Grasshopper "daughter kingdom": only females, can give birth to offspring, and live well | Nature Trumpet

Welcome to the 10th issue of the Nature Trumpet column. In the past half month, we have collected these fun and interesting natural news and research:

1) The injured mother loggerhead turtle successfully laid eggs

2) Dolphins recognize their own identity by drinking urine

3) Ugly animals are actually very precious

4) The largest plant in the world is actually a seaweed

5) Grasshoppers live well without sex

6) The Nightlife of Darwin’s Finch: Hurrying to Sleep on a Large Dormitory Bed

Injured loggerhead turtle mother

Recently, the Miami Zoo admitted an injured loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta), and when the veterinarian was preparing to treat it, he discovered that it was pregnant!

Baymax recovering from surgery | Ron Magill / Zoo Miami

The loggerhead turtle was named Baymax after Baymax in Big Hero 6. It is about 50 years old and weighs 176 kg. It lost its left fin due to a shark attack, but an examination revealed that it had been hit by a boat before and had been attacked by other sharks.

Before treatment, veterinarians had to help Dabai give birth. They prepared squid and crabs as food, set up a birthing area filled with sand, and used calcium and oxytocin to stimulate labor. Dabai laid more than 100 eggs, which were sent to a sea turtle conservation project and will be hatched in an artificial nest.

Real egg extraction: Veterinarian carefully removes turtle eggs from the body of a white turtle (slide to see a close-up of the egg extraction)｜Ron Magill / Zoo Miami

After giving birth, Dabai was able to receive formal treatment. During the 7-hour operation, her exposed bones were removed, and her wounds were cleaned and treated. In the following weeks, veterinarians will closely monitor her recovery, and she can return to the wild after she regains her health. Coincidentally, the hospital where Dabai was admitted was recently allowed to treat injured or sick turtles, and Dabai was the first turtle they rescued.

Surgery in progress | Ron Magill / Zoo Miami

Dolphins drink urine to recognize other dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) can tell one another apart by tasting their urine, the first evidence that animals can tell one another apart using taste alone.

In addition to sound, bottlenose dolphins also recognize each other through taste cues | pixabay

This is a study published in Science Advances. The researchers collected urine from different dolphins, added the urine samples to the water in front of the test dolphins, and observed their reactions. The results showed that the dolphins seemed to be particularly interested in the urine of familiar companions: they opened their mouths and carefully identified the seawater mixed with familiar urine, and spent much more time "tasting" unfamiliar urine or clean water. If the iconic sound of the owner of the urine (dolphin) was played while adding urine, it would attract the attention of the test dolphins.

Dolphins lack a complete olfactory system, and their nasal cavity is separated from their oropharynx, so the researchers believe that they are distinguishing the taste of urine rather than the smell. The researchers speculate that the dolphins may be identifying the protein or lipid components in the urine.

Ugly animals are actually very precious

Don’t just focus on the good-looking animals, the “ugly” ones are important too!

What kind of fish do people think is more beautiful? Researchers conducted a survey, combining human participants with AI predictions to score the beauty of 2,417 common coral fish species. The results showed that fish with monotonous patterns and narrow bodies tend to get low scores; species with bright colors and round bodies often score the highest and are the most recognized beautiful fish.

The more red dots on the left side of the graph, the higher the beauty score, and the more blue dots on the right side, the lower the score. The method of this study is also very interesting: first, about 13,000 participants were asked to rate 481 photos of coral fish; then, based on the rating results, AI was used to generate rating predictions for the other 4,400 photos. | References [2]

However, the fish that look more pleasing to the eye are surprisingly mediocre in terms of ecological characteristics and evolutionary history. In contrast, the fish listed as "threatened" by the IUCN, as well as the most ecologically and evolutionarily unique species, are mostly low-scoring fish that people do not think are beautiful. Moreover, in fisheries, these ugly fish have higher commercial value.

One of the highest-rated fish species, the spotted silvertail (Synchiropus splendidus), lives among the reefs | Rick D. Stuart Smith

People's aesthetic preferences for fish are caused by the way the brain processes colors and patterns, but this has inadvertently affected the ecological protection of fish. Researchers believe that the aesthetic value, ecological function and population vulnerability of coral fish are very mismatched. This means that the species that are most important and most in need of protection in the ecosystem are easily overlooked because of their ugly appearance, and they cannot get enough protection. Next time, when you are attracted by beautiful animals, don't forget those ugly animals, they may need your and my care more.

The largest plant - seaweed

Scientists have discovered the world's largest plant - a hybrid seaweed.

The largest plant: a field of seagrass clones | Rachel Austin

There is a large area of ​​seaweed growing in Shark Bay in Western Australia. To find out how many plants there are here, scientists collected hundreds of samples at 10 locations and tested their DNA. Unexpectedly, the results of samples from 9 of the locations were very consistent - they were the same seaweed, spreading over about 200 square kilometers! What's even more amazing is that while ordinary seaweeds only have 20 chromosomes, this one has 40.

Scientists speculate that this seaweed is a hybrid of Posidonia australis and another unknown seaweed of the same genus. Offspring generally only retain half of the chromosomes of both parents, but this seaweed retains all the chromosomes of the parents, becoming a polyploid. Polyploid organisms are usually infertile, and scientists have also observed that although this seaweed will bloom, it will hardly bear fruit. But it will clone itself, growing new roots and stems from underground stems. These clones theoretically belong to the same plant, making it the largest plant to date (the giant sequoia, which can only compete as a single plant, is very hurt).

Seaweed Blooms | Angela Rossen

Scientists estimate that this seaweed is 4,500 years old based on its growth rate. Generally speaking, the inability to reproduce sexually will reduce genetic diversity and be detrimental to the survival and reproduction of organisms, but this seaweed is very adaptable. Researchers speculate that it may have some somatic mutations that allow it to adapt to the environment in different locations.

Grasshoppers without sex lives

Most animals are made up of males and females, but in Australia, there lives a magical kind of grasshopper - they only have females, yet they can still produce offspring. It can be said to be the daughter kingdom of the grasshopper world!

That's it! | Michael Kearney

Initially, the species was discovered by the young son of the famous biologist Michael White. He searched everywhere but could only find female individuals, and the males were nowhere to be found. Later, the species was officially named Warramaba virgo, which belongs to the "grasshopper" among grasshoppers; the specific epithet "virgo" means Virgo, indicating that the members of this species are all female.

After 18 years of research, scientists finally solved the mystery - 250,000 years ago, two sexually reproducing grasshoppers hybridized to form W. virgo, and since then, they have only relied on parthenogenesis to produce offspring. Generally speaking, parthenogenesis is not conducive to species reproduction. The genes of the offspring are exactly the same as those of the mother, and they may not be able to adapt to the drastic changes in the environment; harmful mutations in the genes may also gradually accumulate, reducing the survival ability of the offspring. But what surprised scientists is that the daughter grasshoppers who gave up their sex life are living a good life!

In the middle is W. virgo, with its sexually reproducing parent species, W. flavolineata, and W. whitei, on the left and right, respectively. Both parent species are still alive today. | Michael Kearney

Scientists compared their genes with those of the two parent species and found that there was almost no variation. This made them almost the same as their parents in physiological characteristics such as metabolic rate, number of eggs laid, and lifespan. They had no advantages, but it also ensured that they were unlikely to become extinct due to the accumulation of harmful mutations. They avoided the disadvantages of parthenogenesis and also enjoyed the benefits of parthenogenesis - they did not need to mate to produce offspring, and the cost of reproduction was greatly reduced. As a result, they were able to spread all the way from western Australia to the east, and lived more successfully than the two sexually reproducing parent species.

Darwin's finches' secret base

Recently, scientists discovered a secret of Darwin's finches: they travel thousands of miles at night just to sleep in a large bunk bed!

The secret was revealed by the electronic backpack that scientists installed on Darwin's finches. This device weighs only 0.5 grams and can track the daily whereabouts of the finches. They tracked them for three weeks and found that the finches flew over an area of ​​200,000 square meters every day, equivalent to 30 football fields; however, they were basically active near the nest during the day - the females were basically concentrating on incubating eggs, and the males were frantically searching for nesting materials most of the time, but the search range would not leave the nest more than 100 meters. So, how do they "brush mileage"?

The bird involved in this experiment is a species of Darwin's finch - the middle ground finch (Geospiza fortis) | Andrew Hendry

The secret activity takes place after sunset. At this time, the ground finches leave their breeding territory and fly overnight, with a flight distance four times that of the daytime. Nearly a thousand ground finches have the same destination - a grove of Hippomane mancinella trees on the seaside. When they arrive at this secret base, the ground finches sleep together on a large bunk bed.

The leaves and fruit of the manchineel tree, also known as the "beach apple" or "poison apple" in English, are highly toxic throughout the tree. | Hans Hillewaert / Wikimedia Commons

The "nocturnal life" of Darwin's finches is a heresy among birds. On the one hand, unless they build nests in groups like penguins, birds rarely gather to rest during the peak breeding season; on the other hand, birds sleep together to keep out the cold and increase their vigilance against predators, but Darwin's finches live in the Galapagos Islands close to the equator, where the temperature is suitable and predators are scarce, so they don't seem to need to do so. Scientists believe that this behavior may not be the result of adaptation to the current environment, but a habit inherited from their ancestors who lived on the mainland.

References

[1] https://phys.org/news/2022-06-sea-turtle-eggs-surgery-shark.html

[2] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm7684

[3] https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001640

[4] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.0538

[5] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm1072

[6] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.8768

Author: Maotun, Chuangqiaoyu, Maimai

Editor: Mai Mai, Window Knocking Rain

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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