You might know that squid can change the colour patterns on their skin. But how does this happen? & if the changes are in relation to a changing colour in the environment, how do squid know about this – do they see the change, or sense it in their skin? (Hence the ‘blindfold squid’ of my title.) […]
Continue readingCategory: animal behaviour
snakes & spiders & solenodons – oh my!
Now here’s a weird-looking little beastie: It’s a solenodon (although to me it looks a bit like those big rats – the Rodents of Unusual Size – in the fire-swamp scences of The Princess Bride… gosh, I enjoyed that movie!). And its chief claim to fame is that it’s a venomous mammal. Snakes, blue-ringed octopuses, spiders… there […]
Continue readingfossil poo & moa diets
When I was looking for the original paper for my post on moa feather colour & reductionism, I found a whole lot of other equally interesting stuff. As one does. (It’s just so easy to wander off down some interesting side path & get completely distracted from the original task…) One of those ‘other’ papers […]
Continue readingspeciation in the here-&-now
One of the arguments commonly levelled against the idea of speciation is that we can never see it happening. That argument is simply incorrect, & some time soon I guess I should at least give you some links to evidence that supports my statement. But in the meantime, I’ve just come across another apparent example […]
Continue readingwhat turns on zebra fish
Achievement Standard 90716 expects you to know something about a range of animal behaviours, including intraspecific relationships (territoriality, cooperative interactions, reproductive behaviours, hierarchical behaviour, competition for resources) – & the relationship between behaviour patterns & environmental factors. Quite a range of stuff there – although it’s worth remembering that these are not isolated, stand-alone categories. With […]
Continue readingmale polymorphisms & mating systems
Before I got sidetracked into mating behaviour in slugs & snails, I was mulling over the idea of writing about something equally complex – the area of male polymorphisms & mating systems. So here we go.
Continue readingsnail s*x toys
This tale follows on from that piece on leopard slug courtship from a few days ago. I commented then that copulation in garden snails is generally preceded by (among other things) pushing ‘darts’ into each other’s bodies. There’ve been various explanations for this odd behaviour (I mean, it sounds painful!), including the suggestion that the […]
Continue readingleopard slugs: s*x on a bungy cord
… or something like it anyway! Leopard slugs, like other terrestrial slugs & snails, are hermaphrodites. They produce both eggs & sperm, but must exchange sperm with another slug in order to fertilise their eggs. (This reproductive strategy means that an amorous snail doesn’t have to find a partner of the opposite sex, it needs […]
Continue readinga hearing chair – retraining the senses
Reading Simon Ing’s book, The eye, I was intrigued to hear about the possibility of learning to ‘see’ through the skin on your back. It involved a ‘vest’ bearing a set of rods with little actuators, controlled by a camera & computer. An image from the camera was converted into a fairly low-res image in the […]
Continue readingthe world of ants
We’ve ‘got’ ants at our place at the moment – the other day we came home to a thick black column that stretched from a chink in the woodwork around the french doors, all the way across the dining room & into the pantry. Determined little beggars! I suppose we should count ourselves lucky, as […]
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