LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

“This Can’t Be Love,” by Carl Zimmer. The New York Times, 05 Sep 2006.

The Daily Telegraph story on the Komodo dragon surprise of parthenogenesis in 2006 at Chester Zoo.

Source article: Watts, P. C., K. R. Buley, S. Sanderson, W. Boardman, C. Ciofi & R. Gibson, 2006. Parthenogenesis in Komodo dragons. Nature, 444: 1021-1022.

The New York Times story on parthenogensis in a hammerhead shark in Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska in 2001. This was based on this 2007 paper: Chapman, D. D., M. S. Shivji, E. Louis, J. Sommer, H. Fletcher, P. A. Prodöhl, 2007. Virgin birth in a hammerhead shark. Biology Letters, 3 (4): 425-427.

See also the 2002 National Geographic story on the report of parthenogenesis in a white spotted bamboo shark at Bellle Isle Aquarium, Detroit.

Yes, there are there infrequent occurrences of large numbers of cicadas even in Singapore – see the relevant few posts in Habitatnews about cicada encounters – you’ll recognise some photos from the lecture!

Lovely footage from Life in the Undergrowth with BBC/David Attenborough that captures the once-in-17 year emergence of cicadas and their amazing calls. Watch on the BBC Youtube page.

See also this amusing site dedicated to cicadas! – Cicada Mania has lovely photos, the emergence formula and even t-shirts and mugs!

I will be showing you some just a few examples of the sort of birds that colonised Punggol grasslands.

Well you can view the complete and breath-taking gallery of Paul Huang’s “Temporary grasslands of Singapore” at naturestops.com

A note about lapwings – in the late 90’s, it was reported that the lapwing, a formerly common bird across most of the United Kingdom had suffered severe in numbers,

In a 1987 survey, the breeding population was estimated at 200-250,000 pairs. By 1998, surveys estimated the population to be 120-140,000 pairs – a drop of 49% in 11 years!

A contributing factor was change in farm practises and loss of habitat for this open country bird.

Since then, amongst the conservation measures taken is Operation Lapwing – which supports the conservation work of many farmers!

An annual competition identifies the best examples of lapwing-friendly management and in the 2007 event, there were 300 participants and more than 135 pairs of lapwings had been bred on the seven best farms!

“Tangerine Ruff ’n’ Sniff: new clue to bird social behaviour.” The Royal Society Science News/Press release, 14 May 2003

“Although odours are a common form of communication in every other vertebrate animal, the possible use of scent to convey social information is an exciting addition to the study of avian behaviour.”

The basic assumption is that vision and hearing are the main senses that birds use to signal each other, e.g. the colour of plumage; the sound of birdsong. This is questioned by new experimental evidence observed in the Crested Auklet, an arctic seabird.

The citrusy smell of Crested Auklet feathers only occurs during the breeding season. Research showed that the birds were repeatedly drawn to the scent of natural feathers and to the chemical components that make up the auklet’s characteristic odour. The seasonal “ruff-sniff” display, may perhaps act as a useful mechanism to obtain odour information about a potential mate.

See also:

• Hagelin, J. C., I. L. Jones & L. E. L. Rasmussen, 2003. A tangerine-scented social odour in a monogamous seabird. Proc Biol Sci., 270(1522): 1323–1329.
• “Crested Auklet birds rub tick-repelling perfume on their mates during courtship.” ScienceDaily, 24 Aug 2007.

Crested Auklets from St. Paul Island, in the Alaskan Pribiloffs. Photo by Philip Witt

An interesting article I will highlight: Sapolsky, R. M., 2005. The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science, 308 (5722): 648 – 652.

Duke University (11 Jul 2007). Songbirds Prefer The Latest Music: Golden Oldies Just Don’t Cut It With The Chicks. [Link]

Two easily readable references:

• “Bird Squawk: What is the dawn chorus?” BBC Science & Nature homepage. [link]
• “Bird Songs,” by Gareth Huw Davies. PBS: The Life of Birds by [BBC/]David Attenborough. [link]