Radio program highlights animal intelligence
You may be surprised to learn how smart those birds at your backyard bird-feeder are.
On the next Calling All Pets, find out of being called a “Bird Brain” isn’t such a bad thing. Join Larry Meiller and zoologist Patricia McConnell as they explore the topic of intelligence in ravens and also welcome a guest to talk about the seductive mating rituals of animals in the high seas!
This post on scienceblogs.com explores the research of Bernd Heinrich from a recent article in Scientific American. Heinrich designed experiments to test ravens’ ability to solve problems, investigating whether behaviors were motivated by logic or instinct. Results suggested that they do, in fact, use logic.
Filed under Animal Facts, Hot Topics, New Research | Comment (0)Amazing sea creatures
Click here to watch a visually stunning video about bioluminescent fish and cephalopods (squids, octopus) hosted by oceanographer David Gallo.
Certain underwater animals can respond to changes or threats in their environment by changing their appearance, a behavior that is useful for camouflaging, warding off predators or attracting a mate.
One of the most fascinating examples are deep-sea animals who live an environment with minimal light yet have adapted behaviors that capitalize on their ability to mimic different wavelengths of light.
An article, “Bioluminescent and Red-Fluorescent Lures in a Deep-Sea Siphonophore,” in the journal Science discusses the biology of bioluminescence and research that can provide a better understanding of how light (or lack there of) affects marine ecology.
Some great background information about bioluminescence can be found on this Web site
Filed under Animal Facts, New Research | Comment (0)Bioluminescence has evolved many times in the sea as evidenced by the several distinct chemical mechanisms by which light is emitted, and the large number of only distantly related taxonomic groups that have many bioluminescent memberss.
Biology of Stress
Cortisol is a hormone associated with they body’s response to stressful situations.
Researcher Dario Maestripieri at the University of Chicago is involved in research to determine how breastfeeding and having offspring affect the body’s stress response by measuring cortisol.
His research uses rhesus monkeys that are relatively genetically similar to humans and also demonstrate similar behavioral characteristics. Separating a free ranging monkey from its group is stressful for monkeys, so the researchers capturing free-ranging monkeys and took blood samples to measure hormone levels at different time periods and then analyzed the samples according to reproductive status - lactating, pregnant, neither pregnant nor lactating, while controlling for other variables such as age and rank.
The paper states “This analysis represents the first direct comparison of cortisol responses to stress in lactating and nonlactating females in nonhuman primates. We found no evidence of hyporesponsiveness to stress among lactating females. Rather, plasma cortisol levels were significantly higher in lactating than in nonlactating females, both shortly after capture and the morning after.” Also, “Concerns over risk to their infants may explain why lactating females exhibited higher cortisol responses to trapping and individual housing and why these responses did not vary significantly across the 6 lactation months.”
This research is really important and interesting because stress can affect health and parenting behavior, so understanding the biological response to and natural causes of stress and is essential.
Filed under New Research | Comment (0)Narwhal Info
One of the most interesting animals known as the “Unicorn of the Sea,” is a narwhal. They dolphin-like animals that have only two teeth. In the male narwhal, one of the teeth grows out through the lip and extends about 8 feet. Experts are unclear as to the purpose of the the tooth, but one theory is that it is used in fighting between male narwhals.
The National Geographic website has some interesting multimedia about narwhals.
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