animals
edyong | May 25, 2009
In 2005, corals in the large reef off the coast of Florida were saved by four hurricanes. Tropical storms seem to be unlikely heroes for any living thing. Indeed, coral reefs directly in the way of a hurricane, or even up to 90km from its centre, suffer serious physical damage. But Derek Manzello from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administation has found that corals just outside the storm's path reap an unexpected benefit.
Hurricanes can significantly cool large stretches of ocean as they pass overhead, by drawing up cooler water from the sea floor. And this cooling effect, sometimes…
grrlscientist | May 24, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
edyong | May 23, 2009
Two years ago, a group of Ugandan chimps provided a blow to the idea that humans are the only animals that truly behave selflessly to one another. These chimps showed clear signs of true selflessness, helping both human handlers and other unrelated chimps with no desire for reward.
The question of why we help each other, instead of looking out for ourselves, is one of the most compelling in modern biology. Evolutionary and game theory alike predict that selfish behaviour should be the rule with altruism the exception, and animal experiments have largely supported this idea. Nature, 'red in…
edyong | May 21, 2009In the forests of South America lives the unusual but aptly named owl monkey, or douroucouli. You could probably guess by looking at its large round eyes that it's nocturnal, and indeed, it is the only monkey to be mostly active at night. But its eyes have many adaptations for such a lifestyle, beyond a large size.
The owl monkey's retinas are 50% larger than those of a day-living monkey of similar size, like the brown capuchin. The proportions of different cells in their retina are also different. Owl monkeys have relatively few cone cells, which are responsible for colour vision and fewer…
edyong | May 19, 2009While the rapid expansion of human cities has been detrimental for most animals, some have found ways of exploiting these brave new worlds and learned to live with their prolific inhabitants. The Northern mockingbird is one such species. It's very common in cities all over America's east coast, where it frequently spends time around humans. But Douglas Levey from the University of Florida has found that its interactions with us are more complex than anyone would have guessed.
The mockingbird has the remarkable ability to tell the difference between individual humans, regardless of the…
edyong | May 18, 2009For the longest time, people believed that the world's largest lizard, the Komodo dragon, killed its prey with a dirty mouth. Strands of rotting flesh trapped in its teeth harbour thriving colonies of bacteria and when the dragon bites an animal, these microbes flood into the wound and eventually cause blood poisoning.
But that theory was contested in 2005 when Bryan Fry from the University of Melbourne discovered that a close relative, the lace monitor, has venom glands in its mouth. The discovery made Fry suspect that Komodo dragons also poison their prey and he has just confirmed that in…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
edyong | May 15, 2009
Helping out a threatened predator by culling their prey seems like a really stupid idea. But Scandinavian scientists have found that it might be the best strategy for helping some of our ailing fish stocks.
Lennart Persson and colleagues from Umeå University came up with this counterintuitive concept by running a 26-year natural experiment with the fish of Lake Takvatn, Norway. At the turn of the 20th century, the top predator in Lake Takvatn was the brown trout. Over-fishing sent its numbers crashing, and it was virtually gone by 1980.
In its place, a smaller fish - the Arctic char Â-…
edyong | May 14, 2009Many plants depend so heavily on visits from bees that they go to great lengths to attract them, using brightly coloured flowers baited with sweet nectar. But some of their tricks are much subtler and are designed not to attract six-legged visitors, but to make their stay more convenient.
The majority of flowering plants have evolved special conical cells that line the surface of their petals and are found nowhere else. These cells provide the flower with a rougher texture that is indistinguishable to human fingers, but that provide just enough purchase for the claws of landing insects.…
edyong | May 12, 2009In Mexico's Cueva del Azufre (the Sulphur Caves), a small fish called the shortfin molly (Poecilia mexicana) is on the way to becoming two separate species. Those that live in the dark interior of the caves are very different to their relatives that swim in the bright, surface waters. They have lighter colours and live more solitary lives. Their eyes are smaller, less sensitive and have lower levels of light-sensitive pigment. Instead, they rely instead on a hypersensitive pressure detector - the lateral line - to sense disturbances in the water.
Their differences aren't just skin deep…
grrlscientist | May 10, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
awild | May 8, 2009"Lean on Me", by Lesley Smitheringale
The Burrard-Lucas brothers held a wildlife portait competition, and the results are simply spectacular. Click here to see the winners.
edyong | May 8, 2009The success of termites Âand other social insects hinges on their complex social systems, where workers sacrifice the ability to raise their own young in order to serve the colony and its queen - the only individual who reproduces. But this social order can be thrown into chaos by knocking out a single gene, and one that originally had a role in that other characteristic termite ability - eating wood.
Judith Korb from the University of Osnabrueck in Germany found that the queen termite relies on a gene called Neofem2 to rule over her subjects. Korb worked with the termite Cryptotermes…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2009tags: HR669, pets, exotic animals, invasive species, pet animal trade, pet parrots, Association of Zoos & Aquariums, AZA, politics
Those of you who are following the situation with HR669, the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act [full text : free PDF] know this resolution survived its initial House subcommittee hearing and will be heard again on an as-yet unannounced date. Even though I support the stated purpose of this resolution -- preventing invasive nonnative wildlife from being introduced into the United States -- this bill, as written, will not accomplish that goal. I have…
edyong | May 6, 2009We recognise dead people by the absence of signals that indicate life - movement, responsiveness, pulses, brain activity, and so on. The Argentine ant does the same, but its signal is a chemical one. Throughout its life, an ant uses chemicals in its skin to automatically send out a message to its nest-mates, saying "I'm alive. Don't throw me out." When it dies, these "chemicals of life" fade away, and their bodies are evicted.
Social insects like ants and honeybees are fastidious about their colony's tidiness. If any individuals die, they're quickly removed and thrown away in one of the…
edyong | May 4, 2009Most of us start to tire after about half a day without any sleep. Staying awake for five in a row would be extremely difficult and even if you could manage it, you'd be a physical and mental wreck by the end. But not all animals suffer from the same problem. A dolphin can stay awake and alert for at least 5 days straight, chaining together all-nighters without any noticeable health problems or loss of mental agility.
The two halves of a dolphin's brain can sleep in shifts, "shutting down" one at a time so that the animal is always half-awake. They can truly sleep with one eye open, an…
grrlscientist | May 3, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
edyong | May 3, 2009
Being confronted with a pack of wolves is bad enough, but if you happened to be in Alaska some 12,000 years ago, things would be much, much worse. Back then, the icy forests were patrolled by a sort of super-wolf. Larger and stronger than the modern gray wolf, this beast had bigger teeth and more powerful jaws, built to kill very large prey.
This uber-wolf was discovered by Jennifer Leonard and colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles. The group were studying the remains of ancient gray wolves, frozen in permafrost in eastern Beringia, a region that includes Alaska and…
edyong | May 2, 2009
Impressionists are a mainstay of British comedy, with the likes of Rory Bremner and Alistair MacGowan uncannily mimicking the voices of celebrities and politicians. Now, biologists have found that tiger moths impersonate each other too, and they do so to avoid the jaws of bats.
Some creatures like starlings and lyrebirds are accomplished impersonators but until now, we only had anecdotal evidence that animals mimic each others' sounds for defence. Some harmless droneflies may sound like stinging honeybees, while burrowing owls deter predators from their burrows by mimicking the distinctive…
grrlscientist | May 1, 2009tags: HR669, pets, exotic animals, invasive species, pet animal trade, pet parrots, World Parrot Trust, politics
Those of you who are following the situation with HR669, the Nonnative Wildlife Invasion Prevention Act [full text : free PDF] know this resolution survived its initial House subcommittee hearing and will be heard again on an as-yet unnannounced date. Even though I support the stated purpose of this resolution -- preventing invasive nonnative wildlife from being introduced into the United States -- this bill, as written, will not accomplish that goal. I have been communicating with…