Outrageous! Why would anyone want a dog to treat a cow? | Nature Trumpet

Welcome to the 25th issue of the Nature Trumpet column. In the past half month, we have collected the following interesting natural news and research worth noting:

1) Batman to the rescue, thank you Batman!

2) Penguins look in the mirror and make gestures to it

3) The Sarus Crane, which had disappeared for 50 years, was released back into the wild

4) Hundreds of shark teeth appeared in the corner of the seabed

5) New job for dogs: treating cows

6) Dolphin sets record for longest distance traveled

Bat Rescue

In Texas, USA, a large group of Brazilian free-tailed bats suffered hypothermia shock due to the arrival of cold air.

Brazilian free-nosed bats usually live on local bridge tunnels. In the freezing weather, they couldn't even hold on to their footholds and fell directly from the 9-meter-high bridge tunnel to the sidewalk below. What's worse is that they are very small, weighing only about 10 grams, and have little fat on their bodies. Once they fall to the frozen ground, they are likely to die.

The miniature Brazilian free-nosed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) | Wikipedia

As the cold snap intensified, the Houston Humane Society launched a bat rescue operation . Volunteers went out in droves and rescued a total of 1,544 frozen bats in five days and sent them to a resettlement center.

These poor little bats are very resilient - people have only provided them with water and a warm environment, and many of them have recovered. The most difficult part of the rescue process is feeding the bats - in the wild, bats usually eat while flying , but now people have to force-feed them food to ensure their nutrition.

People gathered at the bridge to watch the bats being released after they recovered from their illness. | References [1]

After a few days of rest, more than 700 bats have recovered and been sent back to their habitat under the bridge. There are still 60 bats that are more severely frozen and are still in the incubator; the rest are placed in kennels and will be sent back to the wild when they recover.

The bats that were released after recovery are now rushing to find food | References [1]

Penguin looking in the mirror

When a penguin looks in the mirror, does he know that it is himself in the mirror?

Come look in the mirror! | References [2]

Scientists who were curious about this question recently conducted an experiment on Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). At first, they placed a large mirror among a group of Adélie penguins in the wild to observe the penguins' reactions. It turned out that the penguins were attracted to the mirror, but they just stood quietly in front of the mirror, looked at their own reflection for a while, and then left.

The scientists then added a fence to the mirror. This time, the penguins began to study the mirror image intently— they even moved their heads and flippers, closely watching the synchronized movements of these parts in the mirror. More importantly, they neither approached to touch the mirror image nor showed any aggression towards it, indicating that they did not mistake the mirror image for another goose .

Penguin: Staring | References [2]

What if we add something new? Scientists put colored bibs on penguins, but they behaved the same way, seemingly not noticing the bibs. However, when scientists put colored stickers on the mirror, the penguins suddenly became excited and pecked at the stickers.

Penguin: You're blocking my view of this handsome face! | References [2]

Scientists believe that the penguins may peck at the stickers because they cover their faces in the mirror. However, they cannot assert that the penguins can recognize that the mirror is themselves. Maybe they just want to remove the obstruction and see the original image again.

Release of Sarus Cranes

On Christmas Day, 13 Sarus cranes (Antigone antigone) were born in Thailand.

Sarus cranes are large, reaching up to 1.8 meters in length. They are listed as vulnerable species, with only about 15,000 left in the wild. The Sarus crane subspecies in Thailand disappeared 50 years ago, with the last sighting of it in the wild being in 1968.

Before being released, the cranes were implanted with microchips, blindfolded and placed in special boxes. | References [3]

Since 1989, the Thai government has begun artificially breeding Sarus cranes donated by Cambodia. Staff members pretend to be the Sarus cranes' "surrogate parents" - wearing clothes that cover their bodies and wooden bird heads, teaching the little Sarus cranes how to forage and how to live in the wild. Since the first release in 2011, more than 150 Sarus cranes have returned to the wild.

In the last few days of 2022, another 13 Sarus cranes will be released into the wild. The release site has been carefully selected, a reservoir with a lot of water chestnuts, which can serve as food for the cranes during the dry season.

Sarus Crane: Come home, come home! | References [3]

As the sun rose, people opened the special large box for transporting the Sarus cranes. The 13 precious Sarus cranes flew up shakily, calling out loudly towards the sun, while the shore was filled with cheering children and spectators, watching them fly to freedom.

Shark tooth loss

Deep in the Indian Ocean, there is a mysterious corner where hundreds of shark teeth are buried !

During a survey at sea, the researchers cast their fishing nets as usual. They originally wanted to catch some fish to study the biodiversity of the sea area, but when they pulled up the nets, they saw only mud, no fish at all.

Although they were disappointed, they still poured the mud they had scooped up onto the deck for inspection, which led to their unexpected discovery: they found shark teeth one after another, a total of more than 750 teeth, ranging in size from 1 cm to 10 cm. The owners of these teeth included both modern great white sharks and ancient megalodon sharks .

A variety of shark teeth recovered | Ben Healley / Museums Victoria

These teeth are very well preserved. Bacteria have eroded the organic matter in the teeth, but the enamel is still intact. Some teeth have manganese nodules, which are sediments left on the seabed for a long time. But why are there so many shark teeth in this sea area?

Scientists have not yet fully understood this problem, but they believe that this does not mean that hundreds or thousands of sharks have died here. This is an ancient coral reef, and a long time ago, many sharks may have lived here and often swam around nearby. Sharks will constantly replace their teeth throughout their lives, and the replaced teeth will fall to the bottom of the sea. When modern sharks pass by the habitat of ancient sharks, they may also "lose teeth everywhere", so this magical shark tooth corner was formed.

Passing by and losing a tooth to commemorate the event | Pete Kontakos / Wikimedia Commons

Paw Patrol

Recently, some dogs have a new job - "diagnosing" cows . No, to be more precise, they " smell the disease ".

In the United States, bovine respiratory disease (BRD) has a prevalence of up to 16.2% and is the leading cause of death in cattle. It is difficult to identify which cows have BRD, so the entire herd can only be evaluated and given medication. In this way, whether the cows are sick or not, they may ingest a large amount of antibiotics. To solve this problem, people decided to cultivate "doctor dogs".

Two dog doctors: Runnels on top and Cheaps on the bottom | Aiden Juge / Texas A&M AgriLife

The two chosen puppies received 7 months of training. When a new batch of cattle arrived at the ranch, the researchers took nasal swabs from the cattle and then let the dogs sniff the samples to determine whether they smelled BRD-positive samples. In the next 3 months, the researchers continued to track the cattle to determine whether they were infected with BRD, so as to compare the accuracy of the puppy doctor's judgment.

The results showed that the dogs performed very well, with their accuracy rates after training being 81.7% and 64.7% respectively . With more training, they may be able to take up the job and specialize in smelling diseases for cattle.

The samples are placed in jars, and the dogs sniff them to determine whether they are positive. | Courteney Daigle / Texas A&M AgriLife

With the help of the puppy doctor, people can identify sick cows and provide them with precise treatment, and healthy cows don't have to take medicine to "run with them". While reducing the use of drugs, the disease rate and mortality rate of cattle in the farm will also be reduced. Animal welfare will be improved, and consumers will be able to eat higher quality beef.

Dolphin breaks record

Scientists recently discovered that a coastal bottlenose dolphin swam a record-breaking distance - it swam at least 2,053 kilometers , almost as far as from Baotou to Shenzhen.

In February 2020, Slovenian researchers discovered a previously unseen dolphin off the coast of Piran. They named the dolphin Prešeren because it was found on the local Prešeren Day, a holiday honoring the poet.

The following year, when the researcher was communicating with his Italian colleagues, he found a fin he recognized in the photos they showed him - it was Presheren's! At this time, it had been given a new name by his colleagues, Lino. The two discovery points are 1,251 kilometers apart, a distance that has broken most dolphin movement records.

Photos of Preseren taken in three different sea areas | References [6]

But the surprises were not over yet. Some time later, another Italian researcher photographed Preseren again. This time the discovery site was even further away, with the shortest distance from the previous discovery site being 2,053 kilometers - and Preseren probably didn't swim strictly in a straight line, so it was likely that it had swum a longer distance than this.

The researchers compared the photos and confirmed that they were all Preseren | References [6]

Among the bottlenose dolphins with nearshore ecosystems, Preseren set the record for the longest distance traveled; and among the entire bottlenose dolphin species, it ranks second, and the one that swam farther than it is a bottlenose dolphin with offshore ecosystems. In the past, people generally believed that bottlenose dolphins were a species that rarely swam far and were more "homely"; but Preseren seems to have broken this impression , and bottlenose dolphins may be more mobile than people think.

References

[1]https://phys.org/news/2022-12-holy-icy-chill-batman-texas.html

[2]https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.04.515260v1.full

[3]https://phys.org/news/2022-12-fly-home-rare-eastern-sarus.html

[4]https://www.livescience.com/shark-teeth-graveyard-australia

[5]https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2022.902151/full

[6]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42991-022-00316-5

Author: Cat Tun

Editor: Mai Mai

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