LSM1303 Animal Behaviour

I watched a video on National Geographic that caught my attention on a living dragon!

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dangerous-encounters/all/Videos/05010_00#tab-Videos/05010_00

The video link showed the use of visual stimuli to attract the Komodo dragon’s attention. The remote controlled car dressed to look like a pig; elicited a quick and aggressive response from one of the lizards.This certainly sparked my curiosity towards the Komodo dragons, specifically the Varanus komodoensis.  Ever wonder what the largest lizards in the world are really capable of in getting their next meal? Do they live up to their name? For a start, these creatures reach up to 3m in length and over 135kg in weight. They have long, flat heads with rounded snouts, scaly skin, bowed legs and muscular tails, resembling the appearance of the mythical dragon. This picture gives you a rough idea:

Picture from: http://www.jurgenfreund.com/stories/komodo/content/1007249_large.html

human-dragon comparison

Their hunting style is simple and effective. With a combination of patience and camouflage, it is always ready to spring on its prey. Using its arsenal of sharp claws and serrated, shark-like teeth, prey is eviscerated swiftly. For a lizard that size, it is deceptively fast and nimble. Furthermore, it can detect (through smell) dead animals up to 8.5km away upwind and can see as far away as 300m. Their eyes are better at picking up movement than at discerning stationary objects, which explains the quick response in the video. These creatures will eat almost anything, including carrion, smaller dragons, and even humans when the opportunity permits.

Contributing to its ‘dragon-like’ appearance includes its unique bright yellow forked tongue and red saliva. These serve as highly practical tools as well! As the dragon walks, it swings its head from side to side as it flicks out its tongue so that it can sample a greater volume of air and collect more scent. After the 2 tongue tips retreat, they make contact with the with the Jacobson’s organs at the roof of the mouth. These organs “smell” the air by recognising the airborne molecules. The different amounts of scent received from the 2 tongue tips allow the dragon to determine the direction of a potential food source.

Picture from: http://www.robpaterson.com/works-notes/komodo.html

yellow forked tongue

Although this dragon doesn’t breath fire, its mouth does contains death. The red coloured liquid in its mouth is a combination of its own blood and saliva as it constantly bites through is gums as it feeds. Its drool is proven to contain over 50 strains of bacteria. Even if a prey that manages to escape will not be exactly ‘lucky’ if it has been bitten. Blood poisoning is usually the cause of death within 24 hours.

The hunting prowess of the komodo dragon cannot be underestimated. Its resourcefulness in terms of smell and sight, combined with its deadly weaponry, certainly makes this ’living dragon’ a formidable predator!

death by dragon

Leopards are known to be graceful and powerful large cats which are so strong and comfortable in trees that it often hauls its kills into the branches. These solitary and predominately nocturnal predators usually usually hunt from trees because their spotted coat allows them to camouflage with the leaves, hence allowing them to hide themselves from their unsuspecting prey.

 Leopards continually move about their territory, seldom staying in an area for more than two or three days at a time. They are now an endangered species especially in regions outside Africa.

The picture displays a leopard resting on a tree top perch.

As we all know, leopards are the ultimate predators for they are shrewd, deceitfully skilled and stealthy when they kill. But yet in Okavango Delta of Botswana, the law (leopard as the jungle queen predator) of the jungle was rewritten!

Leopard vs Baboon

It all began when Legadema, a young leopard, pounced on and silenced a baboon with a swipe of her vicious paw. Unknown to her, this was a mother primate who now lays dead. As she remained limp and motionless while being dragged up to the tree trunk by Legadema, something rustled from beneath the dead baboon’s fur!

Out crawled a tiny infant baboon who then dropped to the ground! It took awhile for Legadema to notice the presence of the newly born baby.

Did it attacked the little innocent, weak baboon?!!

Must be right!

(Like how predators love to lash out on the weak, injured and the young)

HOWEVER

Instead of a swift bite to the head of the baby baboon, Legadema actually invited its paws out and laid down beside the baby baboon after the tiny baboon stretched its arms out to her.

The momentus kill of the mother baboon had took for an amazing twist instead! This was nothing like the usual case of the predator-prey.

Bringing the baby baboon to safety from its prey

Soon, a pack of hyenas came and confronted the baby baboon for their kill. Instead of behaving like it was defending its kill, Legadema protected the baby by picking it up gently in its mouth, holding it from the scruff of its neck and carried it up safely into the tree. It was more like a mother trying to ensure that its young was free from harm. 

It then cared for the baby and nestled together with it in the tree as if it was her own baby child.

Inter-species living together?

Baboons are the arch enemies of the Leopards. So why was this happening?

It could be that the maternal instincts of this leopard had set forth. It had forgotten itself as a predator and had unleashed its motherly predisposition to nurture it.

Hunting instincts are triggered by movement or sounds in cats. So could be be that it had confused itself into thinking it was a baby cub since the baby baboon was not sounding or moving much like a baboon?

Or could it be that the benefit of doing so had outweighed the cost? Benefit: Needed someone to communicate and play with? Cost: Forgoing it as its food?

The picture below shows the baby falling out from the tree and Legadema anxiously trying to save her away from the hyenas that were below the tree. 

With its legitimate mother dead, the newborn starting following Legadema wherever she went, reaching out to her, most likely imprinting on its new surrogate mother.

Enjoy the Amazing Video

The night the leopard laid down with its enemy baboon.

In conclusion, 

this news from National Geographic had showed us that large ferocious cats like Legadema do exists- they may consistently be curious and may be more willing to explore new experiences. They may not always be cold-blooded and in this case, the leopard had diverted from its hunting instincts. In addition, imprinting behaviour occured for the baby babon, who became socially bonded to the first moving object (Legadema) it had encountered. According to Dereck Joubert, a filmmaker who had followed Legadema for three and a half years in her natural habitat,

“It was as if nature had turned on its head completely.” 

• Leopards weigh between 30-80 kg.
• The elegant, powerfully built leopard has a long body, relatively short legs and a broad head. Its tawny coat is covered with dark, irregular circles called “rosettes.”
• Both lions and hyenas will take away a leopard’s kill if they can. To prevent this leopards store their larger kills in trees where they can feed on them in relative safety.

References:

Leopard Lessons, by National Geographic Explorer, April 2007. Article by Dereck Joubert. Retrieved on 11 April 2009 from http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0704/articles/mainarticle.html

Leopard Saves a Baby Baboon, 14 April 2006. Retrieved on 11 April 2009 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-422784/How-leopard-changed-spots—saved-baby-baboon.html

Learning Who is Your Mother, The Behaviour of Imprinting. Retrieved on 09 April 2009 from http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/experimento/lorenz/index-lorenz.html

Leopards, Wildlife- African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). Retrieved on 09 April 2009 from http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/leopard

Baboons. Retrieved on 08 April 2009 from http://www.balaams-ass.com/yarn/baboons.htm

Pictures extracted from:

National Geographic

Animal Liberation Front.com

I look cute but my bite definitely will kill.

The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is an endangered species of monitor lizard (Varanidae) that inhabits the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Gili Motang, Flores, and Rinca. It is the largest and one of the deadliest living species of lizard in the world. Growing at times to over 3 meters in length and weighing over 150 kilograms, they hunt anything and everything that they can overpower. Despite having a diet consisting mainly of carrion, komodo dragons dominate the ecosystems that they live in as a result of their size and the lack of other carnivorous predator. In addition, they have a long lifespan of up to 50 years. They have a low metabolism rate and require as little as 12 meals annually.

Komodo dragons are perfect hunting machines, attacking with brutal efficiency. They do not stalk their preys, instead, they are opportunistic hunters. They lie and wait for their victims in tall grass. When a victim approaches the ambush site, the dragon charges and goes for the victim’s throat, underside, or legs to bring it down. It then feeds by tearing chunks of flesh out of the victim and swallowing them whole. Sometimes, for smaller sized preys – up to the size of a goat, the dragon swallows them whole by loosening its jaws and expanding its stomach.

They are able to reach speeds of 20 kilometers an hour in short sprints, diving up to 4.5 meters in depth, and are capable of standing on their hind legs, using their tail as support, to attack prey that are out of reach. In addition, it has 3 weapons that are highly efficient in doing what they are meant to do – hunting and killing.

Firstly of all, a long, yellow and deeply forked tongue. As with all reptiles, komodo dragons rely on their tongue to capture airborne scent molecules to smell and taste stimuli. They are able to smell the aroma of meat as far as 9.5 kilometers away. Secondly, razor sharp claws coupled with powerful forelimbs. This allows komodo dragons to effortlessly tear their preys’ flesh or hold them down while feeding. Lastly, their teeth. Komodo dragons have 60 serrated gagged edged teeth, each measuring up to 2.5 centimeters, enabling them to tear through their preys’ flesh, teeth, claws, hoofs and bones, leaving nothing of their preys behind. To make matters worst, the mouth of komodo dragons contain more than 50 strains of virulent bacteria. A single bite will cause blood poisoning, leaving the victim dead in less than a week. With that said, a small nibble from the dragon will most probably leave a human dead without immediate antibiotics.

However, despite the strength and efficiency of such a killing machine, they are no match for an even greater opponent – man. Only 4,000 to 5,000 dragons are left living in the wild due to poaching, loss of prey and loss of habitat. Therefore, please preserve these wonderful creatures created by nature and perfected through evolution. Do not support products made of their skin or trading of their specimens. They are natures living reminder of her brutal force.

References

Trooper Walsh; Murphy, James Jerome; Claudio Ciofi; Colomba De LA Panouse. Komodo Dragons: Biology and Conservation (Zoo and Aquarium Biology and Conservation Series). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 1-58834-073-2.

Burness G, Diamond J, Flannery T (2001). “Dinosaurs, dragons, and dwarfs: the evolution of maximal body size”. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98 (25): 14518–23. PMID 11724953.

Tim Halliday (Editor), Kraig Adler (Editor). Firefly Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians. Hove: Firefly Books Ltd. pp. 112, 113, 144, 147, 168, 169. ISBN 1-55297-613-0.

Ciofi, Claudio. “The Komodo Dragon”. Scientific American. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-komodo-dragon

Burnie, David; Don E. Wilson (2001). Animal. New York, New York: DK Publishing, Inc.. pp. 417, 420. ISBN 0-7894-7764-5.

“Komodo Dragon”. Singapore Zoological Gardens. Archived from the original on 2006-11-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20061127173608/http://www.szgdocent.org/resource/rr/c-komodo.htm.

Chris Mattison, (1989 & 1992). Lizards of the World. New York: Facts on File. pp. 16, 57, 99, 175. ISBN 0-8160-5716-8.

Tara Darling (Illustrator). Komodo Dragon: On Location (Darling, Kathy. on Location.). Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Books. ISBN 0-688-13777-6.

“Zipcodezoo: Varanus komodoensis (Komodo Dragon, Komodo Island Monitor, Komodo Monitor)”. BayScience Foundation, Inc.. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927190225/http://zipcodezoo.com/animals/v/varanus_komodoensis.asp.

Feldman, Ruth Tenzer (February 2007). “Dragon Drool!”. Odyssey 16.2: 49.

The humble dung beetle , destined for a lifetime of shit has now expanded its diet to include chomping on live millipedes!

Scientists from Peru have recently discovered a particular species of dung beetle (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), Deltochilum valgum, which is the first of its kind to display predatory behaviour, using its modified head and sharper “teeth” to decapitate live millipedes and slice up ther rest of the body for feeding.

Using infrared cameras, the research team led by Dr. Trond Larsen were able to catch live footage of the nocturnal dung beetles in action. Dung beetle heads are normally flat and shovel-like, useful for burrowing in a dung pile. However, D. valgum has a much narrower and pointy head, adapted to get inside the millipede’s body and feed on its insides. The sharper ‘teeth’ they posses are also useful in severing the head of the millipedeand cutting up the body into smaller pieces.

Talk about ferocious!

watch?v=VjLfcHTwr6E
Supplementary material video accompanying Biology Letters article ‘From coprophagy to predation: a dung beetle that kills millipedes’.
Such behaviour intrigues scientists as there is a huge jump from coprophagy (dung feeding) to carnivory. They hypothesise that this unusual evolutionary transition was driven by the high levels competition for food.

This extraordinary behaviour of carnivorous dung beetles is certainly one which will change the way we view the humble dung beetle!
For more information:

Larsen, T., Lopera, A., Forsyth, A. & Genier, F. 2009. From coprophagy to predation: a dung beetle that kills millipedes. Biol. Lett. 5 : 152-155

BBC News “Little dung beetle is big chopper”. Accessed 8th April 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7840404.stm)