Because of their strange appearance, Nepenthes are being picked crazily! | Nature Trumpet

Welcome to the 9th issue of the Nature Trumpet column. In the past half month, we have collected these interesting natural news and research:

1) Pitcher plant: looks like a penis, dangerous!

2) Humpback whales: a buffet of more than 100 sharks

3) Grand Parade: 5,219 penguins come ashore

4) Octopus Mother: Why did she commit suicide?

5) Be polite when talking to animals

6) Dolphins: Have unique skin care secrets

Nepenthes in danger

Recently, two types of carnivorous plants have been picked crazily by tourists and taken photos to show off, simply because - they look like penises!

Boko Pitcher Plant: We look very decent, it's just that you have too much imagination | Vietnam Daily

They are Nepenthes bokorensis and Nepenthes holdenii, both endemic to Cambodia, and they survive in low-nutrient soils by trapping and digesting insects for nutrition.

The part that looks like a penis is the insect trap of the pitcher plant, which emits a sweet smell like candy and secretes nectar at the mouth of the pitcher. These are fatal temptations for insects - if insects are attracted and accidentally fall into the trap, they will be killed immediately by digestive juices, and the hungry plants will drain the nutrients from them.

The pitcher plant opens its insect trap, waiting for insects to come, not humans | nkdnews

However, due to land expansion and tourism development, the natural habitat of Boko Nepenthes has been greatly reduced. If tourists pick them in large numbers for the sake of curiosity, they may be driven to extinction.

On May 11, the Cambodian Ministry of Environment issued a statement thanking everyone for their love of nature and asking everyone not to pick these rare plants. François Mey, who studies these two pitcher plants, believes: "If people are interested in them - even if they think they are interesting, they can pose for pictures and take pictures with the plants, but don't pick the insect traps. This will weaken the plants, and the plants need insect traps to get food."

Humpback whales become a buffet for sharks

A dead humpback whale drifting on the sea turned out to be a feast for more than 100 sharks!

In Australia, two tourists used a drone to capture the scene of sharks dining - the floating humpback whale carcass was about 15 meters long, with at least 60 sharks gathered around it, and more sharks "waiting in line for meals" on the periphery.

When cetaceans die, their bodies fill with gas as they decay, allowing them to float to the surface, where they become a feast for sharks and seabirds. But for these large animals, this is just the beginning of a long decomposition process. As the gas is expelled, the carcass gradually sinks, providing food for dozens of marine creatures living at different depths. The carcass eventually reaches the seafloor, known as a "whale fall."

Whale bones found by researchers on the ocean floor | NOAA's Undersea Research Program / Wikimedia Commons

Once at the bottom of the ocean, the remaining meat on whales will be stripped off by animals such as octopuses and crabs, and the skeletons will be slowly devoured by microorganisms. This process may take more than ten years. Even if whales die, they still "live" in the ecosystem for a long time after death and support thousands of lives.

Penguin Parade

On the evening of May 3, Australia's Phillip Island welcomed a "Penguin Parade", with 5,219 penguins rushing ashore!

Go! | Phillip Island Nature Parks

This is the little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor), the smallest penguin in the world, less than 40 cm tall, and not the classic black and white penguin color scheme, but blue and white. They feed in the sea during the day and swim back to the shore at dusk to return to their nests on the shore, which is locally known as the "Penguin Parade".

This famous photo of two widowed penguins cuddling each other is also a little blue penguin｜Tobias Baumgaertner

In order to count how many penguins come ashore every night, park rangers are stationed at four main penguin "highways" - fixed routes where penguins come ashore in groups. However, this night, the rangers were almost blinded by the number: "More than 5,000 penguins surfaced in less than an hour, and we couldn't believe our eyes."

The number of penguins that came ashore that night broke the record set since 1960. What's even more surprising is that starting in May, 3,000 to 5,000 penguins came ashore every night, as if there was a large penguin party every night.

Penguin Parade (not from this parade) | WWF-Australia / YouTube

The penguin parade usually takes place in November and December, which is the peak breeding season for penguins. Why did a large-scale penguin parade take place in May? Administrators believe that on the one hand, due to this year's La Niña event, food near the coast has become more abundant, and penguins can prey on small fish in coastal waters - the food is closer to the shore, and "commuting" is more convenient, as they can go ashore and return to their nests every night. On the other hand, with the efforts of people, the penguin habitat on the island has been continuously improved. Some penguins may have begun to try to reproduce outside the peak mating season, so the May parade appeared.

Suicidal mother octopus

Octopus mothers are notoriously hard-working in the animal kingdom. After laying eggs, they will continue to take care of their offspring, but when the eggs are about to hatch, most octopus mothers begin to commit suicide: they will go on a hunger strike, leave their children, hit themselves with stones, tear their skin, and even eat their own arms.

The California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) was the subject of this study｜Tom Kleindinst / Marine Biological Laboratory

No one knows why mother octopuses commit suicide. Researchers have given several guesses: It may be that the mother octopus attracts the attention of predators through dramatic death to protect her unborn child; it may be that the nutrients produced by the mother's body after death can provide nutrition for the child; the most likely possibility is that the octopuses may eat each other's children, and the suicide of the elders protects the next generation of the group.

Although the purpose of suicide is still unclear, scientists have discovered a key part - the optic gland. This is a group of glands located near the eyes of octopuses, which directly determine whether the mother octopus commits suicide. If the nerves of the optic gland are cut off, the mother octopus will stop self-destruction, abandon the eggs she laid, and start eating again, so that they can live for another 4 to 6 months - while female octopuses generally only live about a year.

Octopus protecting its eggs | VCG Photo

After the octopus mother lays eggs, in addition to normal changes in sex hormones, the optic gland will produce more 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC) and bile acid components. Excessive 7-DHC can cause self-harm and antisocial behavior in humans, and the crazy self-destruction of the octopus mother may be related to it. Substances similar to bile acids can control the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans. Scientists speculate that bile acid components also affect the lifespan of octopus mothers.

Talk to animals

Even if they can’t understand a word, animals can understand the emotions in human language!

I can't understand what you're saying, but I can tell if it's good or bad! | DavidJRasp / Wikimedia Commons

The scientists used speakers to play human voices to the animals. In order to prevent domestic animals from responding to specific words, they hired professional voice actors to read a bunch of meaningless gibberish with positive and negative emotions.

The results showed that wild horses in Asia, as well as domesticated pigs and horses, can respond differently to sounds of different emotions - specifically, their body movements and ear positions change differently when facing sounds of different emotions. If humans speak with negative emotions, they will become irritable and react strongly; if they communicate with positive and friendly voices, they will be calmer.

Researchers conducting analysis | Kristian Bjørn-Hansen

Scientists believe that our voices have a direct impact on the emotional state of animals, and that there may be "emotional contagion" between animals and humans. This discovery is also very practical for animal welfare. If people who need to work with animals often speak to them in a gentle and friendly tone, it may be able to directly improve the lives of animals and make them more relaxed and healthier.

Dolphin's Skin Care Secrets

How to keep skin healthy and smooth? The dolphin's answer is: rub it against corals often.

Thirteen years ago, biologist Angela Ziltener first observed Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) rubbing coral in the northern Red Sea. Not only did the dolphins rub against the coral in groups, but they also seemed to carefully select the types of coral.

Dolphins also often suffer from skin problems. This picture shows a dolphin with a fungal infection on its dorsal fin. | Angela Ziltener

Through years of diving observations and sampling and analysis of rubbed corals, researchers have discovered the reason behind this behavior: dolphins may be using corals to fight skin infections. The disturbance of dolphins prompts coral polyps to release mucus, which contains a variety of antibacterial active substances, and repeated rubbing of corals can transfer these substances to the dolphin's body surface.

References

[1] https://www.livescience.com/carnivorous-penis-pitcher-plant-picked

[2] https://www.livescience.com/vortex-of-sharks-devour-whale-carcass

[3] https://www.livescience.com/record-breaking-penguin-parade-australia

[4] https://www.livescience.com/why-octopus-moms-self-destruct

[5] https://phys.org/news/2022-05-case-politely-animals.html

[6] https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(22)00541-7

Author: Cat Tun, Window Knocking Rain

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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