LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

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.

Kevin and Napoleon the Lion - seems like neither of them enjoy taking photos!

  Always thought that Simba and his dad were the only Lion Kings around? Think again! Check out this amazingly inspiring video:   

African Lions Accept Man as One of Their Own

 URL address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kjWBgA81LM

Kevin Richardson, affectionately known as the “Lion Whisperer” is an animal behaviorist from South Africa who deals with various forms of wildlife on a daily basis. The following video sees him in close interaction with a pride of African lions (Panthera Leo) in a wildlife conservation area in Johannesburg, South Africa.

 URL address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG1t6YuOY2g&feature=related

One of the reasons why the lions are extremely welcoming to Kevin could be because Kevin has been interacting with two of the lions (adult brother lions affectionately named Napoleon and Tau) since they were just cubs. Perhaps the time spent interacting with these lions have built up a bond of trust between Kevin and the rest of their pride. Also, since Kevin is the main trainer in the entire reserve, he is solely in charge of bringing them food. This role as the food provider in the reserve has perhaps allowed the lions to see him in a different light. This viewpoint is supported by Heinsohns’ article which states that, “Pride structure, home range size and population density all correlate with food availability, especially the period of lowest prey biomass in the course of a year”. (1143) Thus, from this quote, we see that food availability, or food provision in this case, is perhaps an important reason in justifying why the lions are not hostile towards Kevin.

Citations:

 Heinsohn, Robert. “Group Territoriality in Two Populations of African Lions”. Animal Behaviour 53.6 (1997): 1143-1147.

< http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6W9W-45R7FRT-G0-1&_cdi=6693&_user=111989&_orig=search&_coverDate=06%2F30%2F1997&_sk=999469993&view=c&wchp=dGLzVzz-zSkWA&md5=8b62a13fc6b4274a01946d9ce9598c1f&ie=/sdarticle.pdf>

The Daily Telegraph. The Lion Whisperer. 14 April 2009. < http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/gallery/0,22056,5023995-5010140-2,00.html>

P.S. Sorry about the strange spacing of this blog post – I can’t figure out how to modify it! 

 Derived from the ancient Greek term, delphis which refers to womb, Dolphin basically refers to a fish with a womb. Dolphins are well known for their ability to save creatures in distress. Dolphins are often very attentive to their surroundings and their species. One particular incident that shows this behaviour was seen when two dolphins rescued an injured dolphin by placing their upper lateral part of their heads beneath the fins of the injured one and buoyed it to the surface thus allowing the injured mammal to breathe.[Journal of Mammalogy] This was done despite the fact that the two rescuing dolphins themselves could not breathe because they were submerged. What is interesting is that this ability to save is not restricted to within the dolphin community alone. This video shows of a dolphin rescuing two pigmy sperm males.

Dolphins to the rescue

Their interaction with humans is also something well-known. Apart from saving humans from shark attacks, dolphins are also used to heal humans. The Dolphin Human Therapy refers to a dolphin –assisted rehabilitation programs for special needs children, affected mainly by cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and autism. According to its promoters and participants, this therapy “helps improve skills in speech/language, motor areas, behavior…etc”[1] This therapy works through the use of the dolphins’ sonar, and by the dolphins increasing production of T-cells and endorphins.

However, these dolphins are not as always as charming as they seem. There have been cases of dolphin infanticide. Paul Thompson explains this through male infanticide. He says if “a new suitor approaches a female, that already has a youngster, there’s no point on hanging around for two years with the wrong male’s calf. Killing the calf might bring the female into a receptive state much sooner”. Thus, these mammals cannot always be seen as soft and docile. As seen in this video, bottlenose dolphins are seen to pick fights with each other just to establish dominance even if it meant attacking its own. Dolphins often exhibit their aggressiveness by “jaw-clapping” and in certain cases results in nasty tail bites. This video also goes to show the aggressiveness found in dolphins.

 Aggressive Dolphins

Thus, Dolphins like any other living beings have two sides to them. While the docility and their soft approach to humans always make us go “aww”, we must also realise that there is indeed another side to this mammal as well.

References

http://www.dolphinhumantherapy.com/Research/mainResearch.htm

Milius Susan. Infanticide reported in Dolphins. Society for Science and the Public. Science News, Vol. 154, No. 3 (Jul. 18, 1998), p. 36

J.B. Siebenaler and David K. Caldwell. Cooperation among Adult Dolphins. American Society of Mammalogists. Journal of Mammology. Vol. 37, No. 1 (Feb., 1956), pp. 126-128.

Agitated Chimp Stocks Up Stones to Drive Visitors Away

(photo taken from the article in Guardian)

Santino, a chimpanzee at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden, has been throwing stones at the visitors to drive them away from its enclosure since 1997. The zoo has built up a fence to prevent these projectiles from hurting the visitors. The zookeepers have also castrated the chimpanzee recently in hopes that this would bring down its level of aggression.

It calmly collects hundreds of these stones from different parts of its enclosure only right before the zoo opens, in anticipation of throwing these stones at the visitors at the zoo hours later. It neither collects or hurls these ‘missiles’ when the zoo closes for the winter. This shows that such aggression and hoarding of rocks are specifically targetted at visitors, with the intention of driving them away from its enclosure. Santino knows where to find these suitably shaped rocks by detaching and thumping on loose and weak parts of the concrete walls and floors of his enclosure. It has been spotted occassionally fashioning concrete discs out of these rocks as well and its stockpile of rocks are placed strategically at the quarter of his enclosure that faces the visiting crowds (Guardian).

Zookeepers have removed hundreds of these piles of stones from its enclosure but the chimpanzee does find new spots in his enclosure to create more piles of ammunition. What is interesting is that it is perfectly calm and methodological in its collection of these stones though it becomes very agitated when it is throwing the stones at visitors during the zoo’s opening hours.

Santino’s behaviour is a very clear case of thinking behaviour in animals, an almost psychological state where it plans for the future. It is different from the instinctive behaviour of squirrels or any other animal that collects and stores up food as the purpose of its stone collection isn’t motivated by a survival instinct. Such planned behaviour is related to the concept of autonoetic consciousness, in “information due to memory can be distinguished from that from the senses” (BBC News). These indicate forward planning, a behaviour trait that it seen to be rather human-like and complex because it requires the chimp to imagine and predict future events in order to be able to plan ways of dealing with them. Satino’s behaviour is the first clear-cut example of forward planning in animals, though scientists expect that such behaviour is possible in other animals such as dolphins as well.

References

BBC News. “Zoo Chimp ‘Planned’ Stone Attacks”. 9 March 2009. 10 April 2009 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7928996.stm>.

Cell Press. “First Evidence Of Planned Animal Action? Chimp’s Stone Throwing At Zoo Visitors Was ‘Premeditated’.” ScienceDaily 11 March 2009. 10 April 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/03/090309121931.htm>.

Guardian. “Chimp who threw stones at zoo visitors showed human trait, says scientist”. 9 March 2009. 10 April 2009. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/09/chimp-zoo-stones-science>.

It’s that time of the year again, when the waters to the south of Singapore bristle with excitement and some hot, steamy action. A few days after the full moon in less than a weeks’ time, just after nightfall… the activities will begin. Hordes of fish will gather in frenzy because they can sense the upcoming action. While the corals prepare for a mass orgy, the fish prepare for a huge buffet. Soon the corals become swollen, and then pink bundles burst out from each of the coral polyps, releasing millions and millions of eggs and sperm into the water.

What’s going on? The corals do it. So do the giant clams, sponges and a whole lot of other marine organisms that are quite immobile as adults. Because they are immobile, these organisms exploit the aqueous environment that they live in to help them mate; They release their eggs and sperm into the water, a process termed broadcast spawning, which allows the eggs and sperm to fertilize externally and produce motile larvae for the propagation of the species. To view an awesome video clip of a spawning coral, please click on the link entitled “Coral Spawning” here.

For many species of the hard corals, synchronous mass spawning has been documented all over the world, with that from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia being one of the most well-documented, but this actually occurs in Singapore (Guest et al., 2002) too! Although we do not get thick mats of spawn slick here in Singapore, it is still one of the most breathtaking events on the reef here, THE annual mass spawning of corals, where multi-species of corals spawn in synchrony.

Now broadcast spawning allows for efficient mixing of the gene pool, but why would different species do it together?? The highly nutritious eggs attract hordes of fish that could easily deplete much of the coral babies. By producing an over-abundance of spawn at one go, the predators are overwhelmed, thereby increasing the chances of survival of each coral baby. Simply imagine you are at a buffet, with a great spread in front of you. No matter how delicious the food is, there is only so much that one can consume at a go! This spares the rest of the coral larvae (a.k.a. fish food), till they are ready to settle down and grow into an adult coral colony.

So if you decide to go swimming in the sea in the next few weeks, expect the water to be a little more turbid or have a different smell, and you might also see more schools of fish out in their feeding frenzy!

References
Guest, J.R., Baird, A.H., Goh, B.P.L. & Chou, L.M. 2002. Multispecific, synchronous coral spawning in Singapore. Coral Reefs, 21: 422-423.