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Butterflies and Moths, Do eyespots really ward of predators

The eye spots on the wings of butterflies and moths are intended to be conspicuous to predators, not to resemble the eyes of larger animals, a new study found.

With 150 years of believing that Butterflies and Moths have eye spots to intimidate their predators, Martin Stevens, a behavioral ecologist, has found no proof to backup this age old theory. Now Martin is leading a study into what these eye spots truly do. ]

Martin and his team created artificial paper "Moths" with varying eye spot markings and nailed them to woodland trees. With an additional incentive of meal worm being attached to each moth the woodland birds should have a happy hour at the local watering hole, well, tree. Ideally the local blackbirds, house sparrows and other woodland birds would approach and either be discouraged to eat the worm or happily go ahead and pick it right off the moth.

If eye spots worked by mimicking eyes, the paper insects with circular spots would present a threat and be preyed on last. This was not the case, Martin said " Making the spots appear more eye like by moving the center "pupil" of the eye inward didn't give the paper moths any advantage."

Large bars and squares placed on the waterproof paper wings of the paper moths provided as much protection as circles and the larger the marking, the less it was preyed upon. Likewise, the more the Insect
spots were on the wing, the less birds attacked them.

Martin and his co workers concluded that the 'visual loudness' of the markings would startle or frighten the predator into avoiding the paper moths.

The well renowned evolutionary ecologist, Tom Sherratt said that;

"It does seem very likely, based on [the new] work, that it's the conspicuousness of the signal that is more of a deterrent than anything to do with it resembling an eye,"

For more information try the following sources:
National Geographic

Behavioral Ecology (March Issue)

Bird Poop Bugs, a Disguise of Disguises

The Swallowtail butterfly's larva has a clever disguise, looking like crap can have its advantages!

This Asian butterfly mimics the appearance of bird droppings during the larval stage to prevent predators from feasting on its juicy goodness. Although during the last phase of larvae it turns green to disguise itself with the leaves that it finds home.

In a new study, Japanese entomologists have found that a single hormone is responsible for turning the color of the caterpillars. hormone levels fall when the caterpillar changes from one guise to the next. This hormone can also change the texture and color pigment pattern making the disguise all the better from one bug to the next.

The study, conducted by Ryo Futahashi and Haruhiko Fujiwara, was released today in the journal Science.

Fighting Malaria is a 'Dirty' thing!

Chimpanzees in Uganda have been seen to eat earth in what is thought to be a method of fighting malaria.

Clay soils ate by chimps and humans in Kibale National Park (Uganda) contain high concentrations of the mineral kaolinite, a main ingredient in some anti-diarrheal medications.

Previously this strange habit was thought to have warded of intestinal ailments or simply to obtain more minerals in there diet. A French team that was observing the chimps found that eat the fine grain clay after consuming leaves from a plant that contains very strong medicinal chemicals, the Trichilia Rubescens. "To only eat this would give now benefit to the chimps at all though", say the Frenchman.

Instead the plant's malaria medicine is activated when fine soil particles bind with chemicals in the leaves.

Chimps often select dirt that has been exposed on the roots of newly fallen trees, added study co-author Sabrina Krief, of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

"This may be to avoid worms, bacteria, and stones," she said.

Krief and colleagues described the research online in the January issue of the journal Naturwissenschaften.

Read more .....

The Frog From Hell

A new species of frog that lived 65 - 70 million years ago has been unearthed in Madagascar. The Frog dubbed Beelzbufo or the frog from hell has been identified but some of the best scientist at London Uni and Stony Brook Uni (NY). This discovery has also provoked theories that India, South America and Madagascar where interlinked until late into the age of dinosaurs.

Resembling he current Living Horned toads the Hell Frog had huge heads and jaws and a flat but wide body. A body length (not including the legs) of up to 40cm means this bad boy was fairly big. This would also lend itself to speculation into the eating habits of this Hell Frog. Did this animal eat small or un hatched dinosaurs or was it a big veggie eater.

Professor Susan Evans of the UCL Department of Cell & Developmental Biology says: “If it shared the aggressive temperament and ‘sit-and-wait’ ambush tactics of living Horned toads, it would have been a formidable predator on small animals. Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it’s not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs."

Nice Froggy, Down Froggy, AHHHHH

Gorillas Photographed Mating Face-to-Face - A First

A pair of wild western lowland gorillas in Africa have surprised researchers by engaging in face-to-face mating, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced today.
Though the behavior had been observed before in mountain gorillas, it had never before been seen in the lowland gorilla subspecies—and had never before been photographed in the wild.

Gorillas Mate Face-to-Face in First Photos

Perhaps just as surprising, the female in the photographs—Leah, named after the Star Wars princess—is also the first gorilla seen using a tool in the wild.

Conservation biologist Thomas Breuer took the mating photographs in 2005, but the images are only now being released to the public.

Breuer, of Germany's Max Planck Institute and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, never expected to observe such a sight.

"Seeing the similarity between humans and gorillas in this respect is fascinating," he said

Previously Seen in Zoos
Breuer is conducting a long-term study of gorilla social organization and sexual selection at Mbeli Bai in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in Congo. Most primates mate facing the same direction.

"Bonobos [mate face-to-face] routinely—zoo gorillas and zoo chimps too," said Craig Stanford, an expert in great ape behaviors with the Jane Goodall Research Center at the University of Southern California (USC).

But the behavior—first noted in a spring 2007 edition of the Gorilla Gazette, a Wisconsin-based newsletter for gorilla scientists—had never before been documented among wild western gorillas.

Harem Society

Breuer's photos might appear to show a couple sharing a special bond—but gorillas mate in a harem society.

Leah is just one of four females currently in the harem of her partner.

Her mating partner in the photos, George, is named for a famous president—Washington, not Bush.

And despite her lowly status, Leah appears to be a rather special gorilla.

In 2005 she made news as the first gorilla ever seen to use tools in the wild when she was observed using a walking stick to cross a swampy forest clearing.

Such tool use was considered surprising for wild gorillas, which some believe are less intelligent than other species of tool-wielding great apes.

"That is why this story is so cool," Max Planck's Breuer said. "The fact that it's the same female makes it extremely interesting."

Progressive Gorilla?
USC's Stanford isn't sure that the unusual copulation sheds much light on gorilla behavior.

"Unless it's seen widely, it doesn't really mean much," he said.

So is Leah a particularly progressive gorilla? Perhaps. But Max Planck's Breuer also suggests that her behavior might be rare or simply rarely seen.

"What we know about these gorillas is just a tiny bit," he said.

"So I'm kind of hesitant to say she's particularly special. I think we're [beginning] to understand the flexibility of their society and natural behavior. In time we may see more."

Diane Doran-Sheehy is anthropology chair at Stony Brook University in New York and a grantee of the National Geograpkhic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

She has observed more than 500 gorilla matings in the wild—and none were face-to-face.

"It is an interesting observation and raises questions about why they sometimes engage in it," she said.

There may be practical considerations given the apes' marshy habitat, for example.

"Perhaps a female doesn't want to be face down in the swamp," Doran-Sheehy said.

Critical Time
Western lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union. Their populations have declined as much as 60 percent in recent years because of illegal hunting, habitat loss, and fatal Ebola fever.

Leah and George's encounter made their plight even more poignant for Breuer.

"It leads me to think about how similar gorillas can be to humans, [and yet] we humans are destroying them," he said.

"I'm thinking about their conservation, because we're not going to see these things in the future if we continue to threaten [these animals]."

Sourced from National Geographic

Nitrogen Pollution - Plant Growth In Tropical Regions Up By 20 Percent

A study being performed by UC Irvine ecologists have found that the abundance of nitrogen in tropical forests have boosted the plant growth in certain regions by an average of 20%! This contradicts comments previously made that the forests would not respond to the nitrogen pollution.

Faster plant growth means the tropics will take in more carbon dioxide than previously thought, though the long-term effects are unclear. Over the next century, nitrogen pollution in the atmosphere is expected to rise, with the biggest increases in the developing equatorial regions such as India, South America, Africa and Southeast Asia.

The use of nitrogen fertilizer to boost crop growth has effected ecosystems further afield. Run off water and evaporation mixed with the burning of forests has put more nitrogen into the air.

Surprisingly, tropical forests that seasonally where dry, located in mountainous regions or had regrown from slash-and-burn agriculture has also responded to added nitrogen. Although these tropical forests that typically come to mind are not the normal forests that come to mind, although, they collectively account for more than half of the world’s tropical forests.

Scientists believed added nitrogen would have little effect in the tropics because plants there typically have ample nitrogen. If one necessary plant nutrient is in short supply – in this case phosphorus, which is normally found in these regions – plant growth will be poor, even if other nutrients such as nitrogen are abundant.

It is difficult to predict the long-term effects of nitrogen on global climate change. One element of discussion will be the degree to which humans change natural ecosystems, for example the process of cutting down or burning the tropical forests. Climate change may also determine how these areas grow back, whether as forests, grasslands or deserts. It also is unknown how nitrogen will affect the fate of carbon once plants die and begin to decompose.

David LeBauer, graduate student researcher of Earth system science at UCI and lead author of the study, has stated;

“What is clear is that we need to consider how nitrogen pollution interacts with carbon dioxide pollution, our study is a step toward understanding the far-reaching effects of nitrogen pollution and how it may change our climate.”

Iraqi adolescents have higher self-esteem when the threat of War is high

University of Cincinnati researchers are reportedly saying that there is a significant pattern among Iraqi adolescents and their reaction to the war in Iraq. The higher the perceived threat of the war, the higher the teens reported their self-esteem.

These findings come from a 2004 survey of 1,000 Iraqi adolescents in 10 neighborhoods in Baghdad, some what small considering the size the war has become.

Steve Carlton-Ford, a University of Cincinnati, says the findings  are giving us a rare look at the impact of war on adolescents. In general, sociologists and psychologists have mostly been examining how war affects small children, so this is new type of research being conducted. Carlton-Ford adds that in the cases of young children, conflict-related events typically lower a child’s psychological well-being.

The authors found that despite obvious threat to the adolescents’ feeeling of security, the youth were coping pretty well in 2004, with self-esteem levels comparable to that of Palestinian youth. “In the presence of war related trauma you generally observes lower levels of psychological well-being, and most of the time, lower self-esteem” write the authors. The results, however, are consistent with a prediction that self-esteem  is higher among the individuals who face indirect threats to central components of their social identities (rather than directly facing traumatic war-related events).

In other words, in a situation where we observe a broader social context involving the presence of foreign forces combined with general violence throughout Baghdad and Iraq, there can be seen a heightened sense of self, at least to the extent that one’s self is tied to one’s nation.”

The study suggests future surveys of adolescents under conditions of armed conflict to track their
self-concept as they become young adults.

Here are the results taken from Source

Iraqi Neighborhoods Surveyed
Al-Adhimiya
Al-Kadhimiya
Sadr City
Al-Dourah
Al-Ghazaliya
Al-Jamiah
Al-Khadhra
Al-Shoula
Hay Al-Mekanik
Al-Rahmaniyah

Average age: 15

Gender
Female   29.5 percent
Male       70.5 percent

Ethnicity
Arab                88.9 percent
Kurds & Others  11.1 percent

Religion
Sunni Muslim       36.3 percent
Shi’a Muslim          57.5 percent
Christian and other religion  6.2 percent

Most Important National Concern
Multi-National Forces Leaving        41.7 percent
Peace          28.6 percent
Security       19.6 percent
Democracy    5.3 percent
Jobs               40 percent
No response    0.8 percent

Most Important Personal Concern
Family                        46.5 percent
Country                       25.7 percent
Good job                     15.1 percent
Friends                        5.2 percent
Soccer (football)            3.9 percent
No response/other         3.6 percent

Self-Regard               13.1 (low=5; high=16)
Self-derogation            4.09 (low=2; high=8)
Family threat               6.46 (low=0; high=9)
National threat               4.85  (low=0 to high=6)

Read more in the Latest Articles of the Journal of Adolescence

 

New Species of Monkey Been Hiding in the Amazon

A new, unknown species of monkey was found during recent hunting trips in the Amazon, an expert Jean-Phillipe Boubli of the University of Auckland, New Zealand has announced.

The animal was found after following native Yanomamo Indians on their hunts along the Rio Aracá, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil.

"They told us about this black uakari monkey, which was different to the one we knew from Pico de Neblina National Park, where I'd worked earlier," Boubli said.

"I searched for that monkey for at least five years. The reason I couldn't find it was because the place where they were was sort of unexpected."

Uakaris normally live in habitats like flooded river forests, but this one turned up in a mountainous region on the Brazil-Venezuela border, far from its nearest relatives, this may be because there are too types of monkey in this region that are physiologically very similar.  There may have been a feud and the two types split a long time ago and since have adapted to there immediate habitats.

Already Vulnerable
Boubli named the new monkey Cacajao ayresii after Brazilian biologist José Márcio Ayres.

As a senior zoologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, Ayres—who died in 2003—helped create a protected zone in the heart of the Amazon.

But the newfound Ayres uakari, Boubli said, appears confined to a very small area outside any preserve and is hunted by locals.

"We're going to have to create a park or reserve, because [its habitat is] not a protected area," he said.

"The population is quite small, so they are quite vulnerable. I'm a bit concerned." Little is known about the creature's habits, but Boubli said it lives in social groups and is likely a seed-eater, based on his observations of other uakaris.

Anthony Rylands, a primatologist at Conservation International, said work such as Boubli's is vital to wildlife protection.

"Many of these tropical forests are being destroyed now, There's a desperate need to save these animals, but we really need to know what animals we're trying to save and where they live."

Rylands also said that today more new primate species are being described because of advances in DNA recognition technology.

"The sophistication of genetic analysis from just about any material—hair, feces—means we're able to get a much more precise view of primate diversity."

"Some of them, especially the nocturnal ones, are really quite cryptic—you can never recognize the differences simply by looking."

"Now … we've suddenly begun to realize that animals we previously considered to be one species are completely different creatures."

Looking back at a previous post could this Uakari monkey also be quick to learn and adapt as the Benobo monkeys have ?