Prairie dogs are amazing animals. As far as we can tell, they
have the most complex language of any animal. Not only can they tell each
other, “Look out! There’s a human coming!” but they can also say, “He’s really tall and
wearing yellow!” They have a reputation of breeding like rabbits, but their
mating season is only about an hour long. They have three to eight pups in a
litter, half of whom probably won’t make it to adulthood. They look like furry marshmallows,
but they’ll fiercely defend their homes with sharp teeth and claws. Prairie dog
burrows always have at least two entrances: one on lower, flat ground, and one
in a raised mound, like a volcano. Their design makes clever use of the Bernoulli
principle to pull fresh air through their underground tunnels. Even more impressive,
they were doing it thousands of years before Bernoulli came on the scene.
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