How Anteaters Decide What To Eat
The Giant Anteater, Myrmecophaga tridactyla, only eats ants and termites, as its name suggests. Since the giant anteater and its evolutionary ancestors have been feasting on ants and termites for nearly 60 million years, a researcher named Kent Redford hypothesized that, over time, ants and termites may have evolved various defenses to avoid predation. In [...]
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Eavesdropping Iguanas Use Mockingbird Calls To Survive
March 15th, 2012 |
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Predator-prey interactions are often viewed as evolutionary arms races; while predators improve their hunting behaviors and their ability to sneak up on their prey, the prey improve upon their abilities to detect and escape from their predators. The problem, of course, is that there is a trade-off between maintaining vigilance – the attention necessary to [...]
Keep reading »Humans Aren’t The Only Ones Who Need To Avoid The Heat: How Birds Avoid Scrambled Eggs
July was the hottest month ever recorded in Washington, D.C., in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and in Wichita Falls, Texas, as measured by the National Weather Service. In fact, the NWS has issued an “excessive heat warning” for a huge swath of middle America extending from northwestern Illinois and central Iowa in the north to central [...]
Keep reading »Guest Post! The Right Stuff: What It Takes To Be The Ocean’s Top Predator
Editor’s Note: While I’m on vacation, I’ve arranged a series of guest posts from other writers who routinely cover animal behavior and cognition. Today’s post, about attack behavior and social communication in great white sharks, comes from David Manly, who blogs at The Definitive Host. Follow him on twitter: @davidmanly. In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s thriller [...]
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