The ordinary Mayan people could have easily added using pebble and stones. Notice in the above chart how 5+6=11. The symbols are merely combined into one for sums smaller than 20.

The Mayans had this nifty system while Europe was still struggling with the Roman Numeral system: MMCLXI... it had no zero. The Mayans did have a zero.

A good explanation of the Mayan number system is at : http://www.hanksville.org/yucatan/mayamath.html

Several species of iguana lizards are found in the New World, from Brazil to the southwestern United States.

The common iguana (Iguana iguana) is the most impressive species, often reaching six feet in length with a dorsal crest nearly three inches high. It lives in the high branches of trees and bushes near bodies of water. If disturbed, it will jump down, even from a height of 18 feet, to plunge into water and escape.

The desert iguana dives behind rocks. When facing an enemy, iguanas defend themselves with their long, powerful tails, using them like whips.



The iguana mating season varies, depending on locale. Females dig holes in the earth before laying about 30 eggs with thin, leathery shells and then covering them.



Wild iguanas at a park in Eucador being fed.



They evidently can make interesting pets!

You can learn more at the GREEN IGUANA SOCIETY

The Homing instinct.
We know pigeons have it;
and salmon find their way back to their birth-places;
rats are uncannily good with mazes.

But do you realize cats have such an ablility?

The record for long distance homing among cats goes to one 'Ninja' who when her owners moved her with them to Washington state,
found her way back to the old home place in Utah
850 miles away.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/excats/homing.html

Earthworms are fascinating animals.

They have 5 pairs of hearts. 10 in all!

Their reproductive rites are amazing because they are monoecious. That means they have both male and female organs in the same individual. When mating they are exchanging sperm. At a later indefinate time the worm forms a cocoon/egg-case around hisher own body, and injects herhis own eggs and the sperm recieved from the other earthworm into it as shehe backs out of the cocoon.

source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworms

How do they decide which to be? He or she?

They are both. No decision necessary. In mating they keep their eggs but exchange their sperm.

How to Clean and Prepare Earthworms

- (from Entertaining with Insects, 1976)

"Your earthworms will probably not require purging if you buy them from a dealer who packages them in peat moss for shipping. Earthworms eat and expel material equal to their weight every twenty-four hours, so the worms will have essentially only peat moss in their bodies. By the time you get them, any material they had been raised on would probably have been purged from their bodies. The small amounts of peat moss that one would be eating with the worms would be negligible. One might even rationalise that the additional roughage would be a good for you anyway. For any further purging, place them in moist cornmeal, flour, or similar material for 24 hours. In this way you can be certain that the worms will be clean inside and out and ready to cook."

Earthworms are 82 % protein.

Research has shown that eating earthworms can reduce cholesterol. The basic essential oil of earthworms is Omega 3.

Okay... I'd like to know-

How many of you have eaten an earthworm???