the Upside Down Tortoise Enigma

[klr]

As you might expect, there are pros and cons to being big, and being able to right yourself ...

Depending on your point of view, it is one of life’s great questions. How does a tortoise that has flipped onto its back, get up again?

Depending on your point of view, it is one of life’s great questions.

How does a tortoise that has flipped onto its back, get up again?

It’s not a rhetorical question, and it goes beyond being a metaphorical or metaphysical query, or a subject for drunken debate.

For a tortoise it is a deadly serious matter; being able to right itself counts as one of life’s epic struggles, a potential matter of life and death.

Now scientists have investigated this struggle in detail, determining if and how tortoises have evolved to do it.

...

continued: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150108 ... ise-enigma

[pErvinalia]

I've had to right a tipped cow before. Stupid animal.

[Seth]

I've had to right a tipped cow before. Stupid animal.

Me too.

Had a couple die in irrigation furrows over the decades. They get too far over they can't get back up.

[pErvinalia]

Although, to be fair, maybe it was our selective breading wot done it. Ye olde natural cow might not be so top heavy as to be susceptible to tipping and being unable to right itself once tipped.

[pErvinalia]

I've had to right a tipped cow before. Stupid animal.

Me too.

Had a couple die in irrigation furrows over the decades. They get too far over they can't get back up.

I used to pass the odd cow stuck upside down in an irrigation furrow. My old toyota troopcarrier had an engine sound that used to scare the bejejus out of cows. So I often found the solution to saving these silly animals was to stop, reverse up next to them, and if that didn't scare them enough to flip back up the right way, I'd rev the engine until they got enough adrenaline pumping to sort themselves out.

I've got to say, after spending that many years surrounded by frankly stupid cows, I really came to love the poor simple things.

[Seth]

I've had to right a tipped cow before. Stupid animal.

Me too.

Had a couple die in irrigation furrows over the decades. They get too far over they can't get back up.

I used to pass the odd cow stuck upside down in an irrigation furrow. My old toyota troopcarrier had an engine sound that used to scare the bejejus out of cows. So I often found the solution to saving these silly animals was to stop, reverse up next to them, and if that didn't scare them enough to flip back up the right way, I'd rev the engine until they got enough adrenaline pumping to sort themselves out.

I've got to say, after spending that many years surrounded by frankly stupid cows, I really came to love the poor simple things.

Yeah, except the evil bitch cow who tried to stomp me to death one day...she was a fence-wrecker and had to wear a collar with three foot long shafts to keep her from bulling through fences. Sent her to the knacker eventually.

[piscator]

[JimC]

Hearing rEv and Seth talk about cows together makes me think of Brokeback Mountain for some weird reason...

[JimC]

I also needed to pose this question:

"What has this thread taught us?"

[Seth]

Hearing rEv and Seth talk about cows together makes me think of Brokeback Mountain for some weird reason...

Yeah, life isn't complete until you've found yourself bare-chested laying face down in the snow up to your armpit in a bovine vagina trying to turn a calf...in the dark...while it's snowing...for an hour or more...

Almost makes a guy want to turn vegetarian.

[pErvinalia]

Hearing rEv and Seth talk about cows together makes me think of Brokeback Mountain for some weird reason...

[Seth]

Hearing rEv and Seth talk about cows together makes me think of Brokeback Mountain for some weird reason...

JimC, you need to watch the movie again. They weren't cowboys, they were sheep herders, and everybody know what sheepherders like to do with sheep...and each other.

[mistermack]

Sheep, cows or tortoises, it's a hard lonely life on the range.

When they've faced death with a herd of stampeding tortoises bearing down on them, and come out the other side still breathing, it's not surprising that they nip into each other's tents to do what a man's gotta do.