LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

In my few dives around the region, my encounter with moray eel left a deep impression on me. They often appear in crevices, between rocks on the seabed when you least expect it. It was a rare chance that I caught one feeding. It did not seem especially unique until i stumbled onto this article featured by National Geographic (March 2009). It was then that i realised i had the rare opportunity to watch such an amazing mechanism at work.

Picture scanned from National Geographic ( March, 2009)

Most fishes feed using a suction method whereby lower pressure in their mouth “sucks” up fishes nearby. However,  restricted by their habitat, moray eel depends on their second set of jaws to help capture its prey. This mechanism is similar to that of snakes. Snakes have a set of jaws which pulls prey down their gullet. This is an example of convergence, where organism of no similarity (except for the fact that they face the same problem) finds a similar solution.

References:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070905-eel-jaw.html

After watching a documentary on parasites on Animal Planet, I learnt about Tumbu Flies from Central Africa.

To summarise, scientist Karl Loren spent 3 years in Africa, and he realised that he was getting pimples on his skin. After a while, these pimples grew itchier and itchier. At some point these pimples grow bigger, redder, and turned to sores. Some time later, these lumps on his skin began to move. By then it was already too painful, and he stopped work and tried to dig the sores open.

“The tumbu fly is found in many parts of East and Central Africa. It lays eggs on clothing – especially clothes that bear traces of urine or sweat. Clothes hanging outdoors on the washing line and clothes laid out on the ground to dry are the usual target.”

“The eggs hatch on contact with human skin. The larvae burrow into the skin and produce a characteristic boil, which contains not pus, but a developing maggot. The boils are usually multiple and are most often over the back, arms, scrotum, and around the waist.”

“The breathing apparatus of the maggots can usually be identified at the surface of the boil as a pair of black dots. A maggot can be removed by placing water or oil over its breathing apparatus and gently squeezing it; the maggot will pop out. This is a rather unpleasant spectacle to witness.”

This condition is known as Myiasis, which is the infestation of live animals with larvae, which at least for a period, feed on the host’s dead or living tissue. Fortunately for Loren, he got the help of a native African doctor, who covered his sores with coconut oil until the maggots came to the surface of the skin and they dug out the maggots one by one. I can’t imagine being eaten alive like that.

References:

Animal Planet: TV With Teeth – Nature’s Vampires

Karl Loren (2003). The Bite? of the African Insect? That lays egges that burrow. http://www.karlloren.com/biopsy/p47.htm

James AS, et al; Cutaneous myiasis due to Tumbu fly. (Arch Emerg Med, 1992 Mar, Abstract available) [MEDLINE]

“Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look at us straight in the eye and see an equal.”

- Winston Churchill

Whoever would have thought of themselves as an equal to a pig? Well, Winston Churchill certainly did. He is often quoted using pigs to comment on the human condition. Besides this, who can forget the ambitious trio, Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer in George Owell’s dystopian novel, Animal Farm. Perhaps then, pigs are closer to us humans than we all expect. How much do we know of pigs? Well… one thing’s for sure. No one ever expect them to start investing in fashion!

This is one pig who will be putting the commonly used phrase “messy as a pigsty” out of business. Meet Cinderella, Cinders in short. Belonging to couple Debbie and Andrew Keeble in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, this piglet certainly stand out amongst its siblings. While the rest of Cinders’s siblings messed around in the mud in a very piggish manner, Cinders stood aloof by the edge of the grass. Closer observation by the interested couple found her shaking by the edge of the grass patch.

“It was the strangest thing. When the batch ventured away from their mother, Cinders just stood at the edge of her sty shaking while the others explored. We thought it was just that she didn’t want to leave the sty or the sow but we soon noticed if we moved them to where there wasn’t any mud, she happily left it and roamed around without any nonsense.” – Debbie Keeble

This unique behaviour exhibited by Cinders seemed to have no scientific explanation. Till now, one of the most convincing explanation given would be that Cinders is suffering from a case of Mysophobia. This would be the intense fear of dirt and uncleanliness, and being covered in mud certainly fulfills these two criteria. Such a fear is usually an irrational behaviour, and in this case, it definitely fits the bill.

In order to provide Cinders with a complete and healthy lifestyle, the Keeble family came up with an ingenious idea, inspired by another animal – the bear. The family’s five-year old daugther suggested putting her Paddington Bear boots onto the pig, and this solution worked like a charm. These days, Cinders would run to Andrew Keeble in the morning for him to put on her “magical glass slippers”, much like the tale of Cinderella. Who says a pig can’t appreciate fashion?

It would be interesting to see if Cinders would finally grow out of her fear of mud and reaffirm the saying that “You can’t get much happier than a pig in muck” or would she be the first of her kind to put to rest the misconception that pigs are plain filthy animals… That being said, perhaps she could simply be making a fashion statement with her green wellingtons?

Pig Wears Boots on YouTube

References:

Daily Mail Online:Pig in Boots: The World’s Only Porker Who Is Afraid of Mud

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1025428/Pig-Boots-The-worlds-porker-afraid-mud.html

Telegraph.co.uk: Meet Cinderella, Pig in Boots

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2105763/Meet-Cinderella-Pig-in-Boots.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysophobia

As a owner of 2 dogs, i cannot agree less with Dr Friederike Range, of the University of Vienna’s neurobiology department, with the idea that dogs feel intense jealously when they spot that they are unfairly treated compared with other dogs. When i fed dog snacks to them (something which they like very much) unequally, my dog which had less start to become fidgety and starts seeking attention. It takes more time to coax it to listen to my commands. It also displays signs of unhappiness (weak sway of the tail) when i called it. However, when i reward them separately (not in the view of each other), they were much happier and, at certain occasions, started to play with each other.

Therefore, i learnt the lesson for one to appear ”fair” in a dog eat dog world, one has to make the other party ignorant of your actions.

If this interests you, please have a look at the following articles in the reference and the comments written by other people.

Reference:

Susan Milius. (2009). Dogs will go on strike over unfair treats. Retrieved 14 April, 2009, from http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/39187/title/Dogs_will_go_on_strike_over_unfair_treats#sequence

Nora Schultz. (2008). Jealous dogs don’t play ball. Retrieved 14 April, 2009, from http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16216-jealous-dogs-dont-play-ball.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Rebecca Carroll. (2008). Dogs can feel envy, study suggests. Retrieved 14 April, 2009, from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081208-dogs-envy.html?source=rss

I was born to love you, with every single beat of my heart…

But no, I was (NOT) born to take care of you…

Because I’ll just stick to you, and provide sperm, and die (still stuck to you)…

This is probably what you might hear a male anglerfish sing to a female one. If you could hear fish singing that is.

Deep Sea Anglerfish (Ceratias holboelli) have a rather interesting way of reproduction. And that’s an understatement. The male deep sea anglerfish is born way smaller than their female counterpart, and once it hits “puberty” (or in other words, when it matures) its digestive system disintegrates, leaving him “incapable of feeding independently”. It is now a race against time to find a female counterpart before it starves to death on its own. Fortunately for male anglerfish, they are born with extremely well developed olfactory organs which aids them in their search for female anglerfish. Once a male anglerfish finds a female counterpart, he …

“bites into her skin and releases an enzyme that dissolves the skin of his mouth and that of her body. The two become fused together and their blood vessels join as one. The male will spend the rest of its life joined to the female like a parasite, getting all of his nourishment from her body.”

This way of reproduction may seem rather extreme, but it also offers an extremely high(if not 100%) rate of fertilization of the eggs. Think about it, the male is permanently stuck to his female counterpart. (And a female anglerfish can carry up to 6 males on her body at a time.) This ensures that both male and female genitals can “ripen simultaneously” and the female anglerfish can also “control the seminal discharge of the males to ensure that it takes place at the right time for the fertilization of her eggs”   

And they (all) live happily ever after…  

References:

Creatures of the Deep Sea

Link: http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/anglerfish.html

Dimorphism, Parsitism and Sex: Reproductive Strategies among Deep Sea Ceratoid Anglerfishes

Theodore W. Pietsch

Copeia, Vol. 1976, No. 4 (Dec. 30, 1976), pp. 781-793

Published by: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

Link: http://www.jstor.org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/stable/1443462?seq=1&Search=yes&term=anglerfish&term=male&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmale%2Banglerfish%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Danglerfish%2Bmating%2Bbehaviour%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=17&ttl=117&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle

Other Relevant Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglerfish#Reproduction

A picture to get your attention! Well, if you have watched Disney’s “Finding Nemo”, you might remember the fish on the right of the picture – the Deep Sea Anglerfish. This however, is the female, which gets all the “limelight” (well, light… see the thing sticking out its head? get it? light…? alright, lame jokes aside…)

The male anglerfish is the lead of this post. In comparison, the male anglerfish does not look like its female counterpart. It does not have the light-producing component (which is actually part of its spine) and is much smaller in size.

Male Anglerfish

The interesting thing about the Deep Sea Anglerfish is its method of reproduction – with particular focus on the male. The male gradually loses its digestive ability as it matures. In order to survive, the male then searches for a female and bites onto the female. The male then releases an enzyme that dissolves the skin around its mouth and the body of the female. Eventually, their bodies become fused together for the rest of their lives.

Its role then becomes a gonad (or testicle) for the rest of its life, releasing sperm when the female is ready to reproduce. Did I already mention this is for the rest of its life?

You could catch a video from the link below, particularly from 3:00 onwards…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RitJe16c3sM

Citation

1. Deep Sea Anglerfish – Deep Sea Creatures on Sea and Sky http://www.seasky.org/deep-sea/anglerfish.html

2. Theodore. W. Pietsch, 1976. Dimorphism, Parasitism and Sex: Reproductive Strategies among Deepsea Ceratoid Anglerfishes. Copiea, Vol. 1976 (4): 781-793

Does your pet know when you are coming home? There have been lots of experiments that say, while you are gone, your pet actually “feels” when you are ready to return, even while YOUR mind is on more pressing personal matters. Recent studies have shown, while incorporating real and hard core scientific protocols that your pet may sense FAR more than we think, and may have a connection to our consciousness that surpasses SOME science fiction novels. This article talks about whether animals really have heightened senses than we can imagine. To us, humans, we call it the sixth sense.

Can Animals Really Be Psychic? Read This and Find Out.IanHollander(n.d.) http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/194318/pets/can_animals_really_be_psychic__read_this_and_find_out.html

CAN ANIMALS DETECT WHEN THEIR OWNERS ARE RETURNING HOME?

AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF THE ‘PSYCHIC PET’ PHENOMENON. Richard Wiseman, Matthew Smith (n.d.) https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/2299/2285/1/902380.pdf

Cute? Think again.

Introducing, the honey badger (Mellivora capensis).

The title might have confused you. You might think a honey badger is a cute little cuddly Pooh bear with a name like “honey badger” and its appearance may reinforce that, but don’t be fooled like I was by this ferocious beast. I came across this video on youtube and it amused me to ends and so I decided to write about the honey badgers as the blog post.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81bcjyfn6U

Honey badgers are given the “honey” tag because they like to forage in bee hives; not for honey, but for the larvae of the bees that is a nutritious meal for them. The honey badgers do not seem to be deterred by the hundreds of bees stinging it and unfortunately, this has caused the death of some of these badgers.

The most interesting part about the honey badgers though, is the fact that they are opportunistic hunters and eat almost anything! Their diet ranges from mammals including rodents, molerats, porcupines(!!), birds, reptiles such as snakes, tortoises and small crocodiles up to 1m, and almost everything else in between. There has even been reports of honey badgers stealing the meal of lions right from under their noses. Furthermore, the honey badgers do not seem to have any natural predators although there has been reports of lions eating honey badgers. While other animals might know their limits and back off or run away from predators that are much larger than them, the honey badgers NEVER back off. They will always posture at predators when threatened and will continue to do so until the predator backs off. Hence, the honey badger is a tough prey to crack. Lions and leopards sometimes prey on honey badgers, but not at a high success rate because the honey badgers’ ferocity and thick, loose skin makes it difficult to grip or suffocate them. The older and weaker honey badgers are more likely to fall prey but even they will defend themselves as vigorously as possible.

The way the honey badgers face danger will always amuse me; be it diving head first into a hive full of bees just to eat larvae, snatching prey off lions and leopards right from under their noses or simply preying on venomous snakes whose venom they are NOT immune to. Their ferocity and “gung-ho” attitude brings new meaning to the Energizer slogan, “Never say die!”.

References:

“Honey Badger – Ferocity and Courage, with a Sweet Tooth,” by CC Africa, Date: 21 November 2006. http://www.wildwatch.com/living_library/mammals-2/honey-badger

“The tough Kalahari honey badger reigns as one of the desert’s fiercest hunters.” by Colleen and Keith Begg, Date: September 2004. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/static-legacy/ngm/0409/feature6/

When I was sitting on my coach and randomly hearing the daily news, I heard something from the news that caught me – ‘There is a homosexual elephant in Poznan Zoo in Poland.’ I looked at my television screen and saw this relative young elephant strolling around in his enclosure at the zoo. And I was just simply amazed. I had heard of homosexual dogs before, but not other animals like the elephants. Especially when they are so massive in size and look so majestic, I just could not believe what I heard from the newscaster.

Out of curiousity, I went back to my laptop and googled ‘gay elephant’. And yes, I confirmed what I have heard. This ‘gay’ elephant is called Ninio, aged 10. Apparently there are much controversies over this elephant which has a unique behavior, having a preference over his male counterparts rather than the females. Politicians were angry that they had spend millions of dollars on this particular animal, and it is suppose to give them a herd of elephants. But now knowing that Ninio have a ‘gay’ tendency, their herd of elephants may be just a dream.

Ninio’s intimacy with his male friends made people think that he is gay. But is he? Even if he is at present, isn’t it a little too early for him to decide his sexual orientation, since elephants of his species only mature at the age of 14? Such behavior is definitely interesting and unbelievable.