Coconut water itself did not expect that it could actually "extend the life" of pigs丨Nature Trumpet

Welcome to the 12th issue of the Nature Trumpet column. In the past half month, we have collected these fun and interesting natural research and news:

1) The strange use of coconut water: "extending the life" of sperm

2) Why do frogs die during mating?

3) The world’s largest water lily: the leaves are more than 3 meters wide

4) Ancient sharks’ popular snack: sperm whale noses

5) The crabs in Furui look like stuffed toys

6) Serial killer whales scare sharks

Coconut Water: What?

Recently, pig farming experts have discovered a good thing that can "extend the life" of sperm - coconut water!

In Uganda, rural pig farms usually raise one or two boars and dozens of sows - this inevitably leads to inbreeding, which not only reduces the meat quality of offspring pigs, but also makes the pigs prone to disease outbreaks. In order to avoid inbreeding, the Ugandan government came up with artificial insemination. They selected boars with high-quality genes, collected their sperm, and sent the sperm to pig farms across the country to inseminate sows.

Pigs on a pig farm | Guido Gerding / Wikimedia Commons

But here comes the problem - sperm can only survive about 4 hours outside the boar's body. How can we deliver them to a distant farm before they die?

This is where coconut water comes in! Coconut water is rich in sodium and potassium, which helps keep sperm alive. If sperm is stored in coconut water, the life span of sperm is 24 times longer than normal, and it can survive for about 96 hours. In this way, fresh sperm can safely reach the pig farm and enter the sow through artificial insemination.

Coconut itself didn't expect it｜Crisco 1492 / Wikimedia Commons

However, to get the program off the ground, farmers still need to receive special training on artificial insemination. Coconut water is almost readily available in the area, but to extract coconut water for sperm preservation, farmers also need to master sterilization technology. Researchers believe that once the program is implemented, pork production will be increased, which will help to cope with food shortages caused by overpopulation and climate change.

While mating, the frog died

One day 45 million years ago, frogs were mating in a swamp. They had no idea that this would be the last moment of their lives.

Thousands of fossils of plants and animals have been found in the swamps of Gesert, Germany, including hundreds of frogs. Recent bone studies have found that these frogs were healthy when they died, with no signs of predators or scavengers on their bones, and they did not die because the swamps dried up or were washed away by floods.

So what was the real cause of their death?

A very complete frog skeleton | D.Falk

Researchers have found that most of these fossilized frogs lived on land and only returned to the water to mate. For frogs, this swamp represents both the temptation from the opposite sex and the danger of death - they may drown and suffocate during mating. The frogs that died while mating in the water were eventually frozen in the fossils.

A well-preserved frog skeleton found in Gessert, Germany. The frog may have died while mating in a swamp and was broken in two by the current at the bottom of the lake | D.Falk

In fact, modern frogs can also die during mating, and female frogs are more likely to drown because they are often pressed underwater by one or more male frogs. The appearance of these fossils shows that the mating behavior of modern frogs was formed in ancient times and has existed for at least 45 million years.

Victoria amazonica: Bigger than bigger

Recently, scientists discovered the world's largest water lily species, with leaves that can grow to more than 3 meters wide and can even carry the weight of an adult male.

Giant water lilies in Bolivia | Carlos Magdalena

The new species was named "Victoria boliviana" and belongs to the genus Victoria of the Nymphaeaceae family. This genus was named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Previously, there were only two species, Amazon Victoria and Cruz Victoria, both of which have leaves with a diameter of at least one meter.

This discovery was attributed to the "eagle eyes" of Carlos Magdalena, a world expert on water lilies. In 2006, he saw a photo of a giant water lily on the Internet and was convinced that it was a new species that had never been described. From then on, he has been carefully examining every photo of wild water lilies, hoping to find more information about the new species. Finally, 10 years later, the Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK received giant water lily seeds from Bolivia. Carlos planted the seeds side by side with two other known Victoria lilies - when they gradually grew slightly different structures, he was finally able to determine that this seed was the new species he had been dreaming of.

Carlos Magdalena (left) and botanical artist and illustrator Lucy Smith (right) hold leaves of Bolivian Amazonica in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew Gardens in London, England | RBG KEW

Victoria regia only blooms at night, and Carlos and his illustrator often stayed up all night in the botanical garden to draw scientific illustrations of water lilies. Coincidentally, one night, they discovered that a Victoria regia plant in Kew Gardens actually had flowers very similar to the new species. This Victoria regia plant was collected from Bolivia 177 years ago, and people had always thought it was the Amazon Victoria regia. Unexpectedly, the new species he had been searching for for more than a decade was right before his eyes.

Bolivian Victoria amazonica flowers | Lucy Smith

Snacks in the sea: Sperm whale nose

The popular snack in the ancient shark world turned out to be the nose of the sperm whale!

Scientists have found many bite marks left by sharks on whale skulls dating back 23 million to 5.3 million years ago, including the extinct megalodon, as well as the great white shark and sand shark that still exist today. These bite marks have one thing in common: they are all located on the forehead and nose of the skull.

Left (a), right (b) and dorsal (c) views of a cetacean skull with markings representing shark bites | Aldo Benites-Palomino et al, 2022

Scientists compared these skulls with those of modern sperm whales and found that the bite marks corresponded to a huge fat body that stored a large amount of whale oil. This fat body can be used to detect echoes, locate prey, and allow whales to adjust buoyancy faster and control ascent and descent. However, for sharks, this bulky fat body is equivalent to a greasy, sweet and delicious snack.

The sperm whale's head looks huge and bulky because of the large amount of whale oil inside. | Gabriel Barathieu / Wikimedia Commons

The bite marks show how much sharks love to eat sperm whales' noses. Among the six whale skulls, the most shark bite marks were 18, and the shapes were diverse, coming from different species of sharks. We can imagine that millions to tens of millions of years ago, sharks were lining up to take a bite of sperm whales' noses.

However, modern sharks no longer seem to be so keen on sperm whales. Their diet is much richer, including birds, turtles and even humpback whale carcasses. Next, scientists will study what made sharks change their diet.

Hairy crab

In Australia, scientists discovered a hairy crab.

A new species of hairy crab | Colin McLay/Courtesy of the WA Museum

The crab is named Lamarckdromia beagle after the HMS Beagle, the ship Darwin sailed on when he first arrived in Australia. The crab is covered in dense bristles, which are longer and fluffier than those of its closest relatives. Researchers speculate that the furry appearance makes its outline look more blurred, which helps it hide.

But that's not their only camouflage. They belong to the Dromiidae family, a family that adorns itself with sponges. They use their pincers to trim the sponge into a shape that fits them and then attach it to their shells like a hat. The sponge grows with the crabs, providing them with camouflage and chemical protection - the sponge may secrete some toxic substances that prevent predators from eating the crabs.

Crab holding a sponge | Colin McLay/Courtesy of the WA Museum

Ocean Serial Murders

In the waters near Gansbaai, South Africa, there is a horror legend of serial murders.

The victims were not humans, but eight great white sharks. These predators, which should have dominated the ocean, died tragically: their bodies washed ashore with huge lacerations on their chests and abdomens, their fat-rich livers eaten clean, and sometimes even their hearts.

Researchers examine a great white shark carcass that washed up on the coast | Marine Dynamics/ Dyer Island Conservation Trust

Autopsies and observation records show that the killers of this series of incidents are two male killer whales, who have frequently appeared in this area since 2015. People can easily recognize this pair of killer whales because they happen to have curved and collapsed dorsal fins. According to the different bending directions of the dorsal fins, people named the killers "Port" and "Starboard".

Recently, researchers published a five-and-a-half-year observation record of this serial murder in the ocean. It is not uncommon for killer whales to prey on sharks, but what is special about this case is that the two brutal killer whales had a rapid and significant impact on the local ecology. Acoustic tag tracking showed that after the murder, the number of great white sharks in the area dropped sharply, and the escaped sharks may not return until several months later.

References

[1] https://www.livescience.com/coconut-water-pig-insemination

[2] https://phys.org/news/2022-07-ancient-swamp-sex-death-fossil.html

[3] https://phys.org/news/2022-07-botanical-world-giant-waterlily-grown.html

[4] https://www.livescience.com/ancient-sharks-bit-whale-noses

[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30802-w

[6]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2989/1814232X.2022.2066723

Author: Maotun, Window knocking rain, Mai Mai

Editor: Mai Mai, Rain Knocking on the Window

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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