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Tag: "predatory" at biology news

In the sea slug's defense against lobsters, confusion is key

... components of chemical defense. When attacked by predatory spiny lobsters, sea slugs (also known as sea hares) release an inky secretion, termed ink and opaline, from a pair of glands. The new findings show that Aplysia's defensive secretion includes a variety of chemicals that together comprise a multi-pron...

Super predators and mass extinctions

...its own demise. The few creatures that survive the predatory apocalypse gradually mutate to fill the existing ecological niches - and the cycle begins again. The period of the cycle depends on mutation rates in the model. The lower the mutation rate, the longer the periods between super predators. For a suffi...

At the molecular level, the predator is the prey

An evolutionary arms race between predatory garter snakes and their newt quarry is turning out to be something of an illusion. At the molecular level, another battle rages. And in this second, miniature realm, it's the newt who's the aggressor. Biologists at Indiana University Bloomington, Ut...

Scientists discover global pattern of big fish diversity in open oceans

...urts to see this." In the first global mapping of predatory fish diversity in the open ocean, the internationa..., or too cold, they like it just right." For these predatory fish, 22 degrees C (77 degrees F) seems to be the optimum temperature. The only other global study ...

Researchers use 3-D imaging system to unveil swimming behavior of microscopic plankton

...eping behavior carry far-reaching consequences for predatory fishes, whales and humans. Predators can dependably locate zooplankton aggregations by tracking well-defined cues, for example, sharp temperature gradients that occur across downwelling fronts where cold and warm waters meet. Vertical currents are c...

Plankton can run, but can't hide from basking sharks

... throw some of their predators (eg fish larvae and predatory invertebrates such as arrow worms) off their trail. However, this study shows that basking sharks seem to have rumbled them. As well as shedding new light on behavioural strategies of plankton-feeding sharks and whales, the results have important im...

Study: Predatory dinosaurs had bird-like pulmonary system

...ersity. Though some scientists have proposed that predatory dinosaurs had lungs similar to crocodiles and othe...t, however, that the new study doesn't clearly peg predatory dinosaurs as habitually warm-blooded animals. The creatures probably had a more complex strategy, fa...

DNA traces evolution of extinct sabertooths and the American cheetah-like cat

...the evolutionary relationships shared by the large predatory cats that once roamed the prehistoric New World. The work is reported in the August 9 issue of Current Biology by Ross Barnett of the University of Oxford and a team of researchers from Britain, the United States, Sweden, and Australia. Toward the ...

Getting an evolutionary handle on life after reproduction

... the life history of guppies confronting different predatory threats in Trinidad. Individuals facing different mortality threats should evolve different adaptations in their life histories, such as age at first reproduction, investment in reproduction, and patterns of senescence, including declines in reproduc...

New possibilities to fight pests with biological means

...ants in the six arms of the olfactometer. When the predatory wasps were set free in the central cylinder of the olfactometer, they flew towards the scent-producing plants. The experiments led to an additional, surprising result: in order to react this way, the wasps needed a first exposure to both the corn sce...

FSU biologist says new dinosaur is oldest cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex

...nd the first of its kind seen in the tyrannosaur's predatory family. The creature has been named "Guanlong wucaii" and translated loosely from Chinese, that's "crowned dragon five colors." An internationally known expert on the development and evolution of the vertebrate musculoskeletal system, Erickson helpe...

Insect predation sheds light on food web recovery after the dinosaur extinction

...urished in the warm wet climate and without insect predatory pressure -- possibly because their rainforest-type leaves were already thick, tough, and hard to eat -- plant species proliferated and thrived for a short time. At Mexican Hat, 16 species of mostly thin-leaved, poorly defended, typical Paleocene plan...

Time of day tempers tadpoles' response to predators

...d more at night, to see whether their responses to predatory dragonfly larvae differed with time of day. "Green frog tadpoles, like many other aquatic animals, assess predation risk indirectly by sensing chemicals released by their predators into the water," Fraker said. Typically, the tadpoles respond to su...

Researchers appeal for new regulations to save coral reefs from live fish trade

...e harvesting methods and over-harvesting of large, predatory fish reef fish have devastating effects. Being able to choose a huge fish to eat from a tank is a big pull in luxury seafood restaurants. Fish such as the Napoleon wrasse, a giant reef fish that commonly reaches 2 m in length and lives for more tha...

Predators prefer to hunt small-brained prey

...elation between the brain size of the prey and the predatory bias towards it. Animals with small brains lack behavioural flexibility and are probably less capable of developing new strategies to escape predators, compared with larger-brained species. Dr Shultz said: "When these findings are put into per...

Cougar predation key to ecosystem health

...ause land managers to reconsider the importance of predatory species in how ecosystems function. The findings are consistent, researchers say, with predictions made more than half a century ago by the famed naturalist Aldo Leopold, often considered the father of wildlife ecology. "W...

Pressured by predators, lizards see rapid shift in natural selection

...as. They introduced to six of these cays a larger, predatory lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) commonly found on nearby islands and known as a natural colonizer of small cays. The scientists kept six other control cays predator-free and exhaustively counted, marked, and measured lizards on all 12 isles. Anoli...

Archerfish tune their shots to universal properties of prey adhesion

...ng strategy that shed light on how this impressive predatory behavior has evolved. The findings are reported by Thomas Schlegel, Christine Schmid, and Stefan Schuster of the Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen, Germany, and appear in the October 10th issue of the journal Current Biology, published by Cel...

Road-crossing in chimpanzees: A risky business

... shown that adult male monkeys reduce the risks of predatory attacks through adaptive spatial patterning, moving toward the front of the group when traveling toward potentially unsafe areas, such as waterholes, and bringing up the rear when retreating, but comparable data on great-ape progression orders have b...

Overfishing large sharks impacts entire marine ecosystem, shrinks shellfish supply

...University, has found that overfishing the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky, and hammerhead sharks, along the Atlantic Coast of the United States has led to an explosion of their ray, skate, and small shark prey species. "With fewer sharks around, the species they prey upon ?l...

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