April 10

Saints celebrating feast days today include Saint Bademus, Saint Macarius or Macaire of Ghent, Saint Fulbert, Saint Paternus of Abdinghof, Saint Michael de Sanctis, and The Martyrs under the Danes.

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Giraffe vs. Cow

It's April 10, 2004, and I have hardly touched this site for six months. For a town with fewer than 7,000 people, Bisbee can keep you very busy-bee.

I made another site that I pay for even though it stopped being used by the people originally involved over a year ago: mrspainter.com. The thing about this site is that it generates amusing mail. A couple days ago, I recieved a one-sentence email: "Do you have a pelican?" I replied that living in the desert made getting large quantities of fish problematic, so I didn't have one, but if he were interested in LINKS about pelicans...and I listed some links.

But the best mail in a long time came from Douglas D.:

Subject: giraffe/cow

there is a hot debate in my home as to which of these two animals is the smartest. please, please do advise. thanks

Dear Douglas,

First, let me congratulate you on your family...this discussion is way better than "Do you think Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston will stay married?"

I cannot find a site that rates the intelligence of cows AND giraffes. The best I could do was find a site that had the brain weights of different animals and another site that had the body weights and then figure the ratio of brain to body. According to my figures, a 2800 lb. giraffe has a brain that is 1/1868th of its body weight. A 1900 lb. cow (as in bovine type--female giraffes are also called cows) has a brain that is 1/1881th of its body weight.

If you accept the premise that a greater percentage of brain means more intelligence, then a giraffe is possibly slightly more intelligent than a cow. However, I think the difference is negligible and you could easily find cows that have a higher percentage of brain to body...I used the largest examples of both animals when doing my calculations. I think a giraffe taken out of the wild and plopped down in a dairy farm wouldn't last much longer than a Jersey on the veldt.

Interestingly, giraffes don't reach sexual maturity until they are halfway finished with their ten-year life span. Cattle are sexually mature at under a year of age and live (optimally--I'd say take five years off this for a more realistic figure) to about 20 years of age. How smart is THAT for the giraffe?

And speaking of math: http://www.goatview.com/july16margarinepart2.html

Thanks for writing!

Marilyn

Today is Harry Morgan's birthday (1915, Detroit).

Onward to April 11
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© Marilyn Jones 2002-2008