You would never have thought that snot bubbles can be used in this way! | Nature Trumpet

Welcome to the 26th issue of the Nature Trumpet column - this is also the first anniversary of the Trumpet , so give me some flowers! In the past two weeks, we have collected the following natural news and research that you can't miss:

1) Echidnas’ secret to cooling off: blowing snot bubbles

2) The birth of a gray whale calf was captured for the first time

3) Black soldier fly larvae play a major role

4) Flower fossils in amber

5) You are this kind of starfish

6) The ocean is too noisy, and animals are suffering

Echidna Snot Bubble

What to do when the weather is too hot? Echidnas have a secret to cool down - blowing snot bubbles .

Australian echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) | User:Fir0002 / Wikimedia Commons

Scientists initially discovered that echidnas cannot dissipate heat through common methods such as sweating, panting and licking, and theoretically they cannot survive in an environment above 35°C . However, Australian echidnas in the wild are clearly alive and well in temperatures of 40°C , which surprised scientists.

When observing echidnas carefully, scientists found that bubbles would come out of their noses when the ambient temperature was high. This is very useful for cooling down - when the snot bubbles burst, a layer of mucus will be left on the surface of the nose; the evaporation of mucus can take away the heat from the surrounding blood and help the echidna dissipate heat.

Echidna under thermal imaging camera, the nose is the coldest part of the body | Christine Cooper

To further verify this, scientists used thermal imaging cameras to measure echidnas living in the wild. The results showed that the coldest part of the echidna's body is indeed the nose . Even if the ambient temperature exceeds the echidna's body temperature, their nose can still remain cool, which is a key part of heat dissipation .

In addition to cooling down, the snot bubbles of echidnas have an unexpected function - helping them find food . Echidnas feed on termites and ants, and the snot keeps their noses moist so that the electroreceptors on their noses can function and detect the movement of prey underground.

Gray whale calf born

Recently, the birth of a gray whale calf was captured on camera for the first time .

At first, tourists on a whale-watching boat in Southern California spotted a lone female gray whale nearby. Not long after, a pool of blood suddenly appeared on the surface of the sea. Just when everyone was worried that the gray whale was attacked by a shark, they saw a once-in-a-lifetime scene - a gray whale calf surfaced and breathed its first breath of air in its life.

Gray whale mother and baby wandering near the whale watching boat | Capt. Dave's Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari

The mother gray whale is between 12 and 15 meters long, and the newborn baby gray whale is about 4.5 meters long and has a darker skin than its mother. The mother gray whale with her newborn baby did not avoid humans, but instead circled around the whale watching boat with great interest.

The tail of a newborn gray whale is very soft | Capt. Dave's Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari

When a gray whale is born, its tail is very soft and not very flexible for swimming. It will become hard after a day . Therefore, the mother gray whale will hold the baby up and support it so that it can float to the surface to breathe. In addition, the whale's sense of smell is not very sensitive, but its sense of touch is very developed . Such a lot of contact is also conducive to enhancing the relationship between the mother and the child.

Gray whale mother pushes her baby out of the water to help breathe | Capt. Dave's Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari

Gray whales usually give birth in the lagoons of Baja California, Mexico, where it is warm and safe from predators . However, this birth occurred in the northern waters. Researchers speculate that the mother may have been migrating south from Alaska to Baja California, and the baby was born unexpectedly on the way.

Black soldier fly larvae make a difference

How to deal with food waste? Black soldier fly larvae can turn them into treasures!

Scientists tried to let the larvae of black soldier flies help process kitchen waste. They found that no matter whether it was raw or cooked food waste, the black soldier fly larvae could decompose all the waste into agricultural compost within 12 days . After being "full of food and drink", they stopped eating and entered the pupation state.

Black soldier fly larvae | ShaunRomero/Wikimedia Commons

Larvae grew at different rates depending on the type of food waste they were fed - they grew fastest when fed only raw vegetable waste, but grew even faster if fed chicken manure .

The global catering service industry generates billions of tons of food waste every year, most of which is sent to landfills, resulting in large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. If food waste can be converted into agricultural fertilizers by black soldier fly larvae, it will maximize the reuse of resources and reduce waste and damage to the environment .

Adult Black Soldier Fly | blacksoldierflyblog.com

The advantages of black soldier flies are not only that they can turn waste into treasure. Unlike house flies, black soldier flies are very hygienic and do not spread diseases . Moreover, they do not eat much as adults, and their bodies store very little energy. They usually stay still if possible, unlike house flies that fly around. Even if they are caught, they will not attack people, and are very friendly to humans.

Large flower amber

Recently, scientists discovered the largest flower sealed in amber and at the same time redressed a "wrongful case" from 150 years ago.

Flowers sealed in amber | Carola Radke / Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

This piece of amber was formed 34 to 38 million years ago and was found in a mine in Russia. In 1872, scientists identified the flower in the amber as a species of the genus Stewartia in the family Theaceae and named it Stewartia kowalewskii. Then the amber was placed in a museum and no further research was done.

It was not until recently that a paleontologist re-examined this piece of amber and found it to be quite rare - there are not many ambers containing plants, and most of the flowers preserved in amber are no larger than 1 cm, but this one is 2.8 cm !

Pollen grains visible under a scanning electron microscope | Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

She also used a scanning electron microscope to observe and saw pollen grains from tens of millions of years ago. The study of pollen grains also made her realize that the previous identification of this flower was wrong. This should be an extinct plant of the Symplocos genus (Symplocos kowalewskii) of the Symplocosaceae family . As for why a flower of nearly 3 cm can be sealed, scientists speculate that it may be related to the size and nature of the resin.

Top Starfish

Polar bears are recognized as the top predators in the Arctic. But you would never have thought that there is another small animal that is on par with polar bears in terms of predation status - this dark horse is the winged starfish .

Winged sea star | Ed Bowlby / NOAA

Researchers recently analyzed data from 1,580 animals in the Southampton Island ecosystem and found that, despite their humble appearance, starfish hunt on a similar scale to polar bears , with the only difference being the size of their prey—starfish eat sea cucumbers, sponges, and bivalves, while polar bears prey on walruses, gulls, and seals.

When studying marine ecosystems, people usually focus on the upper food chain, but the food web on the seafloor is often ignored because everyone thinks there are no real top predators among benthic organisms. This experiment found that the upper food chain and the benthic food chain have similar trophic levels. In their respective food chains, polar bears and starfish are firmly at the top , and the secondary consumers in the food chain have become their food.

Polar bears eating whales: Hey, it’s a free meal | Fallows et al., 2013

Scientists believe that there is another important reason why polar bears and starfish are both thriving in the ecosystem: they both have the habit of scavenging . Polar bears will eat dead whales washed ashore, and one meal can last for weeks or even months; starfish will eat animal carcasses that sink to the bottom of the sea, filling their stomachs without any effort.

Sea hares suffer

The noise produced by humans is the sound of death to marine life.

Recent studies have found that if exposed to ship noise, the success rate of sea slug embryo development will be reduced by 21%; even if they successfully hatch, the mortality rate after hatching is 22% higher than that of sea slugs without noise interference.

Aplysia | Rickard Zerpe/Wikimedia Commons

In addition to transportation, other human activities can also have a fatal impact on marine life. The air guns used in seismic exploration produce noises exceeding 200 decibels, which is louder than a gunshot within a one-meter range. Under such loud noises, marine animals may lose their hearing permanently or die . In 2017, in the waters south of Tasmania, the use of an air gun caused the mortality rate of plankton to soar from 18% to 40% to 60%.

Dolphins often travel in groups | NOAA

Noise not only affects the development and survival of marine animals, but also changes their behavior. The noise of ships is generally below 2000 Hz, which overlaps with the sound frequencies of many large marine mammals. The calls of many whales will be confused in the noise, and they can only contact each other after the noise drops. Dolphins often cooperate in hunting, but under the noise, dolphins have to change their calls and "shout" loudly underwater to barely complete the cooperative task - even so, their foraging success rate is likely to be reduced.

Without realizing it, humans have imposed a completely different acoustic environment on marine life. Fortunately, by restricting traffic and reducing ship speeds, underwater noise can be reduced by more than 50%.

When humans develop and utilize the ocean, they should also remember that living things need a quiet ocean.

References

1.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2022.0495

2. https://www.livescience.com/whale-watchers-see-gray-whale-birth3. https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1504/IJEWM.2022.128116

4.https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)02000-0

5. https://www.livescience.com/polar-bears-sea-stars-arctic-predators

6. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-underwater-noise-threat-marine-life.html

Author: Maotun, Mai Mai

Editor: Mai Mai

Cover image source: Christine Cooper

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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