Sharing our planet with some strange creatures | Featured Columnists - The Guam Daily Post

It’s time to dip into the animal file and I thought we’d do a little bit on animal records. For instance, we all know what the fastest animal flier is, right? It’s the common swift which is named that for a reason. These birds can reach speeds of over 60 mph.

But the speed record for horizontal flight has now been taken over by another animal and it’s not a bird. It’s a bat. The Brazilian free-tailed bat shoots through the night skies at over 100 mph. Their aerodynamic body shape and longer than average wings compared to other bat species enable them to reach such incredible speeds.

The data on the bats' flying speeds were collected using a radio transmitter weighing just half a gram. It was attached to their backs with an adhesive and fell off after two to five days. Its regular beeping signal was tracked using a mobile receiver installed on a small aircraft. The scientists also evaluated the data recorded by the closest weather station and noted the wind conditions at the time of the studied flights. They concluded that external factors like landscape and tailwinds can’t explain the results, since they had no impact on the maximum speeds.

Of course, the birds still hold the speed record for diving. Peregrine falcons can reach speeds of 180 mph as they do their controlled fall from the sky. In contrast, due to their wing structure, bats generate greater resistance and are generally considered slower flyers.

But obviously not the Brazilian free-flying bat. I wonder what the speed limit is for fanihi!

And now we turn to yet another animal record. What is Earth’s longest animal? My guess would have been the blue whale since it’s always listed as the biggest animal. And blue whales are certainly not small. The longest one ever recorded was 110 feet long.

Although the real "longest animal" may not have the bulk of a whale, it is certainly a bit longer. The longest animal is 180 feet or more in length and it also lives in the ocean. It’s the bootlace worm, a kind of ribbon worm that’s found in the waters off Great Britain. As is typical of most creatures with worm-like forms, it may be 180 feet long, but it’s usually less than an inch wide.

Interestingly enough, not only are they long and skinny; they’re also extremely toxic. Bootlace worms produce the same type of neurotoxin that’s found in our cone shells.

When the worm is irritated, it releases large amounts of thick mucus that’s poisonous to crustaceans. The researchers extracted a toxin from the mucus and discovered that it could paralyze and kill both crustaceans and cockroaches. Laboratory tests were conducted to determine how the toxin affects the sodium channels of mammals and since the reaction wasn’t nearly as strong, the researchers think the toxin probably isn’t poisonous for mammals.

Similar neurotoxins are used as pharmaceuticals in biotechnology and as agricultural insecticides. The researchers believe the toxins from the bootlace worm can also be used to develop new insecticides.

The fastest flyer and the longest animal. We share our planet with some strange creatures!

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