animal behavior
clock | August 29, 2006Yesterday, we were putting down media reports on a study that purports that dolphins are not intelligent despite behavioral studies and big brains. Today, NYTimes has a much better article arguing that manatees, despite their small brains, are more intelligent than previously thought.
It is a longish article but well worth reading. The idea is that manatees don't have too small brains, but overlarge bodies, and, since they are herbivores with no prey or predators, they do not need to reserve vast portions of their brains for tackling hunting and defense.
Brain size has been linked by some…
clock | August 28, 2006Where does one start with debunking fallacies in this little article? Oy vey!
Dolphins and whales are dumber than goldfish and don't have the know-how to match a rat, new research from South Africa shows. For years, humans have assumed the large brains of dolphins meant the mammals were highly intelligent.
No, we knew dolphins were smart millenia before we ever looked at their brains. The ancient Chinese knew it. Aristotle knew it. And the idea that brain size has anything to do with intelligence is, like, sooo 19th century.
Paul Manger from Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand,…
clock | August 21, 2006 The review of the second chapter was written on September 06, 2005:
I have commented on Tomasello's Chapter 1 earlier. Second chapter is much longer and somewhat disjointed, but I would like to write some of my own first impressions now (also long and disjointed), before I read what other members of the reading group have written. As usual, I will make the post contrarian and critical, in the good tradition of blog-writing, but that does not mean I dismiss Tomasello's hypothesis altogether or do not look forward to reading the rest of the book. Read reviews by other group members for other…
clock | August 20, 2006Every now and then, David Niewert takes a break from discussing Far-Right White-Supremacist groups and writes a beautiful post on orcas (after all, Orcinus blog has been named after these beautiful whales). Here's the latest.
clock | August 19, 2006Have You Ever Seen An Elephant ... Run?:
Dr John Hutchinson, a research leader at the UK's Royal Veterinary College (RVC), has already shown that, contrary to previous studies and most popular opinion, elephants moving at speed appear to be running. Now with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) his team is using Hollywood-style motion capture cameras combined with MRI and CT scans of elephants to build 3D computer models of elephant locomotion to show the forces and stresses at work on muscles, tendons and bones.
The research team has been working…
clock | August 18, 2006One of the several hypotheses floating around over the past several years to explain the phenomenon of repeated wake-up events in hibernating animals although such events are very energy-draining, is the notion that the immune system needs to be rewarmed in order to fend off any potential bacterial invasions that may have occured while the animal was hibernating:
Now, a group of researchers provided a mathematical model that supports this hypothesis:
"A habit in some animals to periodically wake up while hibernating may be an evolutionary mechanism to fight bacterial infection, according to…
clock | August 17, 2006This post (click on the icon) was originally written on May 07, 2005, introducing the topic of neuroendocrine control of seasonal changes in physiology and behavior.
So far, I have directed all my attention to daily - circadian - rhythms, and pretty much ignored other rhythms that correspond to other cycles in nature. Another obvious cycle in nature is the procession of seasons during a year.
Just as an environment during the day is different from the same environment during the night and thus requires different adaptations for survival, so the winter environment and the summer environment…
clock | August 11, 2006Carel discovered a fascinating website about iris pigmentation. As Carel notes:
Morgan Worthy, a retired psychologist, has put together an iris pigmentation site that includes lists of iris color for over 5,600 vertebrate species, along with observations based on his database that range from the insightful to the mundane to the crackpottish.
There are hypotheses there concerning eye color in humans and in animal predators. Looks like a treasure trove of material for blogging when you are out of inspiration and especially if you are wondering what to send next for the Skeptic's Circle.
clock | August 10, 2006As the temperatures rise, different organisms respond differently. Some migrate to higher latitudes or altitudes. Others stay put but change the timing of reproduction and other seasonal activities. As a result, ecosystems get remodeled.
So, for instance, insect pollinators and flowers they pollinate may get out of sync.
Animals tend to use photoperiod as a major clue for seasonal timing, with temperature only modulating the response to some extent.
Plants, on the other hand, although they certainly can use photoperiod, are much more strongly influenced by temperature. Non-biologists who…
clock | August 8, 2006Gray Birds Cover 40,000 Miles Annually:
"Sooty shearwaters may not look like much, but when it comes to travel they put marathoners, cyclists and pretty much everyone else to shame.
These gray, 16-inch birds cover 40,000 miles annually in search of food, the longest migration ever recorded electronically, according to a report in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
How does that compare to Arctic Terns and their pole-to-pole migration? Or the east-west migration of some ptarmigans from Scandinavia to Kamtchatka and back?
"The birds, which can have…
retrospectacle | July 31, 2006
The residents of this community should be happy that this wasn't a flock of chattering African Greys! :) Although I bet their cars were covered in "surprises" the next day.