Category Ask the Psychologist

Insects: Insects have six legs and three body segments. They include ants, bees, butterflies, cockroaches, and mosquitoes. Insects are the only arthropods (the animal division that includes insects and arachnids) that can fly. Some dragonflies can zoom up to 30 miles an hour (48 kph)!

Bugs: Bugs have specialized mouth parts and hardened front wings. They include cicadas, aphids, shield bugs, and bedbugs. All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs, which are defined by strawlike mouths made for sucking the sap from plants or (in the case of bedbugs) blood from living hosts.

Arachnids: Arachnids have eight legs and two body segments. They include spiders, ticks, mites, and scorpions. Spiders can spin webs of unbreakable silk to snare prey. They instill greater fear in humans than any other animal, despite the fact that spiders are relatively harmless compared with insects.

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Bombardier Beetles: Talk about packing heat! This breed of beetle can squirt a boiling mix of volatile chemicals from the business end of its abdomen. The spray melts attacking insects and scars human skin.

Hagfish: Nearly blind and not very bright, hagfish bumble around the deep ocean looking for their next meal. If a bigger fish starts trouble, it’s slime time! The hagfish encases itself in a cocoon of protective mucus and emits enough extra go to clog the predator’s gills. If the slimed fish survives this suffocating coup de gross, it learns a valuable lesson: Never hassle a hagfish!

Zorillas: You think a skunk is stinky? It’s got nothing on the striped polecat, aka the zorilla, aka the smelliest animal on Earth! Like a skunk, this member of the weasel family can squirt a stream of sticky fluid from its butt at any animal that crosses its path. The polecat’s spray is almost supernaturally stinky.

Turkey Vultures: With a featherless face made for digging into maggot-ridden roadkill, turkey vultures are already the uncontested leaders of the dirty-bird club. But you haven’t really seen their rotten side until you’ve mad. These bad birds defend themselves by barfing up whatever decomposing flesh they’ve recently devoured, along with powerful stomach acids.

Hippos: When an African hippopotamus emerges from a local mudhole to mark its territory with poop and pee, it doesn’t waste any time spreading its waste. The big beast whips its tail to fan feces and urine in every direction. Scientists aren’t certain why hippos spray their excrement to and fro, but they suspect it might serve to mark territory and attract mates.

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Mess with a skunk and you’ll be sorry! Glands in their butts are loaded with an oily, sticky, stinky musk they can squirt up to ten feet (3 m) away. The spray reeks of sulfurous chemicals called thiols that can potentially knock out, burn, and even kill animals that take a direct hit. Skunks, which are nocturnal (active at night), developed this chemical weapon to deter predators that hunt using smell in the darkness. Most of the time, skunks don’t even need to use their butt blasters. An angry display is often all it takes to frighten away predators, which have learned to associate the skunk’s white stripe with an awful stink.

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Although researchers have taught captive dolphins how to read sign language, deciphering dolphin-speak is tricky because their language is so dependent on what they’re doing (whether they’re playing, fighting, or going after tasty fish). It’s no different for humans. Think about when you raise a hand to say hello. That same gesture could also mean goodbye. Crossing guards raise their hand to say stop. A salesclerk might do it to another planet trying to make sense of it all. Now you know what it’s like to study dolphin communication.

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Scientists suspect dolphins “talk” about everything from basic facts, like their age and gender, to their emotional state. When the going gets tough, they’ll call other pod members for backup. They even have names – so-called social whistle – to summon one another. Intensely social animals, dolphins probably communicate a lot about their relationships.

Though researchers don’t yet fully understand the complexities of a dolphin’s language, these creatures are universally regarded as highly intelligent. Because they are so smart, dolphins can use their voices to articulate relatively sophisticated ideas — for example, a dolphin that has been attacked may communicate what happened to others, then lead them in retaliation or retreat. Similarly, dolphins may use their voices to share information regarding the location of food or potential danger.

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Starting from birth, dolphins squawk, whistle, click, and squeak. Sometimes one dolphin will vocalize, and then another will seem to answer. Members of a pod will communicate in different patterns at the same time, like people chattering at a party. And just as you gesture and change facial expressions as you talk, dolphins communicate non-verbally with varied body posture, jaw snaps, bubble blowing, and fin caresses.

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