My mother had noticed how beautifully bright green Intamati's cowpats were.
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We'd follow the herd through the village and argue over who could gather the fresh cowpats.
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LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Children from poor families in sub-Saharan Africa have been able to swap cleaning up cowpats for lessons thanks to a solar power project that rewards parents for sending them to school.
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Parker, G., Simmons, L., Stockley, P., McChristie, D., & Charnov, E. (1999). Optimal copula duration in yellow dung flies: effects of female size and egg content. Animal Behavior, 57(4), 795-805. For example, short distances between cowpats should widen the pool of available mates in a specific geographic location.
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Two dung flies. Dung flies are a polygamous species that mate on cowpats. The copulation behavior of this species can also be modeled using the marginal value theorem. It has been discovered that in cases where two male dung flies copulate with the same female in relatively rapid succession, the second male will fertilize 80% of the eggs, while the first male will only fertilize 20%.
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Parker predicted that under this condition, dung flies would be more likely to leave their current mate sooner to find additional mates. But if cowpats are few and far between, it would benefit a male dung fly to spend more time guarding a mate, ensuring his genes are passed on, because he may have difficulty finding an additional mate. The results from Parker's experiment agree with this model.
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For fuel, wood, peat or -especially on the Halligen which were chronically short of raw materials - dried cowpats known as Ditten. To begin with the Bileggers were made of brick, but from the 17th century they were superseded increasingly by cast iron models, that could have very practical decorations, such as several unscrewable brass knobs, on which hands could be warmed, or a brass hood under which food or tea could be kept warm.
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The story goes that King Huiwen of Qin on the Wei River wished to conquer the kingdom of Shu to the south over the Qinling Mountains in the Sichuan Basin. He therefore had his sculptors make five life-sized stone cows. He decorated their tails and hindquarters with gold and placed them where the Shu ambassadors could see them. When the king of Shu heard of this he thought it would be good to fertilize his treasury with golden cowpats, so he asked the king of Qin to send him some cattle.
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Whereas native frogs and toads have natural reflexes to avoid the meat ants, the cane toads do not tend to try to escape the ants, rather standing still when attacked waiting for the toxin to kill the attacker. New research has indicated that cane toads prey on dung beetles by nestling in cowpats and waiting for the beetles, eating up to 150 in one meal. In areas where cane toads have free access to water in dams, there are 9.6 times fewer dung beetles. This indicates that the cane toad has the potential to economically affect the cattle industry through increased disease in cattle.
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A deer path through silver birches at Carr Myers In the flush and spring fen, the underground aquifers which waterlog this site contain particular minerals, and it is the combination of the minerals and water levels which affects the diversity of plantlife here. Thus the aquifers must be protected from agricultural and commercial water abstraction, and from industrial contamination such as pollution and fertiliser. Light grazing by cattle is recommended to keep the springs clear, and light, seasonal trampling of the fen by cattle is considered an advantage. However enrichment of soil by cowpats and animal feed is discouraged, because the protected fen plants require poor soil.
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