Facts about Cougars (Puma Concolor) - The Fourth Biggest Cat in the World

A cougar (or also called as puma, catamount, mountain cat, or mountain lion) is a large tan colored cat. It holds the Guinness record for the animal in the world with the highest number of names (40 names in English alone!).

Other names include panther, American lion, fire cat, screamer, yuma puma, Florida panther and painted cat.

Cougar is the largest cat in the Americas. It is the largest of the small cats.

How to Stop Rats and Mice From Entering Your House

Rats can be so much dangerous. They can ruin our food, destroy things in our home and start electrical fires. Not only that, rats and their fleas also can carry disease. Now is the time to find out how to prevent all these scavengers from moving indoors to live with us. Here are a few steps that you might need to know.

Keep the windows and doors of your home closed at all times if possible. Although mice and rats are active at night but they can enter through your open windows and doors during the day when they are under real pressure to find shelter and food. Cover or fill any holes or gaps around your home that are 0.635 cm or larger. The rib cages of rats and mice can be flatten to fit through very small gaps and if their head can fit through, their body can follow. Mice can fit through an opening as small as 0.635 cm and rats can fit through an opening as small as 1.27 cm.

Remove all food sources. Rats can eat the same food as we do (fruits, snacks, cakes, fats, oils that have been spilled, grains, rice, vegetables, oats, and many more. Dont leave pet food outdoors. Use birdfeeders with trays and clean up spilled seeds. Dispose of rubbish promptly and keep your bin lids tightly closed. Any covers or plugs used should be rodent-chewing proof.

Keep your garden and home clean and free of clutter. Stack fire wood 46 cm off the ground and away from all buildings. Cut back trees overhanging your deck and roof. Roof rats are excellent climbers and they love to walk along branches that overhang roofs and will leap from these trees to enter your attic space.

Watch for signs of rat infestation, such as chewed boxes or droppings. Before you go to sleep, you can try coating your floor and counter tops with a thin layer of talcum powder and look for tracks the next day in order to determine where the rats are coming in.

You can set traps in the places where you see their droppings or other signs of infestation. Before you do this, be extra careful especially for those who have pets or young children. Make sure all these traps are out of reach from young children, you can place them inside the cabinets instead of placing them on floors or counters.

Wear gloves when removing a trapped rodent. After that you should wrap it in a bag and then place it in the garbage outside. Traps should be remain in places for a few weeks, so that you make sure there are no more rodents in the house. Do not try to trap a mice with a rat trap or vice versa.

Facts About House Lizards, or the Common House Geckos

A house lizard is also called a gecko (or Asian house gecko). Native to the southern Asia, house lizards are named so because they are found mostly on the ceilings and walls of human home.

These small geckos grow to a length of about 7.5 to 15 cm and live for about 5 years. It has a concave forehead with a long snout. Geckos also have large eyes but without eyelids. They have broad padded toes without webs and an elongated tail that tapers toward the end. The color of their body varies between grayish white to pale yellow.

They are found in Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Mauritius, Andaman Nicobar Island, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Somalia, Polynesia, Phillipines etc. It was introduced to other countries like Brazil, Mexico, Australia, United States, Eastern Africa etc.

Geckos may be nocturnal but these small lizards rely on light – they eat insects that are attracted by light. They like to stay motionlessly under artificial light in order to hunt down insects.

They can withstand cold climate, they can even withstand hotter months as well. House geckos like to take shelter around structures in crack and crevices.

House geckos are considered by many as friends, not foes. They keep our houses safe from spiders, cockroaches and other insects. They are also harmless and are not venomous. In fact, in Spanish they are called “housecleaners”.

When they feel threatened, geckos will run back to their shelter. Like many geckos, this species will leave its tail when alarmed or grabbed by the tail – it does this as a defense mechanism. A new tail then grows back later.

When gecko drops its tail, the tail will keep wriggling around on the floor so that the enemy can be distracted while the gecko makes its escape. They also produce a high-pitched call or squek when alarmed.

Geckos have several hundred thousand fine hairs on their toes which allow the animals to ‘stick’ to most surfaces including glass and mirrors. And for that reason a house gecko can impressively walk along walls and the ceiling to hunt down insects.

Teflon is the only known surface to which this small lizard cannot cling.

These species will usually attain their sexual maturity in one year. In order to attract the females for mating, the male geckos will produce a sound.

Common house geckos are popular among pet owners because these animals are very small, inexpensive, harmless, and relatively easy to keep in captivity.

How to Repel Cockroaches Naturally

Cockroaches are a high risk pest to have in your home as these dirty insects carry a range of serious illness such as dysentery, salmonella, and gastro-enteritis and typhoid. Although cockroaches are large in some parts of the world, the ones in your house are usually small. The problem is they generally hide during the day, and therefore if you cant find any of the insects in your place, it doesnt mean they are not there.

Facts About Formosan Termites

Like other subterranean termites, Formosan termites also have 3 forms – alates (swarmers), soldiers and workers. However, identification requires only the study of the soldiers and alates. The Formosan termite soldiers are identified by their head, which is a teardrop shape and brown-orange in color. The Formosan termite alate is 12 – 15 mm long with a yellowish-brown body.

The soldiers have white bodies and curved mandibles. Another characteristic is that when attacked, Formosan termites will secrete a milky white substance from their head. Their wings are also covered in hairs. Soldiers comprise about 10% of the colony.

Formosan termites are also called as the “super termite”, this is because they are more destructive and aggressive than their relatives. A single colony may contain several million individuals whereas other subterranean termite species only several hundred thousand). They also have the ability to consume wood at a rapid rate. A mature colony may consume as much as 13 ounces (about 400 g) of wood a day and can seriously damage a structure in as little as 3 months.

In the United States, this species is commonly found in the following Southern States Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, Virginia, Souh Carolina and North Carolina. However, they have also been found in Arizona, Texas, Hawaii, and California as well. Formosan termites are in fact originated from southern China to Formosa (Taiwan, where it gets its name).

Formosan termites feed on wood and paper products (like all termite species). They can infest and destroy otherwise healthy trees. They also have been known to attack over 49 plant species, and even some non-cellulose objects like plastic, rubber, soft metals, asphalt, mortar and creosote when looking for moisture and new food sources.

Formosan termites are most visible during their annual mating flight. Queens can produce 1,000 eggs a day.

The nests that Formosan Termites create are called “carton nests”. They use wood and soil cemented together with their feces and saliva to build these nests, within walls. These nests house thousands of Formosan termites as well as hold moisture. Large cartons can actually cause walls to bulge. Once established, these termites can live indefinitely without soil contact.

What makes Formosan termites different from other subterranean termites is that they make their carton nests that resemble packed cardboard inside a wall and in many cases you can find entire walls full of this “carton” material.

Formosan termite control begins with eliminating sources of moisture both outside and inside of your home. Inside, homeowners should reduce humidity in areas such as crawl spaces, basements and attics with proper ventilation.

The Crow Movie Facts

The crow in the movie

The Crow is based on the 1989 comic book of the same name. The comic book was created by James O’Barr, an American graphic artist.

The action film was released on Friday the 13th, May, 1994.

The film was written by John Shirley and David J. Schow, and directed by Alex Proyas.

The film is about a rock musician named Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) who comes from the dead in order to take revenge on those who had murdered him as well as his fiancee, Shelly.

Facts about Vietcong

The Vietcong were the supporters of the communist National Liberation Front in South Vietnam, these people tried to make South and North Vietnam one country (during the Vietnam war). They fought against the armed forces of the United States and the government of South Vietnam between 1959 – 1975.

This term was originally applied by Diem’s regime to Communist troops left in hideouts in South Vietnam (about 10,000) after the Geneva Conference of 1954.

The term also appeared in newspapers in Saigon beginning in 1956.

The Viet cong, in full Vietnam Congsan (Vietnamese Communists in English), were trained and supported by the government of communist North Vietnam.

The official Vietnamese history gives the group’s name as the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam or the Liberation Army of South Vietnam. Many writers shorten this to NLF (National Liberation Front).

After being trained, many of these members of Vietcong were sent to the South of Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the early 1960s. For arms, special equipment and ammunition, the Vietcong depended on the Ho Chi Minh trail – a jungle route through Laos and Cambodia.

The Vietcong were grouped into three categories: regular forces operating under the command of the communist leadership in the South, full time guerillas organized into companies serving under provincial leadership, and then a part time self-defense militia, composed of units orgnized into platoons and squads used primarily for village defense.

They wore no uniforms, they dressed in the same type of clothing with the local peasants, and blended into the landscape when thier mission was complete. One of their greatest strength was that they could not be found. And they walked among the ordinary people and were very hard to spot.

In order to counter that, the US troops tried to clear the villages by simply burning them down. Napalm and poisonous defoliant were also used to clear the forests that provided cover. By using these methods, over 1 million civilians were killed.

The Vietcong avoided destruction by digging and moving into tunnels. And attempts by US forces to clear those tunnels were extremely dangerous and usually led to death or injury.

Communist forces were armed with Soviet and Chinese weaponry. Many of Vietcong guerrilla units were often equipped with Western infantry weapons either captured from ARVN units or requisitioned through illicit purchase or from French stocks during the first Indochina war.

The Chinese versions of the Russian AK-47 submachine guns were used by most main force Vietcong troops by mid-1960s. They also used a range of effective Chinese and Soviet medium and light machine guns, and infrequently, heavy machine guns.

Many of their well-known war tactics include setting booby traps and landmines, ambushing US patrols, guerrilla war, and planting bombs in towns.

The Vietcong’s best-known action was the Tet Offensive – it riveted the attention of the world’s media for weeks. They attacked cities, towns and villages in the South.

The organization was disbanded in 1976, after South and North Vietnam united under communist rule.