Cleaning is definitely a bit of a chore – sometimes (or often in my case!) you feel like you just can’t be bothered – what we need is someone to help us out with the tidying up…
How about your very own moggie lending a paw with the chores? It’s true – cats are classed as clean creatures, spending lots of time grooming themselves – they even have specially designed tongues to help them keep their fur in finest fettle. Not only are they very image conscious, they also like to keep a clean and tidy home too. Most cats are wary of water, but some, including tigers, will partake in an occasional dip for that cool all over look.
Speaking of cool, polar bears are another spruced up species – they maintain their immaculate, white appearance by rolling around in the snow to achieve that chilled chic – for a more deep-down cleanse, they slip into the icy depths for a totally immersive cleaning session.
When it comes to house-proud insects, ants take the biscuit! They are fastidious about keeping their nest neat by continuously cleaning around and regularly taking out the trash. They like to maintain high hygiene standards, so if they spot a fellow colonist looking a little shabby, they will pitch in with some personal grooming.
Bees too are no shirkers on sprucing up. They frequently groom themselves to collect the pollen, that they’ve busily collected, from their furry bodies; they keep a hygienic hive too – pure as honey!
Keeping clean is often a necessity for being able to do your thing – take songbirds for example – they need to be finnicky about their feathers, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take to the skies. Blackbirds, especially, enjoy a daily bath, followed by a good preen to ensure that their plumage is airworthy and ready for take-off.
You’d think that spending your life in the water would mean you didn’t have to worry about washing – but being in the briny doesn’t mean you can slack on the sanitation. A spot of exfoliation helps to keep the skin looking radiant – dolphins dive down to the fine sand on the sea floor and rub themselves all over for that deep clean feeling; to complete the treatment, they’ll leap out of the water to shake any pesky parasites off their bodies – who said a cleaning regime can’t be fun!
We’ve all met those super clean freaks, who make tidying up their life’s work! Take the little wrasse fish – these plucky pickers venture into the mouths of much bigger creatures, including sharks, where they carry out some dainty dental hygiene in exchange for a meal of the leftovers, leaving their clients with that just brushed feeling.
Oxpeckers happily give hippos, buffalos and even giraffes, a good once over, by picking off any sneaky blood-sucking stowaways that are being bothersome. Their favourite treat are tics because they’re rather partial to the odd drop or two of blood. Sometimes this means they will take a sneaky sip out of any unhealed wounds they come across! Most hosts will tolerate this, realising that a sanguineous tip is a small price to pay for a full body blitz.
There are those who are cleaning up without even realising it! Scavengers are on the lookout for an easy meal and will often hoover up dead carrion – an obvious example is the vulture, who can even munch its way through bones, having extra strong stomach acid to digest the toughest stuff – whilst gruesome, their dining preference helps to clear away all the recently departed.
Toilet facilities are somewhat limited on the African savannah – with the likes of elephants producing about 90kg (200lbs) of dung a day – this could be a smelly problem – so it’s a good job that one creature’s rejects are another’s lunch! The good old dung beetle rapidly rolls off balls of poo and buries it in its underground larders for later – excellent pooper scooping!
Some lesser seen lifeforms are stoically working away on a more subtle sanitisation programme. Fungi and bacteria, along with earthworms and microscopic insects, quietly breakdown waste matter that falls to earth and incorporate it into the ground, improving the overall health of the soil, which helps plants to grow better, as well as keeping things clean and tidy.
With all this hygienic activity going on, I guess there really isn’t any excuse not to clean up your room….
Candy Hunter 