LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

Lions

Africa has always been a very exciting place with all the world’s most exotic animals at the wild land Safari. One of the most documented animals by the National Geographic are the Lions as most of them live in South Africa. Lions are often the creature revered by humans as the most powerful creatures on the planet as we can see we have a very famous Hollywood show the Lion King, which portrays the Lions as the ruling animal over all the other animals.

The lions main source of food are usually large mammals which are zebras buffalos etc. It is easy to understand why as they themselves are a large mammal and they would need a large amounts of food. The way lions prey for food in groups and I guess it is the main reason why the lions do hunt in groups as their prey are all of bigger size.

Buffalos

The african buffalos have a very wide population in the African Safari and their success are very much due to their social behaviour. They usually congregate in herds as we often see on National Geographic and they graze the lands in herds. Buffaloes are very strong and each of them weighs 500-600kg and you can see them not just in Africa but also on ESPN where they have this Rodeo sports where riders ride them for a long period of time and it can be seen how ferocious this creature is. From the academic journal, the authors states that the buffalo uses its horns as a weapon which is often feared by its predator due to its thickness sturdiness.

Buffalos vs Lions

These 2 combination form a very interesting battle as both species work in groups. Lions hunt in groups to overcome the very strong buffaloes

I came across this video on YouTube which shows clearly the battle between Lions and Buffaloes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM&feature=PlayList&p=C6E37C0C0B6998F6&index=0

Battle at Kruger is its title and it really shows the battle between the 2 animals. While the lions became successful in singleing out a Buffalo, it was the Buffaloes who eventually emerge as winners as the rest of the herd came chasing at the group of attacking lions. The lions eventually gave up as the risk of predation becomes very high when the herd closes in as shown in the article.

According to the journal, while in many cases the lions are successful in hunting Buffaloes, there are cases where by buffaloes puncture or trample the lions to death while defending their peers. Hence the group behaviour of both animals worked similiarly against each other as congregation forms a stronger entity and it is interesting to see how these group behaviour work against each other in different situations.

Citation

1. Dangerous Lions and Nonchalant Buffalo, H. H. T. Prins and G. R. Iason, Behaviour, Vol. 108, No. 3/4 (Mar., 1989), pp. 262-296

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM&feature=PlayList&p=C6E37C0C0B6998F6&index=0

3. http://www.safaribwana.com/ANIMALS/animpages/buffalo.htm

Yes its true!

Red Harvester ants seem almost to eclipse the sophistication of Humans with their flawless coordination in keeping their nest in tip top condition. There is no leader in the colony. Not even the Queen! In fact, egg-laying is the queen’s only responsibility. She has nothing to do with running the colony or assigning workers to specific tasks.

Check out this video to observe their coordination.

Ants create a lifeboat in the Amazon jungle – BBC Wildlife – the “embed” is not available..but DO WATCH IT. =)

Much of this can be attributed to the acute sense of “smell” these ants possess. But instead of sniffing the air, ants use their sensitive antennae to detect chemical odors in their surroundings. The pheromones that these antennae pick up hint to these ants what they should be doing. Put simply by a Harvard Researcher, “Different tasks smell different.”

Harvester ants have 3 main roles, 1) Patrollers, 2) Foragers, 3) Nest Maintainance. The patrollers go out early to ensure it is safe for the foragers to go out and find food. Should the patrollers not return to the colony, the foragers would not leave the nest. The return of the patrollers bring about a scent. When a certain forager smell, say, 15 patrollers passing her, she knows then that that is the right time to leave the nest and forage. The interplay of pheromones and frequency of encounter makes for accurate timing.

These ants also know when exactly they should change their roles. Take for example the percentage of foragers to patrollers to maintainence workers is 50% – 25% – 25%. Should a forager ant fail to “smell” a patroller after many encounters, she would automatically switch her role to become a patroller. This quickly and accurately maintains the correct ratio for the colony to survive.

This site makes use of an interactive applet to explain the receptivity of harvester ants to their counterpart’s scent.

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/models/antcolonies/page3.html

Through chemical interactions such as those mentioned above, the colony is able to maintain its efficiency flawlessly. And something for the ladies…note that every single worker ant in the colony is a female. Talk about girl power…

References

MARK SHWARTZ, Ants’ body odor, physical contact get worker ants working, study finds, Stanford Report, 2003, http://news.stanford.edu/news/2003/may7/antchat-57.html

Laura Cyckowski and Paul Grobstein, Ant colonies: Social Organization without a Director?, Serendip/SciSoc Group, Summer 2006, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/complexity/models/antcolonies/page2.html

Video of an affectionate Digger.

I am strangely beguiled by how affectionate Digger, a young Common Wombat, is in this video. Honestly, I am rather enchanted in the way he tries to get Donna’s attention, or rather “communicate” with her – the “Huff-huff” sounds are a sign of his ability to become friendly in his interaction with people.

However, one must not be inclined towards believing that the Common Wombat (Vombatus ursinus) is a sociable creature. Such a lack of fear towards humans means that they may display acts of hostility when provoked, sometimes if they are just simply in a bad mood. More often than not, he will outgrow his friendly behavior as a joey – the equivalent of a young Wombat, to become an aggressive, and sometimes potentially dangerous, adult Wombat. This is because of the development of the trait of territoriality in his later years, which is more often than not, manifested in his physiological changes, displayed in the form of sharp claws and teeth, speed, and strength.

Video of a Wombat displaying signs of aggression!

Do you know that the sheer weight of a wombat makes him capable of knocking an average-sized man over, that he can run at a speed of 40km/hr despite his thickset body and stubby legs, and that his sharp teeth and powerful jaws can result in severe wounds?

Video of a charging Wombat!

Wounds from a Wombat attack!

Thus, even as a Common Wombat is relative cute when they’re young, you should be wary when they are much older!

Awww, but you have been warned!

Citation

1

“Wombat Behavior” by Peter Marinacci. http://www.wombania.com/wombats/wombat-behavior.htm, 2009.

2

“Wombat” by New World Encyclopedia. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Wombat, 2009.

3

Videos taken from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3pl7GsJzbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnJUWwSx1kE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcFOC1CcaAw

Images taken from:

http://www.wombadilliac.com.au/

http://raychillweinstein.blogspot.com/2008/05/sebastian-lives-in-hat.html

The phenomenon of switching back and forth being male and female is not a new phenomenon. It has been observed in certain types of animals such as fishes, shrimps, worms and snails. Male fishes have the ability to develop female traits by growing new sexual organs and producing eggs – due to anti-androgens in waters that contribute to this feminization of the fish (by blocking the actions of male hormones). (Sohn, 4 March 2009) However, this is the first study that observes how corals can change their sex in either direction (Sohn, 30 March 2009).

This study on mushroom corals was undertaken by Yossi Loya (a zoologist at Tel Aviv University) and her colleagues on a patch reef near Japan’s Okinawa which is home to tens of thousands of mushroom corals. In July 2004, the collected mushroom corals for observation and research purposes released sperms and eggs which were then analyzed under the microscope. These gamete explosions produce larvae that drift off to become new corals in the ocean when in their natural habitats. (Sohn, 30 March 2009)

The results: Each coral produced either sperm or eggs since they do not belong to corals which were hermaphroditic (having both male and female reproductive parts).

The coral reef scientists repeated the same experiment in 2006 and 2007 respectively with the same corals and new corals.

The results in 2006: approximately 25% of one species and 50% of the other species had changed sex since they’d been tagged two years earlier

The results in 2007: approximately 80% percent of the corals had changed sex from 2006, with 25% reverting back to the sex in 2004.

“We know in detail the reproductive patterns of more than 500 coral species, but no one reported before on the fact that some coral species may change sex… I believe this was quite a big surprise to all coral reef scientists…” – Yossi Loya (2009)

“We never realized in our wildest dreams that these corals can undergo sex changes. This is really exciting.” – Robert van Woesik, a marine biologist at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne (2009)

Understanding why and when these mushroom corals switch from male to female or vice versa may be contributing to the world of biological evolution of these corals and imperative in understanding how the changing environment  affects them and in helping efforts to conserve these corals. From an evolutionary perspective, Loya and van Woesik said that it made sense for young mushroom corals to be male since it requires less energy to produce sperm than to produce eggs but as these corals grow, it is more advantageous to be female. But the switching back and forth sexes may be an indication of stress such as climate changes and water pollution. The danger of this phenomenon is that when a majority of these mushroom corals tend towards becoming male or female – leading to an unbalanced sex ration – these corals could well become extinct. (Sohn, 30 March 2009)

This is an especially important discover to the scientific community since a recent Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) field expedition researching on a coral community near Miall Island on the southern Great Barrier Reef concluded that corals can adjust to the higher sea surface temperatures and the higher acidity of the waters. (Jacquot, 22 March 2008) According to the study:

“The corals there have managed to do so by switching out their old zooxanthellae, symbiotic algae that provide them with a constant source of nutrition, in favor of newer, more heat-resistant ones. This phenomenon, observed in coral communities that underwent mass bleaching events in 2006, has been dubbed ‘symbiont shuffling’; the researchers found that the corals now were much more likely to have two strains of thermally-resistant zooxanthellae than they were prior to the bleaching events.”

Bringing the argument of the need to heighten environmental consciousness to another level, Charles Tyler, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Exeter in England warns that:

“At the end of the day, wildlife are fantastic sentinels for potential human impacts… If it happens in fish, it can happen in humans.” (Sohn, 4 March 2009)

To read more about the feminization of species and the sexual disruption in wild fish populations, you can read more about how exposure to steroid estrogens  or chemically-induced endocrine affect the sex of fishes and other wildlife animals, you can read more in:

Jobling, S., Williams, R., Johnson, A., Taylor, A. Gross-Sorokin, M. Nolan, M. Tyler, C. R., van Aerle, R., Santos, E. and Brighty, G. 2006. ‘Predicted Exposures to Steroid Estrogens in U.K. Rivers Correlate with Widespread Sexual Disruption in Wild Fish Populations’. Environmental Health Perspective. Vol. 114(Suppl. 1). Pp. 32-39.

Jobling, S. and Tyler, C. R. 2006. “Introduction: The Ecological Relevance of Chemically Induced Endocrine Disruption in Wildlife”. Environmental Health Perspective. Vol. 114(Suppl 1). Pp. 7-8.

COMPRENDO (Comparative Research on Endocrine Disrupters). 2004. Ecological Relevance of Chemically-Induced Endocrine Disruption in Wildlife. Available at http://www.comprendo-project.org/_files/AbstractsExeter2004.pdf [accessed 13 April 2009].

References:

Sohn, E . 2009. “Stressed female mushroom corals become male”. Discovery News. 30 March 2009

Sohn, E . 2009. “Worldwide she-male fish mystery widens”. Discovery News. 4 March 2009.

Jacquot, J. E. 2008. “New research indicates some corals are taking the heat and surviving”.  Science and Technology. 22 March 2008.

I almost thought that it was a joke when I read this. What would you think of the zoo if I told you that it actually tried to expelled a penguin couple from the colony?

This pair of penguins above are actually a pair of gay couple from Polar Land in Harbin, northern China. After repeated attempts of stealing eggs from other heterosexual couples in the colony, the zoo has decided to segregate them from the rest to prevent any disruption during the hatching season. The newspapers’ interview with a keeper at Polar Land has revealed that, ‘the gay couple had the natural urge to become fathers, despite their sexuality’.

I was really reactive and a little upset towards this article because of the repeated used and focused on the fact that the penguins are gay and that there’s some problem with their sexuality. Males often look after young and in some Penguin colonies the males hatch the offspring. As mentioned by the zookeeper, “One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite this being a biological impossibility for this couple, the natural desire is still there”. Therefore, we should be glad that these penguins are naturally responsible, instead of stressing on the differences in their sexuality.

Aren’t we just judging them based on values of our human society, if we call them gay? Furthermore, there are numerous examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom, as seen from this National Geographic video, named Wild Sex, more than 450 species of animals in the world engages in homosexual behaviors. According to Bagemihl (1999), these animals’ meanings towards same sex sexual behaviors are different. It has other social connotations and they are welcome or tolerated within their kingdom. But of course, I am not saying that we should be the same in this human world, it would be chaotic, since we have different meanings prescribed to our sexual behaviors.

I just feel that even if we do not celebrate this diversity within animals, we should still rethink about how are we viewing other animals, or even towards other people. Are we judging them based on our own value systems?

References

Bagemihl, B. (1999). Biological exuberance: Animal homosexuality and natural diversity. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Unknown. (28th November 2008). Gay penguins steal eggs from straight couples. China daily. Retrieved April 13th, 2008, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-11/28/content_7251010.htm.

National Geographic: Wild Sex. Accessed 12th April, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RlTAyNI8WE&feature=related

A  Misfit?

Well, before stumbling upon an animal planet show about the playtpus, the only time I heard about this creature was during my science lesson in primary five.  Of course, many of us would have heard about this creature and how though it is a mammal, it lays eggs and you would have thought wow, cool.  Well, after the animal planet show and more research, the platypus came across as more than wow.

The Duck-billed platypus is an animal that grasps one’s attention because of its odd appearance. While having the webbed feet and a bill of a duck, the platypus also has the tail of a beaver and the body of an otter.  However, the apparent ‘misfit’ clearly does not stop there.  In all aspects of its behaviour, the platypus has stunned scientists who thought it would be a myth when drawings of the animals first appeared.   For example, while it has been classified as a mammal, it lays eggs.   Secondly, while it spends a large amount of time underwent foraging for food; it prefers living in burrows near a pond.  Despite its docile appearance, the duck-billed platypus is also an aggressive animal which males engage in combat which may result in fatal injury.

A female platypus can lay up to three eggs at a time in her burrow which she incubates by placing the eggs on the belly fur using her tail.  Thereafter, the mother nurses her young with milk that comes directly from her belly skin.  This is due to the fact that the female platypus has no nipples.  This is again inconsistent with the characteristic of a mammal where the mother nurses her young with milk from her nipples. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNoQvjlmGdk 

(The link from youtube provides more insights into the behaviour of this creature.)

The platypus largely hunts underwater using its beak which is a very complex feature of its anatomy.  The skin surface of the bill which contains 40,000 electro receptors, or specialized sensory nerve endings allow the platypus to detect tiny, underwater bursts of electricity from the muscles of its prey.  This is instrumental in enabling the platypus to be able to obtain food at the bottom of the waterbed among the rocks where it is seen to be searching for food using its bill.  Well, talk about being sophisticated, thats sophisticated technology the platypus uses.  In addition, the platypus also does not hunt under water with its eyes open, instead it relies solely on its bill the sensory nerves on it. And yet, he gets his catch.

In addition, despite its docile appearance, the platypus possesses a deadly venomous spurs on the heels of its hind legs.  This spurs are used in male to male combat where males fight to assert their dominance.  The spur is so venomous that it can result in the death of one male in the course of the combat and has the ability to even kill a cat or a dog. 

So, a misfit? well in my opinion it is truely a misfit.  However, while studies on the platypus are pretty limited and while certain behaviours are yet to be explored, the playtpus remains a mysterious animal and an anomaly on many levels.

Citations

“Duck-Billed Platypus: Ornithorhynchidae- Behaviour and Reproduction”. Mammals and other Warm blooded Animals, Volume 1.

“Platypus Profile” by National Geographic.

Alright, so I was walking home the other day and suddenly I hear this weird clacking sound behind me. It was approximately 11.30pm and I was freaked. I’m not a ghost-believer but I am scared of meeting crazy, pervy humans in the middle of the night. Rather than turning around to locate the source of that sound, I hastened my leisurely walk to a brisk one. But, whaddya know, the sound seemed to follow me! I whirl around and lo and behold, it was a cat! But the little guy was crouched and looked as though it was ready to pounce! Now, I must admit, I am a cat lover but this cat seemed to come out of Steven Spielberg’s (awesome) film Jurassic Park. It kept making a sort of Velociraptor noise with its mouth. “What’s up little fella?” I asked it (yes I talk to cats). Suddenly, a rat streaked by me and the crazy cat, of course dashed madly after it.

Intrigued by this behaviour, I went online to see if there was some explanation for the cat’s weird sounds. Sure enough, there was. Youtube is a Godsend, seriously. Apparently, the term for that sound is called chatter and cats make that sound when they spot prey. Take a look at this video.

THOSE CATS ARE DINOSAURS!!

I don’t know about you guys, but that sound is sooo weird. It doesn’t sound like anything I would ever associate with cats. There hasn’t been a whole lot of research on why cats make certain vocalizations but there are a lot of pet-associated websites that do explain this chattering sound. Apparently, one of the reasons a cat chatters is because “this is [the] cat’s way of trying to get the prey to trust them” and also one website even said that cats make this sound when they deliver a “special” neck bite to their prey. This “special” bite, I found out, is called a Killbite where it’s basically a forceful bite to the jugular vein in the neck of the prey. These kinds of sounds are also mostly seen in feral cats and noted to be known as instinctive hunting sounds.

Interestingly, cats don’t only make this sound when it comes to prey but can be seen in instances when they are scolded or threatened by humans. An article from StarTribune.com states, “[Cats] will chatter back at their human when they are caught off guard or disagree with the human’s tone of voice toward them. If your cat gets in trouble, sometimes, he will chatter back at you, as if in defence of himself, saying, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it!””.

Whether or not, these facts are true on cats chatter, I don’t know. Maybe those of you who own cats might try a hand in explaining this phenomenon. Lol. All I know is that, the next time I’m walking home, I don’t have to worry about being stalked by dinosaurs!

P.s. Didn’t you think the squirrel was cute? Looked like it was doing sign language with its tail! Oh well, that’s for someone else to research. Taarah!

Petplace.com. “Why Do Cats Make a Chattering Sound”. Understanding your cat. Virginia Wells. 2009.         <http://www.petplace.com/cats/why-do-cats-make-a-chattering-sound/page1.aspx>

StarTribune.com. “Sounds your cats make have different meanings”. The sounds cats make. 2009. Star Tribune.<http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/pets/11253316.html>

Hall, Sarah, John, Bradshaw and Ian Robinson. Object play in adult domestic cats: the roles of habituation and disinhibition. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 79.3. (2002) 263-271.

Elephants are the largest land animals and among the strongest mammals on Earth. However, they are often depicted in fiction as sensitive and gentle animals, perhaps due to the fact they are herbivores. The most famous of these depictions is, of course, Dumbo.

In the Disney movie Dumbo, a baby elephant named Jumbo Jr. (nicknamed Dumbo) is ostracised in a circus due to his abnormally large ears; his only friend being a mouse named Timothy. The relationship between Dumbo and Timothy plays on the stereotypical myth that elephants are afraid of mice and that the two animals are generally hostile to each other.

Depictions of the relationship between mice and elephants in popular culture are common – in Indian folklore mice and elephants are described as being the best of friends because of two incidents where elephants saved the lives of mice, and vice versa. These diverse urban legends which are contradictory in their portrayal of the relationship between elephants and mice raise an intriguing question – are elephants really afraid of mice?

An experiment conducted by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from the Discovery Channel programmeMythbusters see the two hosts put the urban legend to test. After conducting their experiment, they concluded that the myth that elephants are afraid of mice appears to be plausible; though it is inconclusive whether elephants are afraid of mice, they certainly seem to avoid them.

Mythbusters – Are Elephants Afraid of Mice?

The Mythbusters’ conclusions lend credence to suggestions that elephants’ behaviour in relation to mice are a result of an instinctive reaction to movements they cannot see or hear, such as that of mice scurrying underfoot. Several studies have been conducted, however, that conclude that domesticated elephants are not affected by the presence of mice at all and indeed co-exist with them with little fanfare. Few studies have been conducted on this, perhaps because the reaction of elephants to mice have been mixed. In addition, as demonstrated by the Mythbusters experiment, the reaction of elephants to mice is minimal. As a result, a deeper understanding of this behavioural kink among elephants has not been deemed scientifically worthy.

That does not mean, however, that the behaviour of elephants in relation to other animals have not been studied. In recent years, it has been discovered that elephants are afraid of bees – according to scientists, the sound of disturbed bees buzzing led to groups of elephants moving away from the source of the sound within seconds. This revelation has led to scientists postulating a harmless, cost-effective way of controlling elephants in the wild. By placing loudspeakers in strategic areas, elephants (which can be dangerous and riotous, contrary to Disney’s depictions!) can be diverted from encroaching upon farms and villages. Scientists have gone on to characterise bees – not mice – as the elephants’ worst fears.

Yet, rather than use this as mere fodder for cartoons, this behavioural characteristic of elephants has been harnessed to tangible and positive programmes targetted at improving the relationship between elephants and human populations. Indeed, humans and animals can co-exist as long as humans endeavour to attain a deepened understanding of animal behaviours; the elephants’ worst fear gives hope to that!

Citations:

“Bee Buzz Scares Off Elephants.” National Geographic News, October 9, 2007. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071009-elephants-bees.html (accessed April 13, 2009).

“It’s bees, not mice, that send elephants into a panic.” Daily Mail Online, October 8, 2007. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-486468/Its-bees-mice-send-elephants-panic.html (accessed April 13, 2009).

“Elephant vs. Mouse.” Chimaera: The Bestiary Blog. http://bestiary.ca/chimaera/48 (accessed April 13, 2009).

“The Mice and the Elephant, a Tale from India.” Stories for Children in Crisis. http://www.healingstory.org/crisis/mice/mice_and_elephant.html (accessed April 13, 2009).

looking through the mind's eye

The question remains: do cats really have the ’sixth sense’? Cats have demonstrated the ability to sense death, arrival of a loved one, natural disasters, and paranormal activities. They even have the ability to find their way back home from long distances and places they are unfamiliar with.

All these could be attributed to what is known as the ‘anpsi’ – a part of the paranormal realm which allows them to display this ’sixth sense’.

It is interesting to note that minute things like the sensitivity of the cat’s feet and the vibration of its whiskers may be a forewarning for big events like earthquakes. These things could be attributed to their in-built magnetic sensitivity and / or internal clock which allows them to know when to anticipate someone’s arrival or to have exceptional navigational powers.

While these things might be explained using modern science, there is undoubtedly some room for debate as one wonders if cats really do possess the intelligence to find their way back home from unknown places, or whether they have the ‘extra sense’ to see paranormal activities that even human beings are unable to see. Who’s to decide, anyway?

Just incase you’re interested:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-447527/Mystery-cat-takes-regular-bus-shops.html

References:
1) http://ezinearticles.com/?Cat-Behavior—Cats-Sixth-Sense&id=774174
2) http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/paranormal_realm/118578
3) http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/pet-sixth-sense-1.jpg
4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-447527/Mystery-cat-takes-regular-bus-shops.html