You may have seen pigs fighting, but you have never seen a pig trying to stop a fight! | Natural Trumpet

Welcome to the 21st issue of Nature Trumpet . In the past half month, we have collected the following natural news and research worth noting:

1) Pigs can also mediate fights and act according to the relationship

2) A southern right whale mother adopted a humpback whale calf

3) Chimpanzees and gorillas have been friends for decades

4) A 5-month-old bird breaks a bird flight record

5) For the sake of animals, set off fewer fireworks

6) Blue whales eat 10 million pieces of microplastics every day

Pigs mediate a fight

You may have seen pigs fighting, but you have never heard of a pig trying to stop a fight !

In a new study, scientists spent five months tracking fights among 104 domestic pigs . Whenever a fight broke out, they carefully observed their behavior over the next three minutes, such as head-butting, pushing, and biting, and also recorded the sex, age, and kinship of the pigs involved.

Believe it or not, we pigs have to maintain relationships too! | Scattare61 / Wikimedia Commons

The researchers were surprised to find that when two pigs were fighting, if there were bystander pigs present and interacting with the pigs involved, they could play a role in "persuading the fight" .

If the bystander pig interacts with the aggressor pig, the latter's aggressive behavior will be reduced (bystander pig: Big brother, forget it!). If the bystander pig interacts with the attacked pig, the latter will not be beaten less, but the psychological damage will be reduced (bystander pig: It will pass if you bear it, and we will avoid it next time!) - compared with being beaten alone, the victim pig shakes, chews with empty mouth, and yawns less frequently, indicating that its anxiety level has decreased.

Yes, even pigs get hurt when they get spanked! | Steve Evans / Wikimedia Commons

So how does a passing pig decide whether to intervene? It depends on the relationship! If the bystander pigs are relatives of the fighting pigs, they are more likely to intervene , and scientists believe this reflects the importance pigs place on kinship. However, if the fighting pigs have nothing to do with it, it has to think about it - after all, this is another pig's family affair!

Interspecies adoption

An adult southern right whale actually adopted a baby humpback whale!

They swim together | Jess Wohling

In Australia, a photographer used a drone to capture this adult southern right whale carrying a humpback whale calf. The cetacean researcher was so shocked after seeing the video that he texted all his friends and more senior experts - and without exception, everyone was also very surprised!

They analyzed that the most likely scenario is that the southern right whale became the "stepmother" of the little humpback whale, because the state of their companionship is almost the same as that of normal whale mothers and children . Generally speaking, humpback whales will stay with their mothers in the first year after birth, but this little humpback whale may have been separated from its biological mother, or its biological mother died before it matured, and it became an orphan. The adult right whale may have just lost its child and happened to meet the lonely little humpback whale, so it depended on it for survival.

Humpback whales under one year old usually stay close to their mothers. | J. Moore/NOAA

While interspecies adoptions are extremely rare, they are not without precedent: In 2018, researchers in Canada discovered that a beluga whale had adopted a young narwhal that may have gotten lost during migration, and in 2014, a bottlenose dolphin was even found raising an abandoned melon-headed whale calf while also caring for its own child.

Interspecies friendship

In addition to cross-species adoption, there is also cross-species friendship - wild chimpanzees and gorillas have become good friends for decades !

Scientists have found that male adolescents are often more outgoing and are more likely to make friends with people from other species, and will even trek 300 meters alone to visit other species. When encountering each other, neither chimpanzees nor gorillas will sound alarms, and chimpanzees will deliberately imitate the chest beating of gorillas.

Mountain gorilla | Thomas Fuhrmann / Wikimedia Commons

This friendship is unusual. You know, chimpanzees and gorillas have a strong sense of territory. Even if their own kind intrudes into their territory, they will not hesitate to attack or even kill each other. The apes living in Congo have similar diets, so why do they not fight for food, but love each other so much?

Researchers have found that the secret of friendship is sharing food . Chimpanzees and gorillas both love to eat figs, but figs have a short fruiting period. If one finds ripe fruit later than the other, it is better not to waste time fighting for it, but to quickly go to other fruit trees to have a look - so although they have similar diets, they do not conflict with each other. In the process of looking for food, they can also "eavesdrop" on each other's movements and analyze where there is more food.

Chimpanzee | Rod Waddington / Wikimedia Commons

Chimpanzees and gorillas not only play and eat together, but they are also "comrades-in-arms" who hide from predators together . Whenever a leopard appears, the spotter will sound an alarm, and both species will receive the alarm. Everyone observes the enemy together, and cross-species friendship also brings double safety.

Breaking the record!

The record for the longest continuous flight by a bird was recently broken - and the much-anticipated record-breaker was only five months old !

The champion is a bar-tailed godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri) | Johnny Madsen

It is a bar-tailed godwit, and this is its first migration since birth. On October 13, this immature bird took off from Alaska in North America, flew for 265 hours, and finally landed in Tasmania, Australia on October 25, covering a total of 13,575 kilometers .

The previous record holder had a satellite transmitter on its back | Geoff White

Before this, the record holder for the longest flight was another bar-tailed godwit. It was an adult male who flew 13,035 kilometers from Alaska to Australia in October 2021, breaking his personal best of 12,070 kilometers flown in October of the previous year. However, this experienced adult player was defeated by a fledgling bird this year.

Migration route of the previous record holder in 2020 and 2021 | Adrian Riegen & Audubon

At this time of year, bar-tailed godwits migrate from Alaska to New Zealand or Australia. But satellite data showed that the record-breaking bird seemed to have lost its way when it was close to its destination , flying back and forth between the two countries. They suspected that it might have been separated from the main group and didn't know where to fly. Fortunately, it eventually caught up with other companions migrating to Tasmania, and completed its first "ultramarathon" with difficulty, and accidentally broke a record.

Effects of fireworks on animals

People may discuss the pollution of fireworks to the environment, but often ignore the direct impact on animals. A recent new study found that when people are obsessed with the beauty of fireworks on New Year's Eve, the stress levels of birds in the dark night will increase sharply .

New Year's Eve fireworks in Sydney | Rob Chandler / Wikimedia Commons

The researchers tracked 20 wild greylag geese and found that in the first hour after the New Year, which is the peak period of the fireworks display, the heart rate and body temperature of the greylag geese soared. The average heart rate increased from 63 beats per minute to 124 beats per minute, almost doubling; the body temperature also rose from 38°C to 39°C. It was not until 2 to 3 a.m. after the New Year, with the end of the fireworks display, that their heart rate gradually returned to normal levels, and the body temperature did not drop until around 5 a.m. This was in the winter when food resources were scarce. The fireworks not only disturbed their rest, but also consumed their precious energy.

Greylag geese in flight | MichaelMaggs / Wikimedia Commons

Greylag geese are not the only victims of fireworks. In 2021, hundreds of starlings died after the New Year's fireworks in Rome, most likely because the loud noise frightened them, and in the panic they accidentally hit obstacles and became separated from their companions, eventually losing their lives. A 2019 survey showed that 52% of dog owners said their dogs were afraid of fireworks, and would tremble, hide, and run away when they saw a fireworks display; other studies have found that cats, rabbits, mice, and horses are also afraid of fireworks.

So, for the sake of wild animals and pets around you, it is better to set off fewer fireworks!

Tens of millions of microplastics

Blue whales are the largest living animals on Earth and can consume 5,000 kilograms of krill every day - but at the same time, they also eat 10 million microplastic fragments in a day, equivalent to 43.5 kilograms .

Between 2010 and 2019, a research team at Stanford University tracked the feeding habits of 191 blue whales, fin whales, and humpback whales. These three species are baleen whales, which swallow large amounts of seawater when feeding and filter out food through their baleen. The study found that they prefer to feed at depths of 50 to 250 meters underwater, where there is abundant food such as krill; but unfortunately, this is also the area with the highest concentration of microplastics in the ocean .

Blue Whale | NOAA

It is estimated that a blue whale may ingest 10 million pieces of microplastics every day. Taking into account the 90-120-day feeding season in a year, they eat more than 1 billion pieces of microplastics a year. This is not only because blue whales have a huge appetite, but also because their diet is mainly krill; a humpback whale, which mainly feeds on fish, ingests about 200,000 pieces of microplastics every day. Microplastics have been found in the bodies of thousands of species, but the amount of microplastics in these big guys is still astonishingly large.

These microplastics are not all swallowed by whales along with seawater. In fact, 99% of microplastics are first ingested by krill and other organisms, and then enter the whale's body through the food chain . This is scary because krill is not only food for whales, but also for many fish, and microplastics will eventually be ingested by humans. The researchers said that the next step is to study the harm of microplastics to whales.

Easter Eggs

This terrifying demon is actually a close-up of the face of a small ant! | Eugenijus Kavaliauskas

References

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-022-01688-4

[2] https://www.livescience.com/possible-interspecies-whale-adoption

[3] https://www.livescience.com/wild-chimpanzees-and-gorillas-can-form-friendships

[4] https://www.livescience.com/juvenile-bird-breaks-continuos-flight-record

[5] https://theconversation.com/fireworks-growing-evidence-they-distress-animals-builds-case-to-restrict-use-191472

[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33334-5

Author: Maotun, Mai Mai

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

If you need to reprint, please contact [email protected]