‘Turtle time!, loudly called out by one of my newly-found friends, meant the beginning of either a morning or afternoon shift at Turtle Camp in Nusa Penida, Indonesia. Upon arrival at the project each day, we would look eagerly for our names on the whiteboard to see which task we would be undertaking. Would it be the highly desirable ‘turtle feeding’, the pretty fun ‘tank cleaning’, the exciting ‘medicine administering’ or the less appealing ‘fish cutting’? Fine in theory but not when every fly in Indonesia decides to crowd onto these dead fish while you’re cutting!

Life at the turtle project was fun because twice a day we got to hang out with sea turtles. By ‘hang out’, I obviously meant ‘work’, as we were on shift, but it certainly didn’t feel like work. Another fun thing was getting to know the other volunteers! With volunteers from all over the world, it was just common to hear Finnish being spoken, Australian slang mixed with French expressions and Swedes making plans to visit newly-found friends in the USA.

Of course, not all the time at Turtle Camp was consumed by volunteering. Scheduled activities included a trip to Crystal Bay, a beautiful paradise for swimming and sunbathing, an awesome beach bonfire complete with a beautiful sunset as well as our local coworkers showing off their guitar playing and singing skills.

Our time at Turtle Camp was capped off by setting free two of our turtles into the sea to begin their journey as independent turtles! Hopefully, the love and care provided at the turtle project would ensure that these turtles had a greater chance of survival in the big, wide and scary ocean.

The “mark test” (or “mirror test”) is a way to test animal intelligence — whether an animal can recognize itself, especially animals with large brains. A mark is put on an animal, usually in a spot that can only be seen with a mirror. Then the animal is allowed to look in a mirror. If the animal seems to pay attention to the mark, scientists believe the animal has recognized itself.

But some scientists believe the mark test doesn’t work well for all animals. Roosters (公鸡) are a good example. Scientists at the University of Bonn recently ran the mark test on roosters. They put a pinkish triangle on the chest of the roosters. But when the roosters looked in a mirror, they didn’t seem to notice the mark.

The scientists needed a different way to test whether the roosters could recognize themselves. When there’s danger — like a hawk (鹰) flying above — roosters make loud calls to warn nearby chickens. But roosters only make the cries if other chickens can hear them. If they’re alone, they remain quiet so the hawk won’t see them. The scientists realized that they could use the shadow of a hawk to test if roosters could recognize themselves in a mirror.

First, the scientists let the roosters spend time getting used to being in a closed-in space and having a mirror around. Then, they ran several tests by making a hawk shadow appear above the bird and watching how the rooster reacted.

When there was no mirror, the roosters reacted as usual. They called out when they were near another rooster, but remained quiet when they were alone. But when a rooster was in a space where it could see itself in the mirror, it wasn’t fooled into thinking there was another rooster. It remained silent despite the hawk shadow.

It proves the roosters knew they were seeing themselves in the mirror, and not other roosters. That suggests that the mark test may not be a good test of whether an animal can recognize itself.

The scientists hope their results will encourage other scientists to look for better ways of testing self-recognition in animals.

It’s a good thing that sloths (树懒) don’t have to go to school. They’d never make it on time. These sleepy tree-inhabitants sleep up to 20 hours a day! And even when they are awake, they barely move at all. In fact, they re very slow, and algae (海藻) actually grows on their fur.

Sloths live in the tropical forests of Central and South America, With their long arms and hairy fur. they look like monkeys, but they are actually related to anteaters (食蚁兽). They can be 2 to 2.5 feet long and weigh from 8 to 17 pounds, depending on species.

There are two main species of sloth, identified by whether they have two or three claws. (爪子) on their front feet. The two species are quite similar in appearance, with roundish heads, sad-looking eyes, tiny ears, and short tails. Two toed sloths are slightly bigger and tend to spend more time hanging upside down than their three toed cousins, who will often sit upright in the fork of a tree branch. Three toed sloths have facial coloring that makes them look like they’ re always smiling. They also have two extra neck vertebrae that allow them to turn their heads almost all the way around!

Some scientists think sloths developed their slow-motion lifestyle so they would be less noticeable to hunters such as hawks and cats, which rely heavily on their eyesight when hunting. The algae that grows on sloths’ fur also helps them avoid hunters by letting them mix in with green leaves. They rarely come down from the trees. About once every week, they go down to go to the bathroom, slowly moving about by digging their front claws into the dirt and dragging their bodies. If they are caught by a hunter, sloths will become aggressive, biting fiercely, striking with their claws, and screaming.