It has been known since ancient times that animals anticipate earthquakes. Why? Until now, this has not been explained. A new theory helps explain why snakes, birds and dogs become restless when an underground disaster threatens to shake a country.
Suddenly mice ran out. They slipped out of all the cracks and holes, circling around the room or yard in confusion. It seemed that the lost animals would become easy prey for the cats, but there was no trace of them. On that day, May 6, 1976, in the Italian village of San Leopoldo, all living creatures went crazy. Mice squeaked, birds darted, snakes darted. The pigs, locked in cubbyholes, became ferocious and bit off each other’s tails. Other pets, on the contrary, behaved extremely apathetically. In the evening, the reason for such unusual behavior of the animals became clear. At 21:00, an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale occurred in the Italian region of Friuli (here is the village of San Leopoldo). 41 villages were destroyed, about a thousand people died. But the animals foresaw trouble in advance.
The ancient Greek historian Diodorus spoke about the supernatural sense of animals. In 373 BC. A powerful earthquake destroyed the city of Helica, which lay on the shores of the Gulf of Corinth. The sea that rushed in after the disaster swallowed up the destroyed city - a city for which many animals foreshadowed disaster. Five days before the disaster struck, rats, snakes and beetles became alarmed. In whole hordes they headed to the neighboring town of Coria, located far from the sea. They were safe. Only people who did not believe the bad omen died.
The Romans, like the Greeks, also knew that “animals prophesy misfortune.” When the dogs, geese and horses became restless, the Senate met - out of caution - in the open air.
And these days, many people living in seismically dangerous areas monitor the behavior of their pets very closely. Peasants in the Andes, for example, keep canaries in their homes, which act as primitive seismographs. "Primitive" does not mean unreliable. Feeling an imminent underground strike, the canaries begin to worry, desperately flapping their wings and chirping.
Sometimes the sensitivity of animals can become fatal for them.
In 1783, a powerful earthquake occurred in the city of Messina in Sicily; it was followed by new tremors. Every time before the aftershock (repeated impact), the dogs started barking incredibly. The seismic shocks became weaker, but the barking did not stop. And then, the nerves of the townspeople could not stand it. It was decided to shoot all the dogs, although they only honestly warned of danger.
Until now, scientists have managed to predict a major earthquake only once, and it was not some ultra-modern instruments that helped them, but again... animals. This happened in China. In 1974, “Chairman Mao” declared another campaign in the country - a “people's war” against earthquakes. The reason was the statement of scientists that in the next two years a major earthquake will occur in Liaoning province. On the radio and in newspapers, at industrial meetings and school classes, it was repeated that “we need to take a closer look at the behavior of domestic animals.”
In just a few weeks, over 100 thousand people were drafted into this “people’s war.” They reported all suspicious facts. In the first days of February 1975, something unusual really began to happen in the area of the town of Haicheng. Snakes were seen everywhere, crawling out of the caves where they spent the winter and freezing right on the road. The groundwater level began to change. Finally, on February 4, a state of emergency was declared. People were evacuated all day and all valuables were removed. As the hectic day drew to a close and the authorities began to wonder if they had succumbed to panic, the elements struck. A magnitude 7.3 earthquake completely destroyed the city, but only a few hundred people died.
Nature took its toll a year later, in July 1976, a month and a half before Mao’s death. It was in vain that the population complained about the alarming omens - as it turned out later, over two thousand such complaints were received - the authorities in Beijing had no time for this. On July 27, a great disaster came to the city of Tangshan - a large coal and metallurgical center with a population of one million. According to official data, 240 thousand people died, but other figures are also cited - up to 600 thousand.
Is the canary listening to the foreshock?
For a long time, no one could explain why animals show anxiety shortly before an earthquake. What special do they feel? How can they guess about the insidiousness of underground attacks? They've never seen an earthquake! Or maybe some side effects accompanying an underground strike frighten them?
It was assumed, for example, that animals sense foreshocks - weak underground tremors that precede the main blow of the underground element. In 1988, during a special earthquake in Armenia, which destroyed the cities of Spitak and Leninakan, some people managed to leave their apartments after the first weak tremors. However, the foreshock and the main seismic shock were separated by a matter of seconds. But cows, snakes and other living “devices” - According to Chinese researchers, 58 species of animals predict the approach of a seismic catastrophe - they experience anxiety as early as 20 hours before the disaster, which means they are worried about something else.
Maybe they smell some gases released from the bowels of the earth, or hear acoustic waves arising from shifts in deep rocks? This guess is refuted by canaries and other songbirds, whose sense of smell and hearing is no better than yours and mine. However, the birds are rushing about in their cages long before the underground impacts, but we don’t feel anything.
Or perhaps the level of atmospheric electricity changes shortly before an earthquake?
Scientists were able to find out that:
- when granite slabs are crushed under pressure, they begin to glow in the infrared range, and before their destruction, bright flashes appeared.
Eyewitnesses of the earthquakes also report that some kind of glow emanated from the mountains and hills;
- in 1989, shortly before the earthquake in California, electromagnetic radiation was recorded emanating from the bowels of the Earth. The same signals were observed in 1995 in Kobe before the earthquake. Their appearance can only be explained by powerful electric currents in the bowels of the Earth shortly before the disaster;
- the positively charged layer of the ionosphere above zone 8 of the future earthquake swells, which leads to disruptions in radio communications. This is caused by the fact that a charge of the same name accumulates in the lower layers of air.
How do animals react?
— when positively charged aerosols are inhaled, the hormone serotonin begins to be released in the body of animals, causing sudden mood swings, as well as nausea. People also react painfully to such an air mixture. So, when a foehn begins to blow in the Alps or the Caucasus - a dry, warm wind containing many charged particles - many people experience migraine attacks;
— the fur of animals is charged with electrostatic electricity. Small animals react especially sharply to this, in which the ratio of body surface area to its volume is very large;
- aquatic animals are sensitive to charged particles, since water is a good conductor of electricity;
— in enclosed spaces the content of charged particles is higher than in the open air, so animals leave their holes, run out of houses, and get out of caves.
It should, however, be mentioned that animals also show anxiety before a thunderstorm or storm, when there is also “electricity in the air.” Apparently they mistake the imminent earthquake for a thunderstorm gathering in the air. In turn, we, expecting “seismic news” from animals, can often be deceived. Their anxiety can only “bring” a thunderstorm.
Still, the idea of predicting earthquakes using animals has not been abandoned. “Participation in such an experiment would be very interesting,” says Eve Sargent, director of the San Francisco Zoo, although I personally think that not individual species of animals,
and only some of the most sensitive individuals can predict earthquakes. After all, with animals it’s the same as with people: some have more developed intuition than others.” In any case, when it comes to saving human lives - thousands and even tens of thousands of lives - any forecasts are good if they are correct. Even if the authors of the forecasts are snakes, mice and fish, we must listen to them too. Their opinion may be decisive.
Is there a “calm before the storm”?
In the early 1990s, German geologist Jochen Zschau put forward the “calm before the storm” hypothesis. He drew attention to the fact that several months before a major earthquake, microearthquakes stopped, which can be recorded using the latest equipment. However, the scientist himself was forced to admit: “Sometimes there is no earthquake behind such calm.” What is the risk of an inaccurate forecast in this case? Complete paralysis of economic life. The entire population of the area will be evacuated, and nothing will happen either in a day or in a month.
Fire tames the earth
The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 entered the history of geology and philosophy. All of Europe was reading Voltaire’s lines: “The sages of the country have not found a surer way to save themselves from final destruction than organizing a wonderful auto-da-fé spectacle for the people. The University of Coimbra has decreed that burning a few people with a small fire, but with great ceremony, is undoubtedly the surest way to stop the shaking of the earth.” 
The most famous animal fortuneteller is Phil the groundhog, who lives in the small town of Punxsutawney in western Pennsylvania in the USA. It is believed that if a groundhog, emerging from its hibernation house, sees its shadow, that is, the day is sunny, it will go to sleep for another six weeks. If there is no shade, spring is just around the corner. Every year on February 2, Groundhog Day, at exactly twenty-five minutes past eight in the morning, Phil is pulled out of his hole, and he makes his prediction.
Scientists now name about 600 species of animals and 400 species of plants that can act as barometers, indicators of humidity and temperature, predictors of storms, storms or good cloudless weather.
Animals have learned to hide in cracks and holes to escape tornadoes, storms and tornadoes; they leave dangerous territory in time before tsunamis, floods and earthquakes.
Loaches accurately determine the weather. These fish are usually inactive, but before bad weather they begin to rush back and forth, rising to the surface of the water 10-15 times per minute.
Leeches, bleaks and catfish also behave before a thunderstorm. This is due, first of all, to a change (in this case, a decrease) in atmospheric pressure, while the concentration of oxygen in the water drops, which naturally causes concern for aquatic animals: they rise to the surface, where there is more oxygen.
In fresh water bodies, crayfish crawl ashore before the rain. A similar picture can be seen at sea. If small crabs, hermit crabs, and amphipods have gone ashore, it means there is a storm.
Frogs scream and croak heart-rendingly several hours before the rain. In anticipation of a storm, seagulls stop flying, walk along the shore with a loud squeak and express alarm with their entire appearance, and sometimes even bury themselves in the sand. Petrels, living up to their name, change their long-distance flight routes ahead of time and hug the shore in anticipation of a storm.
Even when the sky is clear, the ants quickly close all the entrances to the anthill. The bees stop flying to the flowers for nectar, sit in the hive and buzz. Butterflies also try to take cover before a thunderstorm. If they are not visible above the flowers, it means that it will start raining in a few hours.
Many animals begin to behave differently than usual even before earthquakes. But unlike weather and atmospheric cataclysms, on the eve of underground strikes they do not hide in their shelters, but, on the contrary, crawl out of them into the open space.
For example, mountain goats of the Sierra Nevada ranges descend from high-mountain pastures to the plain several days before earthquakes with a force of more than 5 magnitudes. Other mountain residents also react to the approach of tremors - foxes and wolves leave the forests. The marmots, hibernating for the winter, suddenly wake up and crawl out of their holes a day before the earthquake. Earthworms behave in a similar way, which, despite the drop in temperature, crawl out of the soil in large numbers.
There are widespread cases when pets are killed an hour or two before the earthquake begins.
Scientists' observations of animal behavior were noted as early as 328 BC. e. The ancient thinker wrote: “A few days before the earthquake that destroyed the city of Helikos in Greece, moles, weasels, echidnas and centipedes came out of their holes and took to a disorderly flight...”
In Chile, before the earthquake in 1835, every single dog left the city of Talcuano.
In 1902, long before the eruption of the Mont Pelee volcano on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, sensing the approach of a disaster, all the birds flew away from the city of Saint-Pierre, frogs and snakes, and then dogs and cats. The volcano completely destroyed the city in thirty seconds.
Shortly before the earthquake on May 5, 1976, in the Italian province of Friuli, cats began to carry kittens out of their houses with feverish haste, and dogs spun around on a chain and howled incessantly.
12 hours before the earthquake in Morocco at the end of February 1980, dogs and cats began to run out of houses into the streets, and even camels, absolutely indifferent to everything in the world, hastened to leave populated areas.
But in China in February 1975, thanks to the unusual behavior of animals, tens of thousands of people were saved. At the end of 1974 - beginning of 1975, Chinese scientists began to receive regular reports from Liaoning province, where increased seismic activity was always observed, about unusual restless behavior of animals. Snakes woke up from hibernation, crawled out into the snow and froze, all the cats disappeared from the houses, horses broke stalls in the stables, and cows butted and did not allow themselves to be milked.
And then an unprecedented decision was made to evacuate the city of Haicheng, which in February 1975 was completely wiped off the face of the earth by a catastrophic earthquake of magnitude more than 7.0. As a result of the earthquake, 90% of the city's buildings were destroyed.
In the history of seismology, this is practically the only earthquake that was predicted in advance. An accurate forecast and measures taken in advance by the city authorities made it possible to reduce losses to a minimum. During earthquakes of this magnitude, the usual death toll reaches 100 thousand people, and the death toll from the Haicheng earthquake was 1,328 people.
After the Spitak earthquake in Armenia, which occurred in 1988, the story of the husky Alice and her owner Gharibyan from Leninakan became widely known. On the morning of December 7, two hours before the earthquake, the owner took the dog out for a walk, but Alice refused to go back into the house and howled and barked terribly. The frightened owner called the police, the city council, the radio, and everywhere they laughed at him. Just in case, Gharibyan decided to take his family out of the house and suggested that his neighbors do the same. And not in vain, since it was at this time that the elements struck the city. Before this, Gharibyan lived for twenty years in Kamchatka and from there he brought the husky, which saved the life of his family.
Cats are also sensitive to the approach of underground thunderstorms. History knows many cases when, on the eve of earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, they left their owners without hesitation, left the city and returned only after the disaster.
But there were cases when cats saved their owners living in earthquake-prone areas, better than any instruments in determining the approach of an earthquake, volcanic eruption or tsunami. This story happened in 1944 in Italy. People were no longer afraid of the dying Vesuvius, because the last eruption of the volcano was 80 years ago. Two old men were sleeping in their house, and only their cat could not calm down. He did not want to stay in the house and did not eat. At night he even began to scratch the owner’s face. The old people decided that he was warning them about the impending danger, and, having collected the most necessary things, they took the cat and went to relatives who lived far from the volcano. About an hour later, Vesuvius exploded, their house was swept away by a lava flow, but, thanks to the cat, the old people were saved.
During the Second World War, during bombings, cats often saved their owners. Similar cases occurred in all warring countries. Before the bombing, the cats' fur stood on end, they made hissing sounds, howled, and some rushed straight to the nearest bomb shelters. At the slightest sign of anxiety in the cats, the owners quickly gathered and ran to bomb shelters. This ability of cats turned out to be so valuable that a special medal was established in Europe with the words engraved on it: “We also serve our homeland.” The medal was awarded to the cats that saved the greatest number of human lives.
Inspired by Paul's success, the leaders of the zoo in the German city of Leipzig decided to make an oracle from a cross-eyed female opossum named Heidi. In February 2011, Heidi “guessed” two Oscar winners. Heidi, popular in Germany, was featured on the American show Jimmy Kimmel Live! ABC TV channel. From the proposed figurines with photographs of actors, Heidi chose figurines with portraits of Natalie Portman and Colin Firth. Portman and Firth actually received awards for best female and male roles in the films “Black Swan” (Black Swan) by Darren Aronofsky and “The King’s Speech!” (The King's Speech) by Tom Hooper.
However, Heidi was unable to guess the winner in the Best Film category - instead of The King's Speech, the fortune teller pointed to the film 127 Hours.
In September 2011, Heidi, who was three and a half years old,...
In July 2011, at the Women's World Cup in Germany, Nellie the elephant from the Serengeti Nature Park in Hodenhagen (Lower Saxony) predicted the outcome of all the matches of the German team, including the defeat of the host team in the quarterfinal match by the Japanese team. The shrewd elephant made her choice in the following way: two goals were placed next to each other, indicating the opposing teams, and Nellie tried to hit them with the ball at her disposal. Whichever goal the ball flew into, that team lost.
New Zealand has its own oracle - a sheep named Sonny Wool. She predicted New Zealand's victory in the Rugby World Cup final in October 2011. Sonny Wool chose the New Zealand flag feeder throughout the tournament and the final was no exception. The fortune telling ceremony took place in the country's capital, Wellington. Owner Sonny is sure that it was thanks to the sheep that the New Zealanders won victories.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
Almost all residents of Nanchang, the capital of the Chinese province of Nianxi, are dog owners. But not because they adore these glorious four-legged creatures so much - but because they are afraid of an earthquake. Seismic activity in many regions of China is quite high, and people are trying to protect themselves from disaster with the help of their pets - it is believed that by the behavior of a dog one can learn about an approaching earthquake in advance, several hours and sometimes days. Is it true that dogs predict earthquakes, and if so, how do they succeed and how does this manifest itself?
Prediction of the earthquake in Haicheng, China, 1975
The fears of Chinese residents are not unfounded: this country has suffered from earthquakes more than once. One of the strongest occurred on February 4, 1975 in the city of Haicheng: a 7.3 magnitude shock destroyed most of the buildings. Of the nearly million population of Haicheng, about 2,000 people died and almost 30,000 were injured - however, if it were not for timely measures taken, the number of victims would have been much higher. And animals “informed” people about the approaching disaster.
Some time before the earthquake, townspeople began to notice that their pets - cats and dogs - were behaving extremely strangely: they were restless, making alarming sounds, and trying to leave the house. Snakes suddenly began to appear in the city - despite the fact that they were supposed to be hibernating in winter. When numerous reports of strange animal behavior began to arrive at seismic monitoring centers, local authorities made the right decision: they announced an evacuation. This emergency event saved the lives of most of the residents of Haicheng - and became the only successful evacuation of an entire city before an earthquake in history.
It is not surprising that now the Chinese - especially those who live in earthquake-prone areas - are closely monitoring their pets. They also pay attention to this issue in Japan, a country that knows better than others the destructive power of earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis: they study dogs, cats and aquarium fish in order to predict the approach of tremors based on changes in their behavior.
How do dogs behave before an earthquake?
Despite the fact that descriptions of the anxious behavior of dogs before an earthquake do not completely coincide in different cases, the main signs remain unchanged. The dog begins to bark or howl loudly for no apparent reason, rush around the enclosed space and rush to the door, and in the area tries to get out under the gate or dig under the fence. There are known cases when, a few minutes before the earthquake, dogs grabbed their owners by the clothes and pulled them towards the exit, or woke them up at night, pulling off their blankets.
Usually calm and friendly, dogs may even bite owners on the arms or legs, prompting them to leave the premises. Sometimes the owners mistook this behavior of the dog for a symptom of rabies, but the shock that occurred soon explained everything. It also happened that large dogs grabbed small children by the clothes and carried them out into the street; rushing after them, the owners managed to jump out of the house a couple of seconds before it collapsed from the shock.
Scientists have not yet been able to establish what the animals are reacting to - changes in the electromagnetic field or the sounds of underground vibrations that are inaudible to people. However, the accumulated factual material suggests that many dogs can indeed predict an earthquake - and if your pet behaves unusually, it is at least worth paying attention to.
| Ekaterina 05/12/2013 |
Illustration copyright NPL Image caption Toads are very sensitive to chemical changes in the water of their native pond
Animals can sense an approaching earthquake through changes in the chemistry of groundwater.
This, according to scientists, may be the reason for the strange behavior of animals associated with earthquakes.
Experts began to study chemical changes before a natural disaster after an entire colony of toads disappeared from a pond in the Italian city of L'Aquila in 2009, a few days before the devastating earthquake.
Now scientists are trying to use animal behavior to predict earthquakes.
The researchers' findings were published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Scientists describe the mechanism of interaction of groundwater with elements that appear as a result of compression of rocks in the earth's crust.
Animals living in or near natural bodies of water are very sensitive to changes in water chemistry, and therefore can sense the approach of an earthquake several days before it occurs.
The researchers, led by Fredemann Freund of the US aerospace agency NASA and Rachel Grant of the British Open University, hope their hypothesis will encourage biologists and geologists to work together to figure out the exact mechanism that would allow animals to detect earthquake signatures.
Strange behavior
L'Aquila frogs are not the only example of strange animal behavior before a major seismic event. History knows many cases when reptiles, amphibians and fish began to behave unusually before an earthquake.
In 1975, in the Chinese city of Haichen, according to eyewitnesses, snakes began crawling out of their holes en masse a month before a major earthquake occurred.
This behavior was all the more strange because everything happened during the winter at sub-zero temperatures, when the snakes were supposed to be hibernating, and by crawling out, they actually doomed themselves to certain death.
However, each of these facts - with snakes crawling out of holes, amphibians leaving the pond and deep-sea fish swimming to the surface of the ocean - belonged to a separate event.
Large earthquakes are very rare, and therefore it is almost impossible to study in detail the circumstances that accompanied them.
And here the case of the toads of L'Aquila plays a special role.
Frog Exodus
Open University biologist Rachel Grant observed a colony of toads as part of her PhD thesis.
She recalls that all 96 toads that inhabited the pond disappeared within three days. Grant published her observations in the scientific journal Journal of Zoology.
"After that I got a call from NASA," she told the BBC.
Scientists from the US Aerospace Agency studied the chemical changes that occur when rocks are subjected to high pressure. They wanted to find out whether these changes were related to the mass exodus of toads.
Positively charged air ions cause headaches and nausea in humans, as well as increased levels of the stress hormone serotonin in the blood of animals Friedemann Freund, NASA
Laboratory experiments have shown that these two processes can be interrelated, and the earth's crust directly affects the chemical composition of the water in the pond where toads live and breed.
NASA geophysicist Fredemann Freund said that when rocks are subjected to great pressure from tectonic forces, usually shortly before an earthquake, they release charged particles.
Charged particles, Dr. Freund explained, reach the surface of the Earth and, interacting with air molecules, turn them into ions.
“Positively charged ions in the air are known to cause headaches and nausea in humans, as well as increased levels of the stress hormone serotonin in the blood of animals,” he said. The ions can also interact with water molecules, turning them into hydrogen peroxide.
Such chemical reactions can affect organic matter dissolved in groundwater, turning it into toxic mixtures that are toxic to animals living in the water.
Scientists recognize that the interaction mechanism is very complex and needs to be thoroughly tested.
However, according to Rachel Grant, for the first time it was possible to figure out the signs of an approaching earthquake that different animals could sense and react to.
In turn, Dr. Freund believes that animal behavior can become part of the process of predicting earthquakes.
"When we figure out how all these signals are connected, if we see four out of five signals pointing in [the same] direction, we can say: OK, something is about to happen," Freund told the BBC -si.
Many animals behave restlessly before an earthquake. Do they feel something that we don't feel? Observations show that various animals are able to sense early signs of an approaching earthquake.
Unusual behavior of animals before strong earthquakes has been observed both in ancient times and in modern times. Animals appear to be able to detect early warning signs of an earthquake much earlier than sophisticated seismological equipment.
Although Western scientists are skeptical about this phenomenon, their Eastern colleagues readily agree that various species of animals can sense an approaching earthquake. Long-term observations of animal behavior as an early warning system for earthquakes have been adopted as an important area of research in China and Japan. But can animals really predict earthquakes, and if so, how?
It is quite clear that the most noticeable among the creatures that react to the precursors of earthquakes are animals that live near humans either as domestic animals or as synanthropes. Dogs appear to be particularly sensitive to earthquake signals. On the day before the great earthquake that devastated Italian Calabria in 1783, dogs in Messina, Sicily barked and howled so hysterically that the authorities eventually ordered them to be shot. Many dogs were killed, but the survivors continued to bark and howl until a strong earthquake occurred there.
Another example is the written evidence of alarm dogs before the earthquake in Chile. On February 20, 1835, in Talcaguano, near Conceppión, dogs began to bark and then left the city. A powerful earthquake that began soon destroyed Talcaguano to the ground. Similar cases of strange dog behavior were documented several hours before the earthquake that occurred in Argentina in the city of San Juan in 1942. On the eve of the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake of 1906, dogs howled loudly and incessantly, to the bewilderment and horror of their unsuspecting owners. Events unfolded in approximately the same way before the earthquake in Assisi in 1997 and before the disaster that occurred in Ismet (Turkey) in 1999. The restless behavior of dogs and other pets in the Chinese city of Haicheng in 1999 forced the authorities to decide to evacuate, saving many lives, because the city was destroyed by an earthquake that same day.
Rats are running...
Although rats are said to flee from a sinking ship, there is documented evidence that they have sometimes abandoned cities before earthquakes. In the early morning of February 9, 1971, two police officers patrolling an area of the Californian city of San Fernando (Valley) were surprised by the countless number of rats running in swarms through the streets of the city. Moreover, the same groups of running rats were observed on the other side of the city. The reason for this phenomenon became clear to the residents of San Fernando when a monstrous earthquake struck the city a few minutes before six o'clock in the morning.
Air and water earthquake detectors
Birds and aquatic animals have also been frequently reported as predictors of earthquakes. At that moment, when the dogs fled from the doomed Talcaguano on February 20, 1835, panic-stricken and constantly shrill seagulls flew in the sky above the city. Seagulls in Iquique, Chile, demonstrated similar behavior just hours before the 1868 earthquake. An interesting picture was observed in Hebgen Lake in the US state of Montana. Less than 12 hours before the earthquake on Lake Hebgen on August 17, 1959, all the water birds that usually live there in a dense colony took to the air and flew away.
Japanese fishermen often reported disorientation of fish and aquatic invertebrates in fresh and even deep sea waters, making them easier to catch. Cases have been recorded of catfish jumping out of ponds before an earthquake, and eels, shortly before an earthquake, crawling overland from one body of water to another, located quite far away. An unexpected abundance of octopuses was noted in the shallow waters of Japan's Ogi Peninsula before the 1939 earthquake. Many deep-sea species, including two common kingfish (Regalecus glesne), a six-meter giant squid, a deep-sea threadtail eel (Nemichlhys) and a 1.4-metre sawtooth (Alepisaums borealis), were caught at or near the surface just before the city's earthquake Tokashi-Oki on May 16, 1968, and at Uwayima three months later.
One of the leading earthquake researchers, physicist Professor Motoyi Ikeya, learned about catfish jumping out of reservoirs before an earthquake, and tried to test the sensitivity of these fish. Since an electric field is generated in the ground before an earthquake, Ikea conducted experiments on the electrical sensitivity of these fish. Experiments have shown that fish exhibit strong arousal when exposed to weak (4-5 volts/m) electric fields. And eels turned out to be even more sensitive to electric fields.
When snakes become wary
Snakes, sensing an approaching earthquake, leave their shelters in advance and crawl away. No doubt this dramatic behavior inspired Professor Helmut Trybutsch to title his book on earthquake-predicting animals, When the Snakes Wake (1982).
The ability of snakes to anticipate earthquakes is so great and irresistible that they awaken from hibernation and crawl out of their hiding places into the cold, snow-covered world if they sense the hidden, early signs of an earthquake. Six weeks before the earthquake that struck the Chinese city of Haicheng on February 4, 1975, snakes awoke from hibernation and crawled out of their holes, although many died from freezing in the snow. Two other notable cases were reported within the same month in China. Early in the morning of July 26, 1979, a swarming mass of hundreds of snakes appeared in a pit located approximately 40 kilometers from the city of Tangshan in the Chinese province of Hebei. Less than two days later, Tangshan was destroyed by a powerful earthquake. Similarly, in August 1976, many snakes unexpectedly left their burrows in Sichuan province just before a large earthquake struck the neighboring counties of Pingwu and Songpan.
Early Warning Signs
An earthquake is usually preceded by vibration of the ground. Since snakes, insects and spiders live near its surface and are very sensitive to vibrations, they may sense the vibrations that precede an earthquake. There are descriptions of many cases when these creatures left their nests or shelters in disarray immediately before an earthquake. Sometimes earthquake-related movements of underground gases produce infrasonic waves. These waves can be sensed by pigeons and other birds that use low-frequency sounds as cues during their long-distance flights.
It turns out that animals that sense early signs of earthquakes can sense the buildup of positive electrical ions in the air. These ions accumulate before an earthquake as a result of powerful compression of underground rocks. Dogs, snakes, birds, catfish and other aquatic animals can apparently recognize these ions.
People who once felt the effects of ions may not feel them later. But some people become depressed and even get sick if they are exposed to positive ions. Perhaps these people retained sensitivity to earthquakes as a hereditary atavism.
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