The fact that animals have personalities has always been something that is very interesting to me. If you've observed a few animals for more than 5 minutes it becomes obvious that no two creatures are alike; they all have their own actions and quirks that are unique to them, much like humans. Assuming that animals have no sense of self (something that seems true but no one really knows for sure) it's pretty cool that beings that primarily react to the world and their bodily needs still have room for uniqueness. It shows that not all personality traits come from what us humans posess; perhaps our quirks are meerly amplified by our sense of self and do not originate from that part of us? Anyway, I digress.
Because I've had my salamanders for more then 10 days now, their personalities have been appearing! Zinc, the little guy, is the most active of the bunch. He zooms around the cage and bumps into the other critters, and likes to park in the corners and swim up and down with his nose against the glass.
Xenon is definitely the most intelligent. It only took him a few days to realize that "the big pink human" is the thing that gives him food. Whenever I come close to the cage he swims up to the side of the glass and looks at me, and when I put my hand in the water he'll swim up to it and push his nose against my fingers looking for food. This of course doesn't happen if he can't see me, but most of the time he does. :)
Yttrium is the most antisocial. He generally hides behind the fake plants a lot, and sticks to the back of the cage. However, when Xenon was busy exploring my hand today he did come up to explore as well; I'm sure he will become more friendly as time goes on. What silly pets. :)
All three of them like to swim against the current in the aquarium (created by my bubbler as it pours water into the tank) and they all seem to enjoy parking themselves on top of the plants and just sitting there. (Especially Yttrium and Xenon.) Unfortunately they all like taking nips at each other's tails as well, and Zinc has a chunk missing so I'm not so happy about that. Hopefully if I feed them enough they won't do it too often though! I'm also not sure of their genders yet, though once they mature it'll be easy to tell. So, even though I'm calling them all "he" right now they could all very well become "she"! We'll see what happens. :)
I'm also working on another T-shirt design. This one is sort of a play off the dog name "Rex." It's far from finished but here is the outline so far (you can click on it for a larger version):
It is going to be holding a tree in it's mouth and I want to make the expression more confused then it already is. Also, T-Rex feet have an additional back digit so I'll have to fit that in somehow... anyway, that's about all.
Only 20 more days until I come home! Who wants to hang out? ;D
I couldn't click on it for a larger pic.. also I know about the animal personalities thing too, like Zaid is kind of curious but very skittish, gypsy is a dumbass, if a cute and silly one, and sassy is a downright bitch-cat, but she'll open up if you take the patience and persistance route. And yeah I'll totally hang out when ya get back!
ReplyDeleteI like that even really stupid herd-mentality animals, like chickens, have noticeable personalities. Angela's arrogant and snobby while Kelly is a drama queen when she doesn't get what she wants. Some animals show what seems to be a sense of self. The more intelligent animals can recognize themselves in the mirror, like crows/magpies/ravens and dolphins and some apes and such.
ReplyDelete20 days?? How time flies! I want to see you before we disappear to our respective college lands. : )