Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the water, you find that birds in Australia have learned to use fire to set fires; all in the name of the circle of life.
"FOR THOUSANDS of years Australia's indigenous people have spoken about 'firehawk' raptors that intentionally spread bushfires in order to corner their prey.
Now, a new study has documented and confirmed the bizarre ritual of these firehawks, finding that at least three raptor species "act as propagators" of wild fire."
The birds will "pick up smoldering grass and sticks from raging bushfires and transport them up to a kilometre away". They use these 'tools' to set fires in non-burning areas to start a frenzy of small animals running for safety; or, out of the fire and into the frying pan.
Time for small animals everywhere to unite and form their own fire departments... Volunteers only, please.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11 2019, @02:23AM (1 child)
I used in a quiz in January 2018. The following is from an abstract from the scientific paper the popular reports were based on:
(Score: 4, Funny) by Immerman on Monday November 11 2019, @02:32AM
Yep, me too.
And you'd think if they're going to recycle such old news, they'd at least have time to make a decent pun. That should be "...out of the fire and into the flying pan"