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A City Way to Acquire Food

May 6th, 2014 by amm18

 

As I saw the animal approach me, I froze just like the icicles that frigid morning. Then the thought crossed my mind, what if it tries to climb me like a tree? Luckily it departed shortly after with no such attempt. It did however leave me wondering why did it get so close to me when most encounters with said animal cause it to scurry away?

One thing was made certain in our encounter: which species, or type, of squirrel it was. Year round my current location is inundated with both grey squirrels and fox squirrels—which both have grey fur covering most of their bodies; thus it was essential to see the squirrel’s secondary color for identifying purposes. Perched up next to me on its hind legs, the squirrel provided the perfect opportunity. As it sat there, an orange color was easily detected. Fox Squirrel! To the scientific community it is known as Sciurus niger.

Fox Squirrel

Fox Squirrel. Photo by Benny Mazur (CC BY 2.0).

The extent of my encounter with the fox squirrel could not have lasted more than 30 seconds. (more…)

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Social Learning in Humpback Whales

May 2nd, 2014 by clk5

Sometimes, natural events happen that lay a great backdrop for scientists to learn more about the natural world. In 2007, New England’s humpback whales all across the population were preforming a new technique that had originated only 27 years earlier. Jenny Allen and her colleagues took this opportunity to determine how behaviors are spread through a population. In April of 2013, these scientists published a report called “Network-Based Diffusion Analysis Reveals Cultural Transmission of Lobtail Feeding in Humpback Whales” in Science, which looked into this new behavior and how it became so widespread in the New England humpback whale population.

Before 1980, the humpback whales of the New England area primarily preyed on herring. When the herring population crashed in this area in the early 1980’s, the whales turned to a new fish as their primary prey: the sand lance. After this change in primary prey, a whale was seen preforming an all-new foraging technique, wherein it slapped the surface of the water right before eating. This technique creates bubbles underwater that group the sand lance together into a cluster, which makes it easier for the whales to hunt them. By 2007, forty percent of the population was using this technique. Allen and her colleagues hypothesized that the high prevalence of the technique was due to either social learning or widespread individual discovery. (more…)

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Asian Elephant Parental Care

April 30th, 2014 by clk5

 

I observed three Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) at the Houston Zoo on a clear, temperate day. I focused my observations on interactions between the three elephants; a mother and her two children. The elephants were held in a large fenced-in enclosure with a pond, grassy areas, and sandy areas. The mother elephant I observed exhibited many examples of well-known elephant parental care strategies.

When I first arrived, only the mother elephant was in the enclosure. She was drinking from the pond when her two children were released into the enclosure one by one. The mother greeted her children by running her trunk over their faces. According to some studies, elephants use this “mouth check” to determine the health and mood of their companion. Scientists believe that elephants have distinct chemical differences in their breath that another elephant can pick up through their trunks (reviewed in Langbauer 2000). The calves also greeted each other in this fashion.

"Elephants-OregonZoo” by StuSeeger is licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

The elephants seemed to rely heavily on touch throughout my observation. The initial “mouth check” greeting was then followed by many more instances of contact. (more…)

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Foraging from Caches

April 28th, 2014 by akm6
File:Sciurus niger (on fence).jpg

An eastern fox squirrel (Sciurus niger). Image by Markus Krötzsch (CC BY-SA 3.0).

I observed the eastern fox squirrel, Sciurus niger, at various locations on the northern end of Rice University campus on February 3, 2014 in the early afternoon starting at 2:20 pm. On this day the skies were grey but not cloudy and the temperature was 46 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind was not that strong, but still very few squirrels were out. The squirrel habitats I observed were the woody and grassy areas of campus in front of the Lovett Hall building along Main Street. I observed squirrels in areas near human traffic such as university bus stops and in areas more isolated from human contact. During observation, I was initially at least 10 feet away from the squirrel subject at all times. However, there were instances when the squirrels traveled towards me in my direction.

I was most intrigued by a pair of squirrels in a grassy area by the bus stop that were both initially digging into the dirt and grass. The two squirrels were in their separate patches about eight feet apart and they were using their forepaws to remove the dirt from the ground. The digging action was very rapid and vigorous, as I could hear them scraping the grass and dirt away. Sometimes, the squirrels would stop digging and move a few inches and dig another hole. At other times, the squirrels would stop and put something into their mouths and start chewing. I assumed these objects to be cached food; however, I could not determine what type of food it was from the distance I was standing. The reason I believe the objects to be cached food is because the squirrels were digging in the grass for it, where no other types of plants besides the grass were growing. If the squirrels were eating grass roots, then I believe they would not have had to dig several holes in their respective grassy patches to search for the roots. Therefore, I believe they were foraging on previously stored foods. I saw this same digging/searching and eating behavior in two more squirrels that I observed that day.

What would cause the squirrel to store food? (more…)

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The Effects of Light Pollution on Tropical Rainforests by Proxy of Fruit-Eating Bats: A Comparative Review of Primary and Secondary Literature

April 18th, 2014 by avn3

 

Ever played a game of telephone? Indubitably, the more complex the starting message, the greater it is warped in the end. However, what if, at every point, the next person was able to review the original message? To add another condition, what if there were only two people playing: the beginning and the end? Scientific papers are often too complex and dense for a general audience, so it is up to another middleman, journalists, to convey the messages of the papers, often resulting in distortion of the researchers’ findings. Let us examine an article by Mark Kinver that summarizes a study conducted by Daniel Lewanzik and Christian C. Voigt about bats, light pollution, and seed dispersal.

The original study begins by highlighting that the impact of artificial light at night on animals is worth examining because many nocturnal animals are sensitive to the natural lighting of the night already, and the presence of artificial light could be an all-night experience for these animals. Dr. Lewanzik and Dr. Voigt chose to study one of the most famous nocturnal animals: the bat (famous enough to warrant its own superhero).  An aside explains that fruit-eating bats are highly critical to seed dispersal in tropical rainforests, which, as many know, are experiencing a decline.  In particular, Sowell’s short-tailed bats (Carollia sowelli) were studied due to their important role as the main disperser of pepper seeds, making them key players in the regeneration of forests.

Carollia brevicauda, a relative of Sowell's short-tailed bats. Photograph by Diego Lizcano (CC BY 2.0).

(more…)

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Antsy Ants and Their Group Movement Patterns

April 16th, 2014 by avn3

Neivamyrmex bohlsi. Image by: Alexander Wild (www.alexanderwild.com)

Ever watched ants forage for food? No? Do not fret then, for I have already done it for you. One afternoon on a partly cloudy day, I went to a local park and observed some rather small, vicious-looking red ants (order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae) as they traveled on the concrete of the sidewalk. Nearby was a field of grass, where their home probably was. What interested me about these ants was the way they traveled. There were two apparent intermixing groups of the same ants traveling in opposite directions, which can be seen in the rough diagram below. (more…)

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