predator
dr. dolittle | March 25, 2016I came across this neat video summarizing a study that found some birds build nests near alligators to protect themselves from other predators. But the protection is not without a price.
dr. dolittle | May 23, 2014Check out the unique bond between this bear, lion and tiger (i.e. BLT) at Noah's Ark Animal Sanctuary in Locust Grove, Ga:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
dr. dolittle | March 12, 2014Research published last month in PNAS provides evidence that African elephants (Loxodonta africana) can differentiate human voices. This is a very important skill to an animal that is often threatened by humans. Prior research has shown that elephants could tell the difference between African ethnic groups using sight and scent.
The study was conducted by Drs. Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon (University of Sussex, Brighton, UK). They recorded men from two different Kenyan ethnic groups speaking in their native language the phrase "Look, look over there, a group of elephants is coming." The…
dr. dolittle | January 8, 2014 Frog with an extra foot. Image from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Image of a frog with a missing leg from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Since 1995 deformed frogs have been turning up. Call them the canaries in the coal mine for environmental health. Frogs are showing signs of some kind of stress.
So is it a parasite? Pollution? A natural phenomenon? Cannibalism? Fungus? Ultraviolet light? Something in the water?
Video from YouTube
The tap water data referred to in the video in which they placed embryos in tap water collected from different sites in Minnesota…
dr. dolittle | January 3, 2013Check out this "sculpure" of a spider discovered by Biologist Phil Torres, created by what may be a new species of Cyclosa found in the Peruvian Amazon. This is not just a pattern weaved by the spider into the web, but instead it is created from debris in the forest (dead insects, leaves, etc.). It is believed the spiders use the sculptures to confuse predators. The real spider can be spotted in the second image below just above the fake spider. In this location, the real spider can actually shake the fake spider to make it appear alive.
Spider sculpture (image credit: Phil Torres,…
laelaps | June 14, 2010
A drop in the bucket - a massive pile of bison skulls about to be ground into fertilizer, photographed circa 1870. From Wikipedia.
From almost the very start, wolves were not welcome in Yellowstone. When the national park was established by the United States government in 1872 the bison population had crashed - a victim of westward expansion, the fur trade, and the desire to deprive native people of an animal important to their existence - leaving the area's wolves little recourse but to begin preying upon local livestock. This did nothing to help their reputation. Already seen as nature's…
laelaps | May 5, 2010
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) don't have it easy. Their taste for large mammalian prey puts them in competition with lions and spotted hyenas for both prey and living space, meaning that wild dogs regularly have their kills stolen or are even killed by other predators. In fact, the dogs may even be unintentionally attracting the attention of these other hunters.
Like other social carnivores, African wild dogs communicate with each other through body language and olfactory cues, but they also employ a variety of high-…
laelaps | April 7, 2010
A leopard (Panthera pardus). Image from Wikipedia.
When a leopard eats a baboon, what is left behind? This question is not only relevant to primatologists and zoologists. Even though instances of predation on humans is relatively rare, big cats still kill and consume people, and when they do they can virtually obliterate a body. Yet, just like a human criminal, the dining habits of big cats leave tell-tale clues, and in 2004 researchers Travis Pickering and Kristian Carlson fed two captive leopards eight complete baboon carcasses each in order catalog the most useful ways to identify the…
laelaps | April 6, 2010
A leopard (Panthera pardus). Image from Wikipedia.
SK-54 is a curious fossil. The 1.5 million year old skullcap represents a juvenile Paranthropus robustus, one of the heavy-jawed hominins which lived in prehistoric South Africa, but there is something that makes this skull fragment particularly special. Near one of the sutures along the back of the skull are two neat puncture marks, the hallmark of a leopard.
Even though it was initially proposed that SK-54 had been murdered by another australopithecine wielding a weapon of bone or horn, in the late 1960's the paleontologist C.K. Brain…
laelaps | February 15, 2010
A reconstruction of Smilodon, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
When it comes to animals, encyclopedias often present us with generalized descriptions. Where a creature lives, what color it is, what it eats, and other tidbits of information are listed to distinguish one species from another, but what is lost is an appreciation of variation. Be they genetic, anatomical, or behavioral, variations are grist for natural selection's mill, and if you study any species in detail it becomes apparent that individuals differ considerably over space and through time.
This was…
edyong | July 22, 2009
This is a repost from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science
You are being hunted, chased through a labyrinth by a relentless predator. Do you consider your options and plan the best possible escape, or do you switch off and rely solely on instinct? A new study provides the answer - you do both, flicking from one to the other depending on how far away the threat is.
Earlier studies have found that different parts of a rodent's brain are activated in the face of danger, depending on how imminent that danger is. Now, scientists at University College London has found the…
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-…