Boneless fried chicken can not only be eaten, but also used to control foxes | Natural Trumpet

Welcome to the Nature Trumpet column. In the past half month, we have collected the following natural news and research worth reading:

1) After eating boneless fried chicken, foxes no longer dare to hunt randomly

2) The world is going bad, and the male spider gave his wife a fake gift

3) Urban coyotes are stressed and shed fur like crazy

4) Great white sharks travel 6,800 kilometers together

5) The smallest mammal, weighing only a few coins

6) Horses understand human nature and are happy when humans are happy

Fried Chicken Scam

Boneless fried chicken can not only be eaten, but also used to control foxes - it is just a fried chicken with added ingredients.

In southeastern Australia, invasive species red foxes kill countless wild animals every year. Recently, in order to make foxes more restrained, scientists specially customized a "supplemented version" of boneless fried chicken for them - the added ingredient is levamisole capsules , which will make foxes feel nauseous and vomit after eating, but there will be no danger to their lives .

Red fox hunting | Antti T. Nissinen / Wikimedia Commons

These special boneless fried chickens were placed in 30 places frequented by foxes. The results showed that after eating fried chicken containing levamisole once, foxes would avoid fried chicken because they felt uncomfortable. Even if normal fried chicken was placed in the same place later, their intake decreased by at least 30%.

After eating fried chicken with "additives", the fox's psychological trauma can last for more than two months , and during this period it will avoid fried chicken. Next, scientists plan to try to attach the drug to living prey to give the fox a greater shock (fox:?).

The fox in question expressed regret and said he would download the anti-fraud app now | Cephas / Wikimedia Commons

For invasive predators like foxes, people can only prevent them from excessively harming wild animals by shooting, trapping and poisoning. If the "fried chicken additive method" can be put into use, people will not need to kill foxes, but will also be able to protect wild animals, ultimately achieving peaceful coexistence between invasive predators and local wild animals .

Male spiders cut corners

Due to climate change, male spiders are starting to cut corners on the "wedding gifts" they give their wives.

Some tropical spiders living on the banks of rivers in Uruguay and Brazil have a custom: male spiders will give their captured prey to female spiders to win their hearts and persuade them to mate with them. However, during periods of climate change and low rainfall , spiders will experience an "economic crisis" and it will be difficult to find a gift that is worth the effort.

Spider species Paratrechalea ornata, male gives female a gift wrapped in spider silk | lavoz.com

At this time, male spiders will try to cut corners to fool females . After catching prey, some male spiders will use spider silk to pack the leftovers as a gift; and use more spider silk than usual to visually disguise the gift so that it is not too shabby. In this way, they will not starve to death and can also court mates .

But if the environmental pressure is too great and they can't catch any prey, they will no longer send food, but instead use some worthless things to make up the number.

Male spider: The economic situation is not good, wedding gifts can only be tactful | Dr. Maria J Albo / Universidad de la Republica

In the harvest season when food is plentiful, males rarely send fake gifts, and female spiders will decisively reject gifts that are just for show. But when the overall environment is bad , female spiders have no choice but to accept gifts that are just for show - at this time, everyone is experiencing famine, and both males and females are generally smaller in size. Although females receive leftovers wrapped in spider silk, at least it's better than nothing .

Urban coyotes face high pressure

Not only are urban humans stressed, but coyotes living in cities also report being stressed.

Recently, researchers measured the concentration of cortisol in the hair of about 100 coyotes near Chicago. Cortisol reflects stress levels, and the higher the cortisol, the higher the stress; the cortisol in the hair represents the chronic stress accumulated in the previous few months. The results showed that coyotes living in developed cities have much higher cortisol levels than coyotes living in suburbs and the wild .

Coyote crossing the road | Tracie Hall / Wikimedia Commons

Just like humans who are constantly suffering from minor ailments, coyotes in cities are not only stressed but also in poor health . They are prone to mange, which causes hair loss. This is not a fatal disease, but hair loss will make them unable to resist the cold in winter, and the weak ones may not survive until the next spring.

The city is stressful, why don't we go to the countryside to relax? | References [3]

Among humans, parents who are struggling to support their families and newly independent adults are generally the most stressed, and the same is true for coyotes in cities. The alpha wolf in a wolf pack is responsible for defending the territory and reproducing. As the most concerned head of the family, he is under the greatest pressure . Adult coyotes who have just left their parents and have not yet joined the wolf pack are also under great pressure to travel alone in the city, avoiding attacks from other coyotes and avoiding people and traffic. The pups, on the other hand, live a relatively carefree life .

Great White Shark Brotherhood

A pair of great white sharks appeared on the east coast of the United States.

One of them is nicknamed Simon and the other is called Jekyll. They are estimated to be 10 to 15 years old. They were fitted with trackers by researchers in December last year, so their whereabouts are fully known to humans. Generally speaking, great white sharks are solitary animals and do not act in groups ; but for the past eight months, this pair of male great white sharks have always appeared in the same place.

Simon being fished out for inspection and having his tracker installed | Chris Ross/OCEARCH

Simon and Jekyll traveled 6,400 kilometers together , starting from Georgia, passing through New England and Maine, hunting in Canadian waters in the summer, and their latest signals appeared together on the east coast of Quebec. Their pace is so consistent that researchers have tracked a total of 92 great white sharks, and have never seen such great white sharks migrating in pairs.

Jekyll | Chris Ross/OCEARCH

However, Simon and Jekyll's companionship is not the side-by-side swimming we imagine; they are always several kilometers apart and may occasionally pass by each other. Researchers speculate that they may be brothers, so they use the same migration pattern . If this speculation is true, it also means a new discovery - the family relationship of great white sharks may be closer than humans think.

Smallest mammal

Two super-tiny mammals have been discovered in Australia, each weighing only a few coins.

They are all carnivorous marsupials of the genus quoll , and are distant relatives of the extinct thylacine. One species, named Planigale kendricki, is larger, weighs an average of 7 grams, has a longer and more pointed nose, orange hair, and orange eyeshadow; the other, named Planigale tealei, weighs only 4 grams on average, is darker in color, and has a shorter face.

Planigale kendricki | R. Teale

Planigale tealei | L. Umbrello.

The name of the Planigale literally translates to "flat weasel". Their heads are particularly flat, which is the result of their adaptation to the environment, allowing them to easily hide in cracks in rocks and soil. They hide during the day and come out at night to forage - despite their small size, the prey they catch is almost as big as their bodies.

It's time to eat | L. Umbrello.

In fact, these two species were discovered more than 20 years ago , when taxonomist Ken Aplin was responsible for the relevant DNA sequencing work, hoping to confirm that they were new species. However, Ken unfortunately passed away in 2019, and other scientists inherited his work and finally described and published these two new species four years later.

Horses are human

Horses can read human expressions and voices and tell whether humans are happy or sad.

Recently, scientists showed horses photos of human expressions of joy or sadness and played corresponding sounds while recording the horses’ behavior and heart rate. The results showed that when horses saw happy faces and heard happy sounds , they looked longer, their heart rates increased more, and they were in a higher state of arousal.

Horse looking at a photo on a projection screen and measuring its heart rate with a heart rate belt | Plotine Jardat

Scientists believe that horses prefer happy human expressions and sounds . There are three possible explanations:

First , humans have greater facial muscle movement and more pitch variation in happy expressions, which may be naturally attractive to horses;

Second , horses may associate human happiness with their own positive experiences, such as when humans are happy, they reward themselves with more food;

Third , perhaps this is a cross-species "emotional contagion" phenomenon, just as humans can be infected by happy expressions and sounds.

Experiments involving horses | References [6]

What's even more amazing is that horses know that the emotions expressed by facial expressions and sounds match. In other words, they know that when humans are happy, they make happy sounds and are unlikely to laugh and cry . Scientists showed horses a happy photo and a sad photo at the same time, and played happy sounds; the results showed that horses would observe the sad photo more. Scientists speculate that this is because horses found that the expression and sound did not match - the person was obviously very sad but was laughing, and the horses were surprised.

References

[1] https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/csp2.12984

[2]https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-023-01664-5

[3]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969723045904?via%3

[4]https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/tracking-great-white-shark-duo-ocearch-1.6940794

[5] https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5330.1.1

[6] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-023-01817-7

Author: Cat Tun

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)