Dumb and Dumber?

Bright sparks or not much going on between the ears?

We’ve all heard that derogatory phrase – bird brained. It usually conjures up an image of an ostrich with its head in the sand – whilst ostriches don’t actually bury their heads in the sand, they will put their heads down on the ground seemingly thinking this somehow makes them magically invisible! Rather dense? Well ostriches can deliver a hefty kick with those powerful legs that has been known to fell even a lion…

Is it an owl? Is it a parrot? In fact, the kakapo is a bit of both. It’s too plump to take to the skies, which is just as well as it’s undeveloped wings would never make it! Its flightlessness combined with a penchant for living on the ground, does make it rather vulnerable. Unlike its vocally eloquent cousins, it hasn’t quite mastered the art of song – the male kakapo attempts to call to the female, but often makes enough of a din to put her off instead of turn her on! Sadly, it’s no wonder that there are only about 200 kakapos left in the wilds of New Zealand. Truly dim? Well kakapos don’t come out until after dark and didn’t have any natural predators to fear until humans (and their pets) appeared on the scene…..

Drifting along without a care in the world is the sunfish. Blessed with a brain the size of a peanut, a permanently half open mouth, no sharp teeth to speak of and only two ineffectually small fins, it’s not exactly looking as bright as the sunlight it adores. It’s very vulnerable to all kinds of predators from which it can neither defend itself or escape. Really daft? Well sunfish don’t taste good – they’re tough, slimy and are coated in parasites, not making them a tasty treat; they also lay the greatest number of eggs of any vertebrate and can grow incredibly quickly, some reaching a very large size indeed, which is far too much of a mouthful for most.

Jumping up to accept the award for dim insects is the flea. Its only purpose in life is to suck blood and make more fleas – it can’t fly as it has no wings and it can barely see as it has simple (or no) eyes. This kind of existence doesn’t require much in the way of intellect. Totally silly? Well, the flea can manage to jump up to 100 times its own length, making it one of the best leapers in the world and enabling it to propel itself onto a convenient food source passing by, where it can simply lay back, drink and take it easy…

Another intellectually hopeless hopper is the jerboa. Despite having four perfectly good legs to run on, it chooses to use only two of them and likes to jump about all over the place. This chosen method of propulsion isn’t in the least bit energy efficient, so it needs to stock up regularly on calories; unfortunately, though, it’s not particularly adept at finding food and when it does eventually source dinner, it never thinks about stashing some away for later. Utterly foolish? Well, all that haphazard hopping around does tend to confuse its predators and it can put on a turn of speed to get itself out of a hot spot…

The giant panda can’t boast both beauty and brains. Like other bears, pandas should be meat eaters – their stomachs are designed for it – but for some reason, best known to themselves, they’ve decided to go veggie. OK fair enough, nothing wrong with not wanting to eat meat, but what do they choose to eat almost exclusively instead? Bamboo. The trouble is that bamboo is hard to digest and very low on nutrition, meaning they need to source large quantities of it and spend most of their day chewing! As well as dietary challenges, they’ve taken their solitary existence a little too far, making finding a mate a tricky process. Completely senseless? Well, pandas being kept in captivity have been found to work together as a team to successfully mount the great escape from their enclosures and are amazingly adept at being able to spot a trap a mile off and avoid it.

Being called a sheep implies that you’re unable to think for yourself and simply follow the flock without a thought. Sheep don’t seem to do very much but munch grass all day long, living a seemingly simple existence. If one of them takes a fancy for a gander off somewhere, then the rest will follow it, without even knowing why. Surely stupid? Well we’ve all heard the famous tale of sheep who, having spotted richer pastures the other side of a cattle grid, successfully crossed the bars of the grid by nimbly picking their way across. The farmer thought, OK no problem, he would extend the gaps between the bars to stop them; but the sheep had other ideas and simply laid down and rolled over it instead!