Revised. My favorites in this order. . .

A little while ago, I posted a status update with my top 3 favorite animals.   Giraffe, warthog and cow, in that order.  Then today while I driving down Bompas I noticed a Star headline posted on a street sign reminding me of one of my former favorites, making me feel a little fickle and disloyal for having forgotten it so easily.  (For those not familiar, newspapers plaster every available street post with their most sensational headlines to entice us to buy their newspaper.  I never succumb though, figuring the headline gives me all the news I need to know.)

Today's Star Headline:   "Don't Pooh-Pooh Dung Beetle Dance."  I, of course, was familiar with dung beetles before ever coming to South Africa from numerous National Geographic specials.  But I was not charmed with them until I saw one with my very own eyes at Pilansburg Game Reserve.  Wow, what single minded hard workers they are, rolling their personal perfectly round ball of dung at great speeds, sometimes facing downwards and backwards, pushing the ball with their hind legs.

So the Star got me; I bought the newspaper.  Here is what I learned from the article.  The US military is studying these much under-appreciated creatures to understand their navigational system.   Apparently, they use the sun, or on cloudy days, polarized light patterns (whatever that is), to keep their ball rolling in a straight line.  This is quite critical because they are rolling as fast as they can away from the dung pile in order to protect their treasure from being stolen.   God forbid, they end up going in a circle and land back where they started.  A few meters away from the pile, they bury the dung and yum, eat it, or sweet, lay an egg in it.

But listen to this!  In the same article, they talk about the ants in the Sahara Desert that not only use polarized light to navigate but "also appear to count their footsteps."   If I ever saw these ants with my own eyes, they would very likely need to go in my top 3 favorite animals, though I would be hard-pressed to decide which one of my currents to displace.    Better yet, I will keep my top 3 favorite animals, and also have a top 3 favorite insects, dung beetle at the top.