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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences
Characterization Of Antimicrobial Properties Of Excrement And Functional Microbiome Of Black Vultures (Coragyps Atratus), Bridgette Gray
Characterization Of Antimicrobial Properties Of Excrement And Functional Microbiome Of Black Vultures (Coragyps Atratus), Bridgette Gray
Theses
Black vultures, Coragyps atratus, are obligate scavenging birds that consume and dispose of decaying carcasses and carrion. They fulfill a key ecological niche in the environments in which they live. It has been observed that these vultures sometimes excrete bodily waste onto their legs. This adaptive behavior could help aid them in controlling bacteria and other microbes they encounter while stepping into a carcass to eat. This study directly examined the antimicrobial properties of the excrement of black vultures across various bacterial species utilizing a zone of inhibition test and a nematode species utilizing a survival assay. The black vulture …
Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate
Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate
Animal Sentience
Plants may produce fascinating behavioural phenomena for which the label ‘cognitive process’ may be applicable, at least by some definitions. Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (2023) base their hypothesis that plants might be sentient on the premise of demonstrated presence of cognitive complexity. However, the way phenomena are ascribed, and how the term ‘cognitive’ is used by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo, deviates from the common practice in studies of animal cognition, implying greater complexity than seems justified. It thus provides a questionable basis for attributing sentience to plants.
Getting To The Other Side, Debra Merskin
Getting To The Other Side, Debra Merskin
Animal Sentience
Marino’s comprehensive, detailed, and timely review provides clear evidence of the sentience of chickens and strong support for those wishing to challenge their exclusion from even the limited protections currently accorded to animals grown for food.
Benefits Of Size Dimorphism And Copulatory Silk Wrapping In The Sexually Cannibalistic Nursery Web Spider, Pisaurina Mira, Alissa G. Anderson, Eileen Hebets
Benefits Of Size Dimorphism And Copulatory Silk Wrapping In The Sexually Cannibalistic Nursery Web Spider, Pisaurina Mira, Alissa G. Anderson, Eileen Hebets
Eileen Hebets Publications
In sexually cannibalistic animals, male fitness is influenced not only by successful mate acquisition and egg fertilization, but also by avoiding being eaten. In the cannibalistic nursery web spider, Pisaurina mira, the legs of mature males are longer in relation to their body size than those of females, and males use these legs to aid in wrapping a female’s legs with silk prior to and during copulation. We hypothesized that elongated male legs and silk wrapping provide benefits to males, in part through a reduced likelihood of sexual cannibalism. To test this, we paired females of random size with …
Should Fish Feel Pain? A Plant Perspective, František Baluška
Should Fish Feel Pain? A Plant Perspective, František Baluška
Animal Sentience
Key (2016) claims fish that fish do not feel pain because they lack the necessary neuronal architecture: their responses to noxious stimuli, according to Key, are executed automatically without any feelings. However, as pointed out by many of his commentators, this conclusion is not convincing. Plants might provide some clues. Plants are not usually thought to be very active behaviorally, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Moreover, in stressful situations, plants produce numerous chemicals that have painkilling and anesthetic properties. Finally, plants, when treated with anesthetics, cannot execute active behaviors such as touch-induced leaf movements or rapid trap closures after localizing …
Prey Capture Behavior In The East African Scorpions Parabuthus Leiosoma (Ehrenberg, 1828) And P. Pallidus Pocock, 1895 (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Jan O. Rein
Euscorpius
Prey capture behavior in Parabuthus leiosoma (Ehrenberg, 1828) and P. pallidus Pocock, 1895 was studied in the laboratory. The behavioral components involved in prey capture were identified and an ethogram is presented. The occurrence of the different prey capture components are analyzed and discussed.
Striped Plateau Lizards (Sceloporus Virgatus) Do Not Exhibit Behavioral Syndromes In Exploratory And Anti-Predator Contexts, Alisa Wallace
Striped Plateau Lizards (Sceloporus Virgatus) Do Not Exhibit Behavioral Syndromes In Exploratory And Anti-Predator Contexts, Alisa Wallace
Summer Research
Some animals exhibit certain behavior types consistently between contexts and/or across time. This phenomenon is known as a behavioral syndrome, or personality. Behavioral syndromes have important evolutionary implications because there are times when consistently behaving in a particular way results in fitness constraints, and we are still trying to understand why some animals have them but others don’t. For my work, I sought to determine whether the striped plateau lizard (Sceloporus virgatus), a small lizard native to the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, demonstrated behavioral syndromes. I collected 14 male lizards and observed their responses to three behavioral assays: …