues, maybe some day we will be sharing the voting booths with real donkeys and elephants.