Neanderthal man may have used a special fire lighter!

When Neanderthal man wanted fire
His methods will surely inspire,
For he used, if you please,
Some oxide (manganese),
And he then cooked his meat on the pyre.

How clever were our Neanderthal cousins? The more we discover about them the more intelligent they seem. The EvoAnth blog has reported on some research relating to the discovery of lumps of manganese oxide associated with Neanderthal sites. It had been thought that they used it as a black pigment - but in some cases the lumps were found more thane 250 km from where it could be found naturally.  But if all they wanted was a black pigment they could have used the far more easy to obtain charcoal.
However if you grind up manganese and sprinkle it over wood it is far easier to get a fire going, and the wood ignites at a lower temperature.

The Black Kite - A Bird that uses fire as a tool

An intelligent bird is the kite,
For a fire it knows how to ignite.
And some scientists claim
It can carry a flame
So its prey can be caught in their flight.

Yesterday the British newspapers were full of the news that Black Kites in Australia deliberately removed burning embers from a bush fire and dropped it on nearby grassland, setting the grass alight. The small mammals and lizards living deep in the grass would become visible as they tried to escape from the flames, and could then be easily caught.