These 7 Animals Would Absolutely Crush It at the Winter Olympics

The Olympics are designed to test elite athleticism, at least in the human realm. But what about the animal world? How would Arctic foxes fare in the Winter Olympics, or snowy owls for that matter?

These Arctic animals, and others, are fast flyers and runners, and they hunt prey with deadly accuracy.

Granted, these animals might not follow all the rules (penguins, after all, slide on their bellies, not sleds), but here are seven animals that would excel at the Winter Olympics and likely win a few gold medals while they're at it. [Beasts in Battle: 15 Amazing Animal Recruits in War]

1. Artic fox

The Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) would crush any cross-country-skiing competition. This small carnivore has thick fur that helps it survive in weather as cold as minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 45 degrees Celsius), according to the San Diego Zoo. Its lush tail can curl like a scarf around its body, keeping it warm, the San Diego Zoo added.

These foxes don't use skis to get around, but the fur on their feet gives them traction as they run, acating like a natural snowshoe. In fact, their species name, lagopus, means "hare-footed" in Greek, according to the San Diego Zoo.

2. Flattie spider

Whenever the web-less spider notices a potential meal, it keeps one leg anchored and spins around until it catches its target.The flattie spider (Selenopidae) can spin much faster than an Olympic figure skater. To be exact, this arachnid can spin around in one-eighth of a second, which is nearly three times faster than the blink of an eye, according to a study published Feb. 12 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Just like figure skaters draw their arms closer to their body to spin faster, flattie spiders pull their remaining legs toward themselves, which allows them to spin up to 40 percent faster and nail a perfect landing, with their mouth positioned next to the prey, according to the researchers who conducted the study. You can watch a video of it below.

During ski jumping, Winter Olympic athletes zoom off a ski jump and lean forward, with their skis in a V-shape as they zoom through the air and land at record distances for their respective countries.

We nominate the Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus) for this event, given that the hare can go airborne, too, as it bounds through the snow at speeds as high as 40 mph (64 km/h), according to National Geographic.

4. Seal

There are few things more intense than speeding down a steep racetrack on a skeleton sled. But a seal probably wouldn't mind. These fin-footed pinnipeds slide all the time on their fat bellies as they enter and exit the water, according to Seals-World.

5. Penguins

Penguins would make world-class bobsledders. That's because they're epic tobogganers.

Bobsledding became a sport in the late 19th century, when Swiss athletes attached two skeleton sleds together and added a steering mechanism to make a toboggan, according to Olympics.org.

Likewise, penguins plop down on their stomachs and then slide around on the ice and snow, using their feet and wings to guide and push them along. Some penguins glide on their bellies for miles at a time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

6. Crow

Curling is a complex sport rife with rules and tools — including brooms, stones and sliders. It's no leap of the imagination that crows would do exceptionally well … largely because they're so good at making and using tools.

New Caledonian crows, for instance, can fashion hooks from sticks to grab larvae and insects from crevices in logs or branches, Live Science previously reported. The Hawaiian crow is also a medal winner, finding the best sticks to reach food in awkward spots.

We're not sure if these crows would sweep the ice with brooms, but they would certainly sweep the competition if the goal were to use sticks to nab a snack.

7. Snowy owl

The biathlon has roots in Scandinavia, where people hunted on skis with rifles hung over their shoulders, according to Olympics.org.

Snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus) don't ski and shoot, but they do fly with speed and have excellent hearing and vision that help them hunt with lethal accuracy. These owls would stand atop the podium at any animal Olympics, though they'd likely prefer a tasty lemming to a gold medal.

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6 Unexpectedly Intelligent Animals

Intelligence was once thought to only be present in humans. However studies on animal behavior shows that animals too have what we call intelligence. Although it’s not as administering an IQ test on a dog, animal intelligence can be observed. Animals have their own form of intelligence, and some species are smarter compared to others.

Here are some of the smartest animals.

Rats

Rats have long been used for a number of cognitive experiments to measure animal intelligence. They’re great at finding escape routes, shortcuts and loopholes. In the Chinese culture, rats are known for their resourcefulness and cunning.

Octopus

Never underestimate these eight-legged creatures. Octopus can actually get themselves out of a jar with a lid on it. They’re known to solve problems, play, navigate mazes and even have a pretty good short-term memory. These animals are very misunderstood, but researchers and scientist are now discovering more and more about their cognitive abilities.

Pigeons

A lot of people think that these birds are the “rats of the sky” because they’ve been known to spread illnesses, but these birds have done more than just spread diseases. Like rats, pigeons have also been used as subject of a number of scientific experiments. These birds can actually recognize a wide variety of images, even when a long time as passed. They identify themselves around mirrors and they can be trained to do a sequence of different actions.

Squirrel

Persistent with a good memory, squirrels have the ability to adapt to living amongst humans easily. Most squirrels show an impressive lineup of strategies and tricks that help them endure. These cleaver animals have learned that they can live off food from bird-feeders, garden plants, and whatever they can get their tiny paws on. 

Pig

You might think that these animals are just lazy and dirty, but they’re actually one of the most intelligent animals around. Both wide and domestic pigs have to ability to live and adapt to different ecological settings. You can also train them like dogs and cats. Certain pig species have also become common pets in a number of countries because of their flexibility.

Crow

Although these birds are considered a bad sign, they’re the smartest birds around. They’re very innovative, in fact some crows would even place nuts in the middle of the road so cars would run them over and break them out of their shells. Like parrots, you can also teach a crow how to mimic human language.

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Crows Think Like 7 Year Old Kids on Volume and Water Displacement

New Caledonian crows or corvids, which are already known as one of the world’s most intelligent birds, actually have more to brag about when it comes to smarts. A recent study showed that these birds have comprehensions about water that matches a 7 to 10 year old human child.

 The story about the crow and the pebbles actually has some kind of truth behind it. a study by UC Santa Barbara professor Dr.Corina Logan showed that these birds have a higher understanding with space and measurement. Crows are able to identify differences between levels of water and the displacement that happens when solids are placed inside the containers. The study used tubes with water and a floating treat to see if the crows were able to choose the best items to help displace the water and make the treat float closer to the opening. It showed that the crows chose items that could displace more water. According to Dr. Logan, they have strong evidence that the birds use a cause-and-effect assessment to know how the water is displaced.

Intelligence has always been a well-known feature amongst crows, but New Caledonian’s are known to be the smartest amongst the species. The University of Auckland has even set up a number of aviaries to specifically study what these crows are capable of doing. Dr. Logan had worked for one but she wanted to see what wild crows were able to do. The birds from the aviary could have learned a thing or two from previous test so she caught specimens from the wild and set them free after conducting the water displacement test.

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Crows solve Aesop's fable puzzles, offer clues to cognition

(Reuters) - A species of crow native to islands east of Australia has long wowed scientists with its intelligence, and now it has shown it can solve at least one puzzle as well as the average 7-year-old child, scientists reported on Wednesday.

Like other research on the cognitive abilities of nonhuman animals, the study sheds light on the evolution of intelligence and whether disparate cognitive capacities develop in lockstep or at radically different rates between species. The results suggest that an understanding of cause and effect evolved fairly early.
Source: Here

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Crows Reason Like Young Children

Crows and their relatives — ravens, jays, magpies, and rooks — are famous in folklore and myth for their intelligence as well as their enigmatic stare. Current science can explain and provide evidence that suggest crows can think and reason like a young child, a new study finds. Based on Aesop’s fable The Crow and the Pitcher, researchers from the University of Auckland tested New Caledonian crows’ understanding of water displacement and how to use this to solve a problem. In the fable, a crow drops pebbles into a pitcher that is half-filled with water. It continues to drop pebbles until the water level is high enough for the crow to drink. Likewise, the experiment required the crows to do the same to get a reward, which is a piece of meat attached to a floating cork.

Researchers put six New Caledonian crows through six different experiments that involved water displacement. After the birds were given a week of training, they passed four of the tests, which include dropping stones into a water-filled tube rather than a sand-filled one, dropping sinking objects instead of floating ones, dropping things into a tube that has a higher water level than a lower one, and using solid things instead of hollow ones.

Source: Here

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Bird: Crow

Crows are noisy, scary-looking bullies, which, in the animal world, usually signals intelligence. The crow is perhaps the best problem-solver of the group, but it's also a very fast learner. In a recent experiment, crows were found to remember and communicate the faces of individual people who were thought of as a threat. By the end of the experiment, the person who had wronged one crow found himself the enemy of all crows on campus--even though he had interacted with hardly any of them.

Source: Here

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Crow Plays with Ping-pong ball

Been pushing the ball all over the lawn. The dog joined in. Still, the ball won't cooperate. Maybe Crow was thinking it was an eyeball . . .

 

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