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| Photo: Jolyon Troscianko, University of Birmingham |
Humans initially considered themselves distinct from other animals due to our ability to make and use tools. That was until Jane Goodall observed chimpanzees making using stalks of grass to "fish" for termites. But, it is not only primates that use tools. There are a surprising number of animals that use tools including, elephants, dolphins, otters, birds and octopuses (it's acceptable to use either octopuses or octopodes, but NEVER octopi).
Probably the most proficient and innovative tool maker of all is a bird. The New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) surpasses many with it's almost unbelievable ability to make and use tools. Watch the video below that I saw on Jerry Coyne's blog. After seeing the video I was amazed and did a little more research into this brilliant bird. I found this cool site from a research group at The University of Auckland, just across the road from my university. It has loads of videos and pictures, and for those who don't mind a bit reading, pdfs of some of the research articles they have published.
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| Birdwatchers. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia |
I acquired a fantastic book this weekend called 'The private life of plants', a title tantalisingly similar to a book I posted about previously. It is a book by my favourite nature-documentary host, David Attenborough. I wonder if Colin Tudge is a fan too?
The book is broken up into six sections:
1. Travelling - Mostly about seed dispersal
2. Growing
3. Flowering
4. The social struggle - A great chapter of niche differences
5. Living together - All about relationships between species such as parasitic, mutualism etc.
6. Surviving - Plants in extreme environments
The book has subsequently been made in to a series by the BBC narrated by David Attenborough. I have only seen a few of these but, they are great. The growing episode is awesome using time lapsed footage. Watch the video below for part of the first episode.
The book is broken up into six sections:
1. Travelling - Mostly about seed dispersal
2. Growing
3. Flowering
4. The social struggle - A great chapter of niche differences
5. Living together - All about relationships between species such as parasitic, mutualism etc.
6. Surviving - Plants in extreme environments
The book has subsequently been made in to a series by the BBC narrated by David Attenborough. I have only seen a few of these but, they are great. The growing episode is awesome using time lapsed footage. Watch the video below for part of the first episode.
Saw this on Jerry Coyne's blog. It is brilliant. Birds rule.
Got another clever bird video, but more about that later.
Got another clever bird video, but more about that later.
The last two 'weekly birds' have been African and extant (not extinct), but this week's is an extinct New Zealand bird. Along with the moa, the huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) is probably one of New Zealand's most famous extinct birds, largely due to it's aesthetic beauty.
The huia was unique in that the female had a much longer, more down-curved beak than the males--the most prominent beak sexual dimorphism of any bird species. This marked difference in beak size is highlighted by the fact that John Gould first described the male and female huia as two distinct species. In addition, both parts of the binomial scientific name refers to the birds beak, the genus Heteralocha being derived from Greek and referring to the different beak sizes, and the species acutirostris from Latin referring to the sharp pointed form of the beak.
The main hypotheses as to why the beaks differed so much between the sexes relates to feeding habits. Huia were known to be bark borers, feeding on grubs such as the larvae of huhu beetle. It was first suggested that the males used their short strong beaks to make holes in the bark and the females used their longer, more slender beaks to reach into the holes to retrieve prey. However, this cooperative feeding story is not entirely true. What is more likely is that males and females had slightly different feeding niches. This allowed males and females to exploit different food resources, thus reducing intraspecific (within species) competition.
Like so many of New Zealand's extinct birds, it was undoubtedly related to anthropogenic activity. Humans have only been in New Zealand for around 800 years, and yet in that time about 26 percent of 223 breeding birds species have gone extinct. The first settlers in New Zealand from Polynesia would have hunted birds for food and feathers and they also brought with them a predator, the kiore or polynesian rat. But, it was the successive colonisation by Europeans that was devastating. A wave of new predators including rats, cats, stoats and other mustelids and, possums accompanied the new settlers. In addition, many hectares of native forest were cleared for timber, real estate and agriculture, shrinking the habitat for native fauna. Sadly, by the 1920s the huia was extinct. There were later unconfirmed of sightings of the bird but that was in the 1960s.
The image above is by John Thomas Pusateri Jr.. Check out his website for other similar images. They are great.
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| A pair of huia on a karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) branch. Image: John Gould |
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| Male huia with a shorter beak. Photo credit: Dr Paddy Ryan |
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| Female huia with a longer beak. Photo credit: Dr Paddy Ryan |
Like so many of New Zealand's extinct birds, it was undoubtedly related to anthropogenic activity. Humans have only been in New Zealand for around 800 years, and yet in that time about 26 percent of 223 breeding birds species have gone extinct. The first settlers in New Zealand from Polynesia would have hunted birds for food and feathers and they also brought with them a predator, the kiore or polynesian rat. But, it was the successive colonisation by Europeans that was devastating. A wave of new predators including rats, cats, stoats and other mustelids and, possums accompanied the new settlers. In addition, many hectares of native forest were cleared for timber, real estate and agriculture, shrinking the habitat for native fauna. Sadly, by the 1920s the huia was extinct. There were later unconfirmed of sightings of the bird but that was in the 1960s.
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| Stuffed female huia. Photo credit: John Thomas Pusateri Jr. |
The image above is by John Thomas Pusateri Jr.. Check out his website for other similar images. They are great.
Saw this video over at Pharyngula, PZ Myers blog. Ken Ham challenges 'banana man' for his clown title.
Read some of the YouTube comments. This one stood out for "Absolutely disgusting. This man is a living piece of garbage, and he is raping the minds of those poor children. This is child abuse".
Read some of the YouTube comments. This one stood out for "Absolutely disgusting. This man is a living piece of garbage, and he is raping the minds of those poor children. This is child abuse".
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