Does Social Status Change Brains?

A reposting of an original article in The Scorpion and the Frog.

Photo by The Grappling Source Inc.
at Wikimedia Commons

Being subordinated is stressful. The process of one individual lowering the social rank of another often involves physical aggression, aggressive displays, and exclusion. In addition to the obvious possible costs of being subordinated (like getting beat up), subordinated individuals often undergo physiological changes to their hormonal systems and brains. Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? But what if some of those changes are beneficial in some ways?

Dominance hierarchies are a fact of life across the animal kingdom. In a social group, everyone can’t be dominant (otherwise, life would always be like an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, and what could possibly be more stressful than that?). Living in a social group is more peaceful and nutritive when a clear dominance hierarchy is established.

Establishing that hierarchy often involves a relatively short aggressive phase of jostling for position, followed by a longer more stable phase once everyone knows where they fall in the social group. Established dominance hierarchies are not always stable (they can change over time or from moment to moment) and they are not always linear (for example, Ben can be dominant over Chris, who is dominant over David, who is dominant over Ben). But they do generally help reduce conflict and the risk of physical injury overall.

Nonetheless, it can be stressful to be on the subordinate end of a dominance hierarchy and these social interactions are known to cause physiological changes. Researchers Christina Sørensen and Göran Nilsson from the University of Oslo, Cliff Summers from the University of South Dakota and Øyvind Øverli from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences investigated some of these physiological differences among isolated, dominant, and subordinate rainbow trout.

A photo of a rainbow trout by Ken Hammond at the USDA.
Photo at Wikimedia Commons.

Like other salmonid fish, rainbow trout are aggressive, territorial and develop social hierarchies as juveniles. Dominant trout tend to initiate most of the aggressive acts, hog food resources, grow larger, and reproduce the most, whereas subordinate trout display less aggression, feeding, growth, and reproduction. The researchers recorded the behavior, feeding and growth rates in three groups of fish: trout housed alone, trout housed with a more subordinate trout, and trout housed with a more dominant trout. The researchers also measured cortisol (a hormone involved in stress responses), serotonin (a neurotransmitter involved in mood, the perception of food availability, and the perception of social rank, among other things) and the development of new neurons (called neurogenesis) in these same fish.

This video of two juvenile rainbow trout was taken by Dr. Erik Höglund. Here is Christina Sørensen’s description of the video: “What you see in the film is two juvenile rainbow trout who have been housed on each side of a dividing wall in a small aquarium. The dividing wall has been removed (for the first time) immediately before filming. You will see that the fish initially show interest for each other, followed by a typical display behaviour, where they circle each other. Finally one of the fish will initiate aggression by biting the other. First the aggression is bidirectional, as they fight for dominance, but after a while, one of the fish withdraws from further aggression and shows only submissive behaviour (escaping from the dominant and in the long run trying to hide... and as is described in the paper, depressed feed intake). The video has been cut to show in quick succession these four stages of development of the dominance hierarchy”.

The researchers found that as expected, the dominant trout were aggressive when a pair was first placed together, but the aggression subsided after about 3 days. Also as expected, the dominant and isolated trout were bold feeders with low cortisol levels and high growth rates, whereas the subordinate trout did not feed as well, had high cortisol levels and low growth rates. Additionally, the subordinate trout had higher serotonin activity levels and less neurogenesis than the dominant or isolated trout. These results suggest that the subordination experience causes significant changes to trout brain development (Although we can’t rule out the possibility that fish with more serotonin and less neurogenesis are predisposed to be subordinate). In either case, this sounds like bad news for subordinate brains, right? Maybe it is. Or maybe the decrease in neurogenesis just reflects the decrease in overall growth rates (smaller bodies need smaller brains). Or maybe something about the development of these subordinate brains improves the chances that these individuals will survive and reproduce in their subordination.

A crayfish raising its claws. Image by Duloup at Wikimedia.

Research on dominance in crayfish by Fadi Issa, Joanne Drummond, and Don Edwards at Georgia State University and Daniel Cattaert at the University of Bordeaux helps shed light on this third possibility. Crayfish (which are actually not fish at all, but are freshwater crustaceans that look like small lobsters) form long-lasting and stable social hierarchies. If you poke a crayfish in the side, an isolated or dominant crayfish will turn towards whatever poked it and raise its posture and claws to confront it; A subordinate crayfish will do one of two maneuvers that involves lowering the posture and backing away from whatever poked it. Furthermore, dominant and subordinate crayfish have different neuronal activity patterns in response to being poked, and part of this difference involves differences in the activity of serotonergic neurons.

It appears that the brains of dominant and subordinate individuals function differently and part of this difference involves serotonin. This may help dominant animals to continue to behave in a dominant fashion and subordinate individuals to continue to behave in a subordinate fashion, thereby preserving the peace for the whole social group.

Want to know more? Check these out:

1. Sørensen, C., Nilsson, G., Summers, C., & Øverli, �. (2012). Social stress reduces forebrain cell proliferation in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Behavioural Brain Research, 227 (2), 311-318 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2011.01.041

2. Issa, F., Drummond, J., Cattaert, D., & Edwards, D. (2012). Neural Circuit Reconfiguration by Social Status Journal of Neuroscience, 32 (16), 5638-5645 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5668-11.2012

3. Yeh, S., Fricke, R., & Edwards, D. (1996). The Effect of Social Experience on Serotonergic Modulation of the Escape Circuit of Crayfish Science, 271 (5247), 366-369 DOI: 10.1126/science.271.5247.366

4. Issa, F., & Edwards, D. (2006). Ritualized Submission and the Reduction of Aggression in an Invertebrate Current Biology, 16 (22), 2217-2221 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2006.08.065

One of These Sharks is Not Like the Others (A Guest Post)

By Emily Masterton

When you think of a shark, what usually comes to your mind? Big teeth and the beach, right? Well, that’s not how the Greenland shark likes to live at all. Like the name denotes, this shark prefers cold waters and depths that would kill most sharks and people. The Greenland shark is mostly restricted to the waters of the far North Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean, which range from 34 – 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The Greenland shark has also been recorded diving down to depths ranging from 0 – 4000 feet. To put that in perspective, that’s equal to 3.2 Empire State Buildings stacked on top of each other!

Picture of a Greenland shark in the Admiralty Inlet, Nunavut.
Image by Hemming 1952 at Wikimedia Commons.

The Greenland shark is able to survive in this harsh environment because of the shark's high levels of nitrogenous waste products (any metabolic waste product that contains nitrogen) in their tissues. The nitrogenous waste products that are found in the Greenland shark are urea and trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). These chemicals help the shark maintain their osmotic balance (the movement of water across cells) in this very salty environment. This osmotic balance is important for the body to function and keep water and salt in balance in the cells.

TMAO and urea act as a type of anti-freeze that keeps the cells from freezing and developing ice crystals. The TMAO and urea work by preventing ice crystals from forming in the shark’s cells. They work by lowering the freezing point of water in the cells and by binding to ice crystals and preventing them from forming or growing. This protects the cells from denaturing due to the extreme pressure from the depths the shark dives at. If there were no TMAO and urea in the shark, then ice crystals could form and break cell walls, which could result in tissue and organ damage, then death.

This figure shows how TMAO and urea bind to the shark's protein and keep ice crystals from growing and forming. This prevents the protein from denaturing and ultimately killing the shark. Image by Emily Masterton.

While these chemicals are great for the Greenland shark, they are bad news for anyone or thing who decides to eat them. TMAO and urea are very toxic. The Greenland shark has the most toxic skin among all sharks and even made it to the Guinness World Records in 2013 for this level of toxicity. If you were to eat the skin of a Greenland shark without preparing it right, you will have symptoms similar to being extremely drunk.

Greenland shark meat is eaten in Iceland in a dish called Hákarl. The shark’s meat must be prepared a certain way so that the TMAO and urea are no longer present in the meat. This is done by fermenting the meat and then drying it for 4-5 months. Once it has been dried and is ready to eat, it is often served in cubes on toothpicks in small servings.

Although these extreme conditions would kill any human being or another shark, the Greenland shark is able to survive and thrive in these conditions, thanks to the chemicals TMAO and urea. These chemicals keep ice crystals from forming in the cells of the shark and ultimately keep the shark alive. There are 465 species of sharks in the ocean, but only one can call the harsh North Atlantic Ocean and Arctic Ocean its home.


References
• Farrell, Anthony Peter, et al. Physiology of elasmobranch fishes: internal processes. Academic Press/Elsevier, 2016
• Strøksnes, Morten. “My Hunt for the 400-Year-Old Shark Whose Flesh Gets You High.” Vice, 30 June 2017
• O’Connor, M. R. “The Strange and Gruesome Story of the Greenland Shark, the Longest-Living Vertebrate on Earth.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2018
• “The Greenland Shark: An Icy Mystery.” Greenland Shark | Sharkopedia Sharkopedia
• Polar Seas: Greenland Shark

Nature's Halloween Costumes

A repost of an original article from October 23, 2013.

Image by Steve at Wikimedia Commons.

It seems like everyone is racking their brains to come up with a great Halloween costume. But we’re not the only ones to disguise ourselves as something we’re not. Many animals put on costumes just like we do. Take this gharial crocodile for example (do you see him?), covering himself in parts of his environment to hide.

Other animals, like this tawny frogmouth below, develop physical appearances that help them blend in with their surroundings. When threatened, these birds shut their eyes, erect their feathers and point their beak in such a way to match the color and texture of the tree bark.


Image by C Coverdale at Wikimedia Commons.

Rather than hide, some animals have a physical appearance to disguise themselves as other species that are often fierce, toxic or venomous. This type of mimicry is called Batesian mimicry, named after Henry Walter Bates, the English naturalist who studied butterflies in the Amazon and gave the first scientific description of animal mimicry. This plate from Bates’ 1862 paper, Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley: Heliconiidae, illustrates Batesian mimicry between various toxic butterfly species (in the second and bottom rows) and their harmless mimics (in the top and third rows).


This plate from Bates’ 1862 paper, Contributions to an Insect Fauna of
the Amazon Valley: Heliconiidae is available on Wikipedia Commons.

The bluestriped fangblenny takes its costume another step further, by changing its shape, colors, and behavior to match the company. This fish changes its colors to match other innocuous fish species that are around so it can sneak up and bite unsuspecting larger fish that would otherwise bite them back! Learn more about them here.

The fish on the far left is a juvenile cleaner wrasse in the act of cleaning another fish. The two fish in
the middle and on the right are both bluestriped fangblennies, one in its cleaner wrasse-mimicking
coloration (middle) and the other not (right). Figure from the Cheney, 2013 article in Behavioral Ecology.

But the Master of Disguise title has got to go to the mimic octopus. This animal can change its color, shape and behavior to look and behave like a wide range of creatures, including an innocuous flounder, a poisonous lionfish, or even a dangerous sea snake! Check it out in action:

Vampires!

Photo by Alejandro Lunadei at Wikimedia.

A reposting of an original article from October 19, 2015

Vampire mythologies have been around for thousands of years, terrifying the young and old alike with stories of predatory bloodsuckers that feed on our life essences. You may not believe in vampires, but they are all around us. In fact, you may have some in the room with you right now! You just don’t notice them because they are not human, or even human-like.

Vampires feed on the blood of their victims in order to sustain their own lives. This phenomenon, called hematophagy, is more common than typically occurs to us at first. Just take mosquitoes and ticks as examples. Once we’ve opened our minds to the idea of bloodthirsty arthropods, we quickly think of many more: bedbugs, sandflies, blackflies, tsetse flies, assassin bugs, lice, mites, and fleas. In fact, nearly 14,000 arthropod species are hematophages. We can expand our thoughts now to worms (like leeches), fish (such as lampreys and candirús), some mammals (vampire bats), and even some birds (vampire finches, oxpeckers, and hood mockingbirds). We’ve been surrounded by vampires our whole lives, we just never sat up to take notice!

Hematophagous animals are not as scary as mythical vampires, in part because they don’t suck their victims dry – they just take a small blood meal to sustain their tiny bodies. Hematophagy is not, in itself, lethal. However, the process of exposing and taking the blood of many individuals transmits many deadly diseases, like malaria, rabies, dengue fever, West Nile virus, bubonic plague, encephalitis, and typhus.

Because blood feeders do not kill their meals, feeding can be even more dangerous for them than for traditional predators. As a result, many hematophagous animals have developed a similar toolkit. Many have mouthparts that are specialized to work as a needle or a razor and biochemicals in their saliva that work as anticoagulants and pain killers. Their primary skill, however, is their stealth: they can sneak up on you, eat their meal, and be home for bed before you even notice the itch.

Although a few species, like assassin bugs and vampire bats, are obligatory hematophages (only eat blood), most hematophages eat other foods as well. Somehow, Dracula is not quite so intimidating when you imagine him drinking his morning fruit juice, like many mosquitoes do.

Why drink blood in the first place? Blood is a body tissue like any other, and it contains a lot of protein and a variety of sugars, fats and minerals, just like meat. However, blood is mostly water, which means that a blood meal contains less protein and calories than the same weight of meat. Because you need to consume so much more to get enough protein and calories out of a meal, large animals and animals that generate their own body heat can't usually rely on blood meals alone. So much for human-like vampires that only live off the blood of their victims.

A deadly vampire spreading malaria. Photo by the CDC available at Wikimedia.

So true vampires are everywhere, but they are small, take small blood meals, don't generally kill their hosts, and often use blood to supplement their other meals. Not so scary any more, are they? ...Although, about 3.2 billion people (about half the world's population) are at risk of contracting the deadly disease, malaria, from these bloodsuckers... so maybe you aren't scared enough. Bwaa-haha!

The Smell of Fear

A repost of an original article from October 24, 2012.

Several animals, many of them insects, crustaceans and fish, can smell when their fellow peers are scared. A kind of superpower for superwimps, this is an especially useful ability for prey species. An animal that can smell that its neighbor is scared is more likely to be able to avoid predators it hasn’t detected yet.

Who can smell when you're scared? Photo provided by Freedigitalphotos.net.

“What does fear smell like?” you ask. Pee, of course.

I mean, that has to be the answer, right? It only makes sense that the smell of someone who has had the piss scared out of them is, well… piss. But do animals use that as a cue that a predator may be lurking?

Canadian researchers Grant Brown, Christopher Jackson, Patrick Malka, Élisa Jaques, and Marc-Andre Couturier at Concordia University set out to test whether prey fish species use urea, a component of fish pee, as a warning signal.


A convict cichlid in wide-eyed
terror... Okay, fine. They're
always wide-eyed. Photo by
Dean Pemberton at Wikimedia.

First, the researchers tested the responses of convict cichlids and rainbow trout, two freshwater prey fish species, to water from tanks of fish that had been spooked by a fake predator model and to water from tanks of fish that were calm and relaxed. They found that when these fish were exposed to water from spooked fish, they behaved as if they were spooked too (they stopped feeding and moving). But when they were exposed to water from relaxed fish, they fed and moved around normally. Something in the water that the spooked fish were in was making the new fish act scared!

To find out if the fish may be responding to urea, they put one of three different concentrations of urea or just plain water into the tanks of cichlids and trout. The cichlids responded to all three doses of urea, but not the plain water, with a fear response (they stopped feeding and moving again). The trout acted fearfully when the two highest doses of urea, but not the lowest urea dose or plain water, were put in their tank. Urea seems to send a smelly signal to these prey fish to “Sit tight – Something scary this way comes”. And the more urea in the water, the scarier!

But wait a minute: Does this mean that every time a fish takes a wiz, all his buddies run and hide? That would be ridiculous. Not only do freshwater fish pee a LOT, many are also regularly releasing urea through their gills (I know, gross, right? But not nearly as gross as the fact that many cigarette companies add urea to cigarettes to add flavor).

The researchers figured that background levels of urea in the water are inevitable and should reduce fishes fear responses to urea. They put cichlids and trout in tanks with water that either had a low level of urea, a high level of urea, or no urea at all. Then they waited 30 minutes, which was enough time for the fish to calm down, move around and eat normally. Then they added an additional pulse of water, a medium dose of urea, or a high dose of urea. Generally, the more urea the fish were exposed to for the 30 minute period, the less responsive they were to the pulse of urea. Just like the scientists predicted.

A rainbow trout smells its surroundings.
Photo at Wikimedia taken by Ken Hammond at the USDA.

But we still don’t know exactly what this means. Maybe the initial dose of urea makes the fish hide at first, but later realize that there was no predator and decide to eat. Then the second pulse of urea may be seen by the fish as “crying wolf”. Alternatively, maybe the presence of urea already in the water masks the fishes’ ability to detect the second urea pulse. Or maybe both explanations are true.

Urea, which is only a small component of freshwater fish urine, is not the whole story. Urea and possibly stress hormones make up what scientists refer to as disturbance cues. Steroid hormones that are involved in stress and sexual behaviors play a role in sending smelly signals in a number of species, so it makes sense that stress hormones may be part of this fearful fish smell. But fish also rely on damage-released alarm cues and the odor of their predators to know that a predator may be near. Scientists are just starting to get a whiff of what makes up the smell of fear.

Want to know more? Check these out:

1. Brown, G.E., Jackson, C.D., Malka, P.H., Jacques, É., & Couturier, M-A. (2012). Disturbance cues in freshwater prey fishes: Does urea function as an ‘early warning cue’ in juvenile convict cichlids and rainbow trout? Current Zoology, 58 (2), 250-259

2. Chivers, D.P., Brown, G.E. & Ferrari, M.C.O. (2012). Evolution of fish alarm substances. In: Chemical Ecology in Aquatic Systems. C. Brömark and L.-A. Hansson (eds). pp 127-139. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

3. Brown, G.E., Ferrari, M.C.O. & Chivers, D.P. (2011). Learning about danger: chemical alarm cues and threat-sensitive assessment of predation risk by fishes. In: Fish Cognition and Behaviour, 2nd ed. C. Brown, K.N. Laland and J. Krause (eds). pp. 59-80, Blackwell, London.

Animal Mass Suicide and the Lemming Conspiracy

A repost of an original article from April 4, 2012.

Ticked off Norway lemming doesn't like gossip!
Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Frode Inge Helland 

We all know the story: Every few years, millions of lemmings, driven by a deep-seated urge, run and leap off a cliff only to be dashed on the rocks below and eventually drowned in the raging sea. Stupid lemmings. It’s a story with staying power: short, not-so-sweet, and to the rocky point.

But it is a LIE.

And who, you may ask, would tell us such a horrendous fabrication? Walt Disney! Well, technically not Walt Disney himself… Let me explain:

The Disney Studio first took interest in the lemming mass suicide story when, in 1955, they published an Uncle Scrooge adventure comic called “The Lemming with the Locket” illustrated by Carl Barks. In this story, Uncle Scrooge takes Huey, Dewey and Louie in search of a lemming that stole a locket containing the combination to his vault … but they have to catch the lemming before it leaps with all his buddies into the sea forever. Three years later, Disney further popularized this idea in the 1958 documentary White Wilderness, which won that year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. A scene in White Wilderness supposedly depicts a mass lemming migration in which the lemmings leap en masse into the Canadian Arctic Ocean in a futile attempt to cross it.

In 1982, the fifth estate, a television news magazine by the CBC (that’s the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), broadcast a documentary about animal cruelty in Hollywood. They revealed that the now infamous White Wilderness lemming scene was filmed on a constructed set at the Bow River in Canmore, Alberta, nowhere near the Arctic Ocean. Lemmings are not native to the area where they filmed, so they imported them from Churchill after being purchased from Inuit children for 25 cents each. To give the illusion of a mass migration, they installed a rotating turntable and filmed the few lemmings they had from multiple angles over and over again. As it turns out, the lemming species filmed (collared lemmings) are not even known to migrate (unlike some Norwegian lemmings). Worst of all, the lemmings did not voluntarily leap into the water, but were pushed by the turntable and the film crew. Oh, Uncle Walt! How could you?!


Norway lemmings really do migrate en masse, but they don't commit mass suicide.
Drawing titled Lemmings in Migration, in Popular Science Monthly Volume 11, 1877.

As far as we know, there are no species that purposely hurl themselves off cliffs to die en masse for migration. But, strangely enough, North Pacific salmon do purposely hurl themselves up cliffs to die en masse for migration. And what, you may ask, is worth such a sacrifice? Sex, of course!


Migrating sockeye salmon thinking about sex.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Joe Mabel.

The six common North Pacific salmon species are all anadromous (meaning that they are born in fresh water, spend most of their lives in the sea and return to fresh water to breed) and semelparous (meaning they only have a single reproductive event before they die). After years at sea, salmon swim sometimes thousands of miles to get to the mouth of the very same stream in which they were born. Exactly how they do this is still a mystery. Once they enter their stream, they stop eating and their stomach even begins to disintegrate to leave room for the developing eggs or sperm. Their bodies change in other ways as well, both for reproduction and to help them adapt to fresh water. They then swim upstream, sometimes thousands of miles more, and sometimes having to leap over multiple waterfalls, using up their precious energy reserves. Only the most athletic individuals even survive the journey. Once they reach the breeding grounds, the males immediately start to fight each other over breeding territories. The females arrive and begin to dig a shallow nest (called a redd) in which she releases a few thousand eggs, which are then fertilized by the male. They then move on, and if they have energy and gametes left, repeat the process with other mates, until they are completely spent. If the females have any energy left after laying all their eggs, they spend it guarding their nests. Having spent the last of their energy, they die and are washed up onto the banks of the stream.

Now that’s parental commitment! So the next time your parents start laying on the guilt about everything they’ve given up for you, share this nugget with them and remind them it could be worse…


Want to know more? Check these out:

1. Learn more about semelparity here

2. Learn more about salmon reproduction at Marine Science

3. And learn even more about salmon reproduction with this awesome post by science blogger and Aquatic and Fishery Sciences graduate student, Iris. Her current blog posts can be found here.

4. Ramsden E, & Wilson D (2010). The nature of suicide: science and the self-destructive animal. Endeavour, 34 (1), 21-4 PMID: 20144484

Why Reptiles Won't Wear Fur

A reposting of an article from September 19, 2012.

Have you ever seen a furry lizard? A fuzzy snake? A wooly turtle? Me neither. That's because a reptile in a permanent fur coat would whither like Superman with a pocket full of kryptonite. But why? Other animals are so content in their soft, luxurious layers... Why can't reptiles be?

"I wouldn't be caught dead in that fur coat you're wearing". Photo by Naypong at freedigitalphotos.net.

Animals exchange heat with their environments in four major ways: conduction, convection, radiation and evaporation:

• Conduction is when heat moves from a hotter area to a colder area across a still surface. If you stand barefoot on a cold sidewalk, the heat in your feet is going to transfer to the cooler surface of the sidewalk by conduction and you will get cooler (which is nice in the hot summer, but uncomfortable when the weather starts to get chilly). Conduction can happen when the body is in contact with a solid (like a sidewalk), a liquid (like a bath), or a gas (like the air around you).
• Convection is essentially conduction with movement, and this movement makes the transfer of heat even faster. If you are standing inside and it is 70ºF in the building, you will likely be fairly comfortable. But if you are outside on a windy 70º day, even though the environment is the same temperature, you will get colder faster.
• We are all familiar with the warming effects of the sun's radiation, but in reality, all objects give off electromagnetic radiation. Radiation within the visible spectrum we perceive as colored light, but most radiation is outside our visible range.
• Evaporation happens when water (like sweat or moist breath) converts from a liquid state to a gaseous state, taking heat away from the body. Animals are always in contact with something (like surfaces, air, or water), so conduction is always occurring.

The speed at which an animal's body heats or cools depends on the temperature difference between the animal's body and its environment. That is, in a very cold environment, an animal will cool quickly and in a very hot environment, an animal will heat up quickly, whereas in an environment that is close to the animal's body temperature, the animal will heat or cool very slowly. To put this in mathematical terms, let's call the animal's body temperature Tb and the environmental temperature Te. The bigger (Tb-Te), the faster the animal will cool. And the bigger (Te-Tb), the faster the animal will heat up. This difference between Tb and Te (in either direction) is called the driving force of heat exchange.

Imagine this circle is an animal's body, Tb is the animal's body temperature and
Te is the environmental temperature. The bigger (Tb-Te), the faster the
animal will lose heat and cool down.

This works the other way around, too.
The bigger (Te-Tb), the faster the animal will heat up.

What happens if you put fur on that animal? Now you can imagine this animal as having two separate layers, a body (with the temperature Tb) and an insulation layer (with the temperature Ti). Now for heat to be exchanged, it has to be conducted twice, once between the environment and the insulation, and again between the insulation and the animal's body. Ti is always going to be some intermediate temperature between Tb and Te and so the driving force of heat exchange will be much lower and the animal will heat up or cool down much more slowly. The thicker this insulation layer, the more stable Ti becomes and heat exchange happens even more slowly. Also, because insulation prevents movement at the body's surface, insulation layers eliminate any heat exchange at the body's surface (but not the surface of the insulation layer) by convection. (By the way, this logic also holds true if the animal has feathers or blubber or even a winter coat).


This inside circle represents an animal's body and the outside circle shows its insulation
layer. Tb is the animal's body temperature, Te is the environmental temperature and Ti is
the insulation temperature. Ti is always between Tb and Te, so the driving force of
heat exchange is reduced and the animal's body temperature does not change quickly
at all, even if the environmental temperature is extreme.

Most animals that have fur are mammals, as are most animals with blubber layers (like seals and whales) and animals that wear coats (like people and Paris Hilton purse dogs) and most animals with feathers are birds. What do these insulated mammals and birds have in common? They are endotherms. They generate most of their own body heat. This means that by slowing the exchange of heat between the animal's body and environment, the animal is provided with more time to generate heat and the insulation then helps to preserve this heat.

But reptiles (as well as amphibians and fish) are ectotherms. They get almost all of their heat from their environments. They maintain their body temperatures behaviorally, by choosing what environment to hang out in and what position to put their body in. If they are cold, they go bask in the sun to absorb radiation heat or lay on a warmed rock to absorb conducted heat. If they are hot, they lay on a cool rock in the shade to lose heat by conduction or soak in a cool stream to lose heat by convection. To maintain a relatively constant body temperature, they are constantly moving between warm and cool areas to adjust their body temperature one direction or another.

Many ectotherms rely on their ability to adjust their body temperatures quickly, and this ability depends on creating large driving forces of heat exchange. If an ectothermic reptile were to have an insulation layer, like fur, it would reduce its ability to adjust its body temperature by conduction and convection. It would lose its heat slowly and not be able to replace it fast enough. In the end, it would become too cold. It may seem paradoxical, but a lizard in a fur coat would likely die of cold-related physical issues (if not embarrassment).

Interestingly enough, just because lizards don't have fur doesn't mean they couldn't have hair. In fact, some of them do have hair, but not how you may think. Hair, fur, feathers, and scales are all made up in large part by keratin proteins. Many gecko species are well known for their wide, sticky toes that help them climb smooth, vertical surfaces (like walls). Their secret? Ultra-thin keratin hairs growing out of the geckos' feet provide a chemical adhesive force to keep the animal secured to the wall surface. So reptiles may not have a need for fur, but some of them have an innovative use for hair.

Want to know more about hairy geckos?

Autumn K, Liang YA, Hsieh ST, Zesch W, Chan WP, Kenny TW, Fearing R, & Full RJ (2000). Adhesive force of a single gecko foot-hair. Nature, 405 (6787), 681-5 PMID: 10864324

The Smell of Fear

A reposting of an article from October 24, 2012.

Several animals, many of them insects, crustaceans and fish, can smell when their fellow peers are scared. A kind of superpower for superwimps, this is an especially useful ability for prey species. An animal that can smell that its neighbor is scared is more likely to be able to avoid predators it hasn’t detected yet.

Who can smell when you're scared? Photo provided by Freedigitalphotos.net.

“What does fear smell like?” you ask. Pee, of course.

I mean, that has to be the answer, right? It only makes sense that the smell of someone who has had the piss scared out of them is, well… piss. But do animals use that as a cue that a predator may be lurking?

Canadian researchers Grant Brown, Christopher Jackson, Patrick Malka, Élisa Jaques, and Marc-Andre Couturier at Concordia University set out to test whether prey fish species use urea, a component of fish pee, as a warning signal.



A convict cichlid in wide-eyed
terror... Okay, fine. They're
always wide-eyed. Photo by
Dean Pemberton at Wikimedia.

First, the researchers tested the responses of convict cichlids and rainbow trout, two freshwater prey fish species, to water from tanks of fish that had been spooked by a fake predator model and to water from tanks of fish that were calm and relaxed. They found that when these fish were exposed to water from spooked fish, they behaved as if they were spooked too (they stopped feeding and moving). But when they were exposed to water from relaxed fish, they fed and moved around normally. Something in the water that the spooked fish were in was making the new fish act scared!

To find out if the fish may be responding to urea, they put one of three different concentrations of urea or just plain water into the tanks of cichlids and trout. The cichlids responded to all three doses of urea, but not the plain water, with a fear response (they stopped feeding and moving again). The trout acted fearfully when the two highest doses of urea, but not the lowest urea dose or plain water, were put in their tank. Urea seems to send a smelly signal to these prey fish to “Sit tight – Something scary this way comes”. And the more urea in the water, the scarier!

But wait a minute: Does this mean that every time a fish takes a wiz, all his buddies run and hide? That would be ridiculous. Not only do freshwater fish pee a LOT, many are also regularly releasing urea through their gills (I know, gross, right? But not nearly as gross as the fact that many cigarette companies add urea to cigarettes to add flavor).

The researchers figured that background levels of urea in the water are inevitable and should reduce fishes fear responses to urea. They put cichlids and trout in tanks with water that either had a low level of urea, a high level of urea, or no urea at all. Then they waited 30 minutes, which was enough time for the fish to calm down, move around and eat normally. Then they added an additional pulse of water, a medium dose of urea, or a high dose of urea. Generally, the more urea the fish were exposed to for the 30 minute period, the less responsive they were to the pulse of urea. Just like the scientists predicted.

A rainbow trout smells its surroundings.
Photo at Wikimedia taken by Ken Hammond at the USDA.

But we still don’t know exactly what this means. Maybe the initial dose of urea makes the fish hide at first, but later realize that there was no predator and decide to eat. Then the second pulse of urea may be seen by the fish as “crying wolf”. Alternatively, maybe the presence of urea already in the water masks the fishes’ ability to detect the second urea pulse. Or maybe both explanations are true.

Urea, which is only a small component of freshwater fish urine, is not the whole story. Urea and possibly stress hormones make up what scientists refer to as disturbance cues. Steroid hormones that are involved in stress and sexual behaviors play a role in sending smelly signals in a number of species, so it makes sense that stress hormones may be part of this fearful fish smell. But fish also rely on damage-released alarm cues and the odor of their predators to know that a predator may be near. Scientists are just starting to get a whiff of what makes up the smell of fear.

Want to know more? Check these out:

1. Brown, G.E., Jackson, C.D., Malka, P.H., Jacques, É., & Couturier, M-A. (2012). Disturbance cues in freshwater prey fishes: Does urea function as an ‘early warning cue’ in juvenile convict cichlids and rainbow trout? Current Zoology, 58 (2), 250-259

2. Chivers, D.P., Brown, G.E. & Ferrari, M.C.O. (2012). Evolution of fish alarm substances. In: Chemical Ecology in Aquatic Systems. C. Brömark and L.-A. Hansson (eds). pp 127-139. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

3. Brown, G.E., Ferrari, M.C.O. & Chivers, D.P. (2011). Learning about danger: chemical alarm cues and threat-sensitive assessment of predation risk by fishes. In: Fish Cognition and Behaviour, 2nd ed. C. Brown, K.N. Laland and J. Krause (eds). pp. 59-80, Blackwell, London. 3.

The Weirdest Animals on Earth: 12 Amazing Facts About Seahorses

A seahorse in all its glory. Photo by Gustavo Gerdel at Wikimedia Commons.

1. Seahorses are fish. They include about 54 different species of fish and are closely related to sea dragons and pipefish. But seahorses are not your typical fish! A baby seahorse is called a fry (like in other fish), but a group of seahorses is called a herd (like in horses).

2. Seahorses have skeletons unlike any other fish. Unlike other bony fish, seahorses have a neck, an exoskeleton, and a prehensile tail. Seahorses do not have pelvic fins, ribs or scales. Instead, their skin is stretched over a series of bony plates arranged in rings.

3. Seahorses are terrible swimmers and can die of exhaustion if the sea is rough or the current is too strong. The only fin they have to get around with it the tiny one in the middle of their back (the dorsal fin). They use even smaller pectoral fins on the sides of their head to steer. Seahorses and razorfish are the only fish to swim upright, because it is horribly inefficient. It is a good thing they have a prehensile tail to hang on to whatever is nearby.

A pygmy seahorse in camouflage.
Photo by prilfish at Wikimedia.

4. Seahorses are experts at camouflage and can change color. They are even able to grow fleshy appendages (called cirri) that help them with camouflage by giving them a weed-like appearance.

5. Seahorses have terrible smell but amazing vision. They have the fewest genes for olfactory receptors (used in other animals for smell and taste) of any ray-finned fish species known. But seahorses have excellent vision and their eyes can work independently, meaning they can look forward and backward at the same time!

6. Seahorses eat weird. They have a toothless, tubular snout, which they use to suck up small fish and crustaceans. They swallow them whole. Seahorses do not have stomachs and don't digest very well, so they have to eat constantly.

7. Seahorses are one of the ocean's deadliest predators, with a 90% kill rate. Because of the shape of their head and their slow, finless method of movement, seahorses move with near hydrodynamic silence, barely moving the water as their stealthily sneak up on their prey. Once they are within striking distance, they snap their heads and suck up their prey. 

8. Seahorses click when they're courting and growl when their stressed. 

9. Seahorses are monogamous and pair for life. Their courtship begins with a daily dance between the couple that they do for days. The final courtship dance can last eight hours before the female "impregnates" her partner.

10. Male seahorses get "pregnant". They are the only males that take on the full responsibility of pregnancy, carrying up to 2,000 babies at a time! Although they don’t have a mammalian womb and placenta, they do have an enclosed abdominal pouch specifically for the purpose of incubating the babies. The female deposits her eggs in his brood pouch, in which he fertilizes them and incubates them for 10-45 days (depending on the species). During this time, his body undergoes a number of hormonal and physiological changes. When the babies are ready to emerge as fully developed little seahorses, seahorse dads even experience contractions as they give birth! 

11. Seahorses are evolving faster than any other group of bony fishes. Scientists have sequenced the entire genome of a tiger tail seahorse, a threatened tropical seahorse species.

12. Seahorses are under threat because of the traditional Chinese medicine trade, the pet trade, and the curio trade, all of which capture seahorses from the wild, and because of habitat depletion and pollution.

Where the Wild Things Are: Amazing Animal Watching Vacations

A modified repost of an original article from May, 2012.

School is winding down, the weather is beautiful and it is time to start thinking about summer vacation! Do you love watching and learning about animals? Then consider one (or more) of these animal watching vacations:


Go to a zoo:

Get a great view of a Siberian tiger at the Toronto Zoo.
Photo by Ber Zophus at Wikimedia.

Zoos allow you to explore the world in a single day: Meandering paths lead you past animals from across the globe. Lions, and tigers and bears, Oh my! But don’t forget the primates, reptiles, birds, and sea mammals. No matter what your animal fancy, you can likely see it at the zoo. Walk through the zoo reading the posted information on each species. Or sit at your favorite exhibit and focus on a single animal. Participate in an educational activity like touching and feeding animals with their keepers, a course, or even a sleepover. And while you are there, learn about how the zoo contributes to animal well-being: Many zoos provide research opportunities to study animal behavior and health (such as the friendship study in crested macaques), support captive breeding programs to restore threatened wild populations, rehabilitate injured or abandoned wild animals, and support habitat conservation.

If you have a local zoo, see what it has to offer. And if you like to travel, consider the San Diego Zoo, the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, the Singapore Zoo, the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa, or the Toronto Zoo. All of these zoos are well-respected institutions that promote animal conservation and have fantastic educational programs.

Learn more about some of these zoos here.


Go to an aquarium:

Interact with dolphins at the National Aquarium.
Photo by the National Aquarium at Wikimedia.

Aquaria are places of wonder and tranquility. Learn about teleost fish, sharks, rays, crustaceans, octopuses, jellyfish, coral, and many more species that inhabit our oceans, lakes, and rivers. Relax while watching the graceful movements of sea animals and marvel at the agility of apex predators at feeding time. Learn about the many aquatic habitats our planet supports and the amazing diversity of the animals that live in them. Like zoos, aquaria provide research opportunities (such as the individual recognition study in octopuses), support conservation, and have fun educational programs and activities.

If you get a chance, you may want to check out the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the Georgia Aquarium, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA) in Perth or L’Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain.

Learn more about some of these aquariums here and here.



Take a wildlife tour:

See breathtaking animals in their natural habitat
from the security of your guide's vehicle.
Photo by Brian Snelson at Wikimedia.

If you want to see wild animals in their natural habitats, experienced guides can help you find animals that are often elusive while keeping you safe and preserving animal habitats. Guides can give detailed information about the animals you encounter and can often tell thrilling tales of their own personal experiences. Some even provide lunch.

Maybe your dream has always been to go on an African safari. Consider the Safari Serengeti trip in Tanzania by Overseas Adventure Travel, where you can see animals like Thomson’s gazelles, buffalo, and elephants. Or participate in a North American safari in Yellowstone National Park with Wolf & Bear Safaris by the Yellowstone Safari Company. If a Northwoods flavor suits you, check out Northwoods Outfitters Moose Wildlife Safari in Maine. Or take a Hawaiian vacation and go whale watching with Ultimate Whale Watch in Maui. For a scientific marine vacation, go on an Educational Shark Encounter trip with Fish Finder Adventures based in Ocean City, Maryland. Whatever your dream animal watching trip, a guide can help you bring it to life.


Go somewhere wild on your own:

Kayak by thousands of birds in the Everglades
(but don't forget your anti-bird-poop-hat).
Photo by Matt Magolan.

If you are an independently minded and experienced adventurer, the world is awaiting. And if you want to increase your chances of observing spectacular wild animals in nature, you should go somewhere that has a lot of spectacular wild animals… like Manuel Antonio Park in Costa Rica, where you can see four monkey species, two iguana species, two sloth species, coatis, toucans, vultures, parakeets, and hundreds of other species on a single hike. Or kayak in the Everglades National Park in Florida, where you can see crocodiles, dolphins, manatees and over 350 species of birds. Or SCUBA or snorkel the coral reefs of the Cayman Islands and feel like part of the community of coral, sponges, tropical fish, rays, sharks, and sea turtles.

Learn more about some of these trips here.


We share this world with countless amazing animals. Find your own way to experience, learn about and appreciate them. I’ll go into more detail on these vacations and others in future posts, so comment below and let us know what animal watching vacations you have done and what you are interested in doing in the future.

But for now, I will be going on my own vacation. Don't worry, there will be new The Scorpion and the Frog articles about animals in July!

True Blood: Vampires Among Us

A reposting of an article from October, 2012.

Who is your favorite vampire? Are you a fan of Edward Cullen, Bill Compton or Stefan Salvatore? Or do you prefer the classic Dracula, elegant Lestat, or butt-kicking Selene?

Vampires have fascinated us since the Middle Ages, when a hysteria of vampire sightings spread across Eastern Europe. We now know that many of these “vampires” were actually victims of diseases like tuberculosis or bubonic plague that cause bleeding in the lungs (and elsewhere), resulting in the disturbing effect of blood appearing at the lips. Add this attribute to the already poorly understood physiology of decomposing corpses and the cases in which people mistakenly buried alive got up and left their graves, and voila! Vampire mythology is born. So vampires don’t really exist… Or do they?

Actually, there are many animals that feed on blood. So many in fact, that there is a scientific term for blood-eating, hematophagy. And why not? Blood is fluid tissue, chock full of nutritious proteins and lipids and a source of water to boot. And if you don’t kill your prey to feed, the food supply replenishes itself. Here are just some of these animal vampires living among us:

Vampire bat

A vampire bat smiles for the camera
from his Peruvian cave. Photo from Wikimedia.

Vampire bats are our most famous animal vampires, and the ones that most resemble our vampiric lore. There are three species of vampire bats that live from Mexico down through Argentina. Two of them, the hairy-legged and white-winged vampire bats, feed mostly on birds. The common vampire bat feeds more on mammals, like cows, horses, and the occasional human. Their razor sharp teeth cut a tiny incision in their victims and their anticoagulant saliva keeps the blood flowing. Like Dracula, vampire bats sleep by day and hunt by night. But these vampires are not loners like Dracula: They live in colonies of about 100 animals, and in hard times will share their blood-harvest and care for one another’s young.

Vampire finch

The Galapagos Islands are the famous home to numerous finch species, each one with a beak shape specially adapted to their preferred food source. For most of these finches, their food of choice is a type of seed or nut that is appropriately sized for their beak shape and strength. But the vampire finch (also called the sharp-beaked ground finch for obvious reasons) uses its long sharp beak to feed on blood. Their most common victims are their booby neighbors (named for less obvious reasons).

Candirú

A tiny candirú catfish (being measured in cm) strikes
terror into the souls of Amazonian fishermen.
Photo by Dr. Peter Henderson at PISCES
Conservation LTD. Photo at Wikimedia.

The tiny Amazonian candirú catfish is legendary for one documented case (and several undocumented ones) in which a candirú swam up a local man’s urine stream into his penis, where it attached to feed on his blood. Although terrifying, this is not typical candirú behavior. Actually, it was all just a misunderstanding. You see, candirú catfish do feed on blood, but they usually feed from the highly vascularized gills of other Amazonian fish. The gills of freshwater fish release high quantities of urea, a major component of urine. So to a hungry candirú, your pee smells an awful lot like a fish-gill blood dinner. Just another reason to not pee where you swim.

Lamprey

Notice the sharp-toothed sucker mouth of the river
lamprey. Photo by M. Buschmann at Wikimedia.

Lampreys are species of jawless fish. With their eel-like bodies and disc-shaped mouths filled with circles of razor-sharp teeth, they look like something from science fiction horror. Although some lamprey species are filter feeders, others latch onto the sides of other fish, boring into their flesh and feeding on their blood. Once attached, they can hitch a ride on their victim for days or even weeks.

Leech

A European medicinal leech.
Photo by H. Krisp at Wikimedia.

Leeches are the earthworm’s bloodsucking cousins. With three blade-like mouthparts, they slice into their victims, leaving a Y-shaped incision. They produce anticoagulants to prevent premature clotting of their bloodmeals, which can weigh up to five times as much as the leach itself. The bloodletting and anticoagulant abilities of leeches have led them to be used medicinally in ancient India and Greece as well as in modern medicine.

Female mosquito

A female mosquito getting her blood meal.
Photo by at Wikimedia.

Most of the time, mosquitos use their syringe-like mouthparts to feed on flower nectar. But when the female is ready to reproduce, she seeks out a blood meal to provide the additional protein she will need to produce and lay her eggs. Although their bites only cause minor itching, these lady vampires are truly something to be feared: They kill more people than any other animal due to the wide range of deadly diseases they spread.

There are many other examples of animals that feed on blood. But unlike their mythological counterparts, none of them come back from the dead to do so… Or do they?

Happy Halloween!

Want to know more? Check these out:

1. SCHLUTER, D., & GRANT, P.R. (1984). ECOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN A DARWINS FINCH, GEOSPIZA-DIFFICILIS EVOLUTION, 38 (4), 856-869

2. Francischetti, I. (2010). Platelet aggregation inhibitors from hematophagous animals Toxicon, 56 (7), 1130-1144 DOI: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2009.12.003