LSM1303 Animal Behaviour Student Blog : animal behaviour

Raccoons - Rascals or Ninjas?

Lee Wan Jing — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:39:00 GMT

Raccoons - are they cheeky grinning rascals or skillful ninjas of the night?

Image by OCPetPhotos and Sara Heinrichs

First and foremost, racoons (procyon lotor) are noctural animals, and increasingly abundant inhabitants of suburbans areas and cities as humans have destroyed their natural habitats. They are extremely adaptable and can be found in many different kinds of habitats such as wooded areas near water bodies, trees, to woodchuck burrows, caves, sewers, garages and houses, and so on.

Image by k e v i n, kjdrill, dazed81 and secretsamba

The raccoons are omnivorous and their diet consists of a wide range of food, from berries, corns, walnuts, to fish, insects, rodents and in suburban areas, foraging leftovers in garbarge cans and even stealing food from houses, and at times, "begging" for food from passerbys (watch videos below). An interesting note on the raccoon's eating habit (no, they don't sing before they eat nor say grace, nor wipe their hands before they eat)

Image by OCPetPhotos

is that if water bodies are near, they dabble their food in the water as if washing their food in order to clean it, but it is not. The raccoon is simply just softening the food and perhaps at the same time looking for foreign objects/particles on the food (survival skills).

Video 1 - The Night Raiders
note* their eyes - being nocturnal creatures, they have excellent night vision, and they are also especially alert (fine sense of hearing)

Video 2 - Adaption to urban habitat (and humans)
note* they have adapted to the city, and learned to associate humans with food!

Video 3 - More raiding

note* how they used their paws to grab food! using their grasping hand-like paws, they have learned to open garbage cans and gates as well as getting hold of food

Video 4 - a closer view of their paws
note* their paws have five toes that looks a little like our hands and it is flexible and very good, not only at grabbing things, but as pulling things apart and holding things. Very handy indeed! That makes them excellent climbers too, climbing up trees, houses, fences and gates with great agility!

Given their physical appearance, a black mask around its eyes, it gives them the mischievious look of a burglar/ninja indeed.

References

1. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Procyon_lotor.html
2. http://teacher.scholastic.com/dirtrep/animal/raccoons.htm
3. http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/wildlife/index.php?subject=Mammals&id=26
4. http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/raccoon.htm
5. http://www.raccoonlearningzone.com/index.php
6. http://www.backyardnature.net/raccoons.htm

Inhuman Doctors: Zoopharmacognosy and Self Medicating Animals

Vigneshwaran Shunmugam — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:15:00 GMT

Many major cultures around the globe have developed some form of medical science. The Indians have Ayurveda, the Chinese have TCM and of course there is Western medicine. What these fields have in common is that they are derived from the process of observing the effects of certain herbs or foods on the health of the imbiber and thus correlating cause and effect. While medical science and its practitioners have long been held to be at the forefront of human intellectual pursuits, we now realise that this was no great achievement at all. In fact, even monkeys do it.

Observe this Orang Utan for example.

Right. This is just a monkey opening a packet of powder. Nothing fancy. However, monkeys DO develop their own medical techniques to deal with their own health issues. This is known as Zoopharmacognosy which is basically the animal form of Medical Science. Many species of animals use various techniques to deal with their maladies.

If you have seen your dog or cat eating grass you may have been puzzled at their sudden vegetarianism. They do have good reason for doing so. Eating grass "stimulates either retching or the rapid expulsion of worms in diarrhea" (Hart and Hart 1985). Compare this with the Tamil proverb which claims that a Tiger would not eat grass, no matter how hungry.

Medicine is not a purely mammalian pursuit either.Snakes too have herbological knowledge! "According to Chinese folklore, many centuries ago a farmer in the Yunnan district found a snake near his hut. Fearful for his life, he beat it senseless with a hoe and left it for dead. A few days later, the same snake returned. Again he tried to kill it, but again it returned. After he had beaten it a third time, the farmer followed the severely wounded snake as it crawled into a clump of weeds, started feeding on them, and thereby rapidly cured the worst of its injuries. The plant in the story was Panex notoginseng, which now forms the main ingredient in the herbal formulation 'Yunnan bai yao', a white powder that cauterizes cuts and stems external bleeding immediately. It was standard issue in the Vietnam War, for use when soldiers were wounded far from conventional medical treatment. "(Reid 1987).

Our closest cousins, the Great Apes have various methods by which they keep themselves in the pink of health.

Above we see a chimpanzee(Pan troglodytes) chewing on the bitter pith of the Vernonia Amygdalina plant. Chewing on the pith allows the chimp to extract the bitter juice that is within. THe chimpanzees use this method to kill parasites in their intestinal tracts. Interestingly, chimps do not usually eat this leaf due to it being slightly toxic to them. Thus, they only eat this leaf for medicinal purposes! This paper has extensive information on this phenomenon, complete with graphs. The author Michael Huffman is an eminent figure in the field of Zoopharmacognosy.

Chimps sometimes consume the leaves of the Aspilia plant, which they got to great lengths to obtain. The leaves are covered in stiff hairs and are swallowed whole, despite the difficulty of doing so. "Huffman doesn't doubt that there is a medicative function behind leaf swallowing behavior. His theory about how it gets rid of worms revolves around the hairiness of the leaves. Huffman found live worms in chimp *** stuck "like Velcro" to leaf hairs and trapped within the folds. He speculates that worms may become attached to the leaves or somehow enticed into the folds during digestion, taking a "magic carpet ride" through the gastrointestinal tract, eventually to be excreted from the body. Chemicals in the plant may also decrease the ability of the parasites to adhere to the intestine, making it easier for them to be swept out by the leaves."

Perhaps the animal use of medicines to treat themselves is not such a surprising phenomenon. In fact post-Darwinists should have predicted it regardless of evidence. Using medical methods enables an animal to prevent its death,prolong its life, to heal faster and have a survival advantage. This is an advantage that would allow those animals who use it to be more successful than those who dont. In the abscence of a consequent negative selection pressure, animals who self-medicate would definitely outsurvive those who do not. Thus, Zoopharmacognosy is not surprisingly prevalent in the animal kingdom.

Not only do animals consume herbs and plants as medicines, but they also consume certain types of soil(geophagy) and insects for the same purpose.

Even more interesting than the fact that animals employ medical science is the fact that many of the herbs and techniques employed by animals are similarly employed by humans. This highlights the cross pollination of medical knowledge from the animal kingdom to ours.

To learn more on the exciting field of Zoopharmacognosy, this book might help.

"Really Wild Remedies—Medicinal Plant Use by Animals" by Jennifer A. Biser. Zoogoer, January/February 1998

Huffman, M.A. 2001. Self-Medicative Behavior in the African Great Apes: An Evolutionary Perspective into the Origins of Human Traditional Medicine. Bioscience, 51(8):651-661.

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Ignorant pig, Silly cow, Bird brained?

QUEK QING LIAN ADELINE — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:03:00 GMT

Don’t we tend to assume farm animals to be one of, if not the most stupid creatures in the animal kingdom, since they are most likely to end up as breakfast, lunch and dinner for us humans? Well, don’t belittle these animals as the video below will illustrate what they are capable of. Look out for the high IQ hens and the acrobatic heroics of the pigs in the video, suddenly “Chicken little” and “Babe” doesn’t appear so fictional anymore.

If you detect some form of moralistic slant on the video, well, not to worry, after all it was produced by the Compassion in World Farming Organization. FYI, I am in no way advocating anyone to go become a vegetarian/vegan… I am a happy carnivore and nothing can come between me and my meat!

For me, what’s more interesting about this video is that it highlights the notion of duality in the interpretation of animal behaviours. “Are animals capable of intelligent behaviour?” That is, “Do they actually know what they are doing?” Well, according to the Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, an instinctive behaviour will be selected if it serves the best interest of the animal, in a particular environment or context. However, what then is the selective value that would enable a pig to swim and rescue an entirely different species?

Gadagkar R. actually proposes that intelligence is possible in animals. However, there is a prerequisite before animals can possess such “intelligence”. Animals have to first have “instinctive behaviour before it can have any flexible, intelligent behaviour”. Therefore, it can be said that intelligence evolved from instinct.

Well, as I mentioned before, I will not be forgoing my meat. But, before I pop a wanton into my mouth, maybe I'll think, hmm… perhaps the pork came from a smart pig! Hopefully, some of its intelligence will rub onto me ;-)

References:

Gadagkar R., “Observational Study of Animal Behaviour – From Instinct to Intelligence”, Current Science 68, 2 (January 25 1995), pp. 185-196

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYLYgpPGZIk

Replacing the Seismograph with Animals?

CHOO SHU HONG — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:16:00 GMT

Do not be alarmed if one day animals do infact replace equipments such as the seismography to act as pre-emptive warnings to natural disasters such as Earthquakes and Tsunamis.

One would question: why is it that there's always seemingly little animal's death after natural disasters such as the 2005 Tsunami in Asia?

How did animals in Thailand know the tsunami was coming?
Sources: http://youtube.com/watch?v=G8Fy8CNu11U

Many animals often are able to avoid natural disasters such as earthquakes. It is often seen that these animals' behavior would change prior to certain natural disasters. As this applies to most animals in general, we shall not just focus on one single species. We would look at 2 to 3 types of species and their behaviors when this 'sixth sense' for natural disaster arises.

Fishes
Some fishes like the catfish is reputed to become agitated prior to Earthquakes. Its often observed that they move violently or more often leap out of water onto dryland before the Earthquakes. Deap sea fishes have also been spotted close to the surface of the ocean at times of seismic activitites.

Insects
Insects such as Bees are also known to evacuate their hives before an earthquake and return back to it after 15minutes. Millipedes, ants and leeches are also know to behavior erratically before a natural disaster.
Reptiles
It is also interesting to note how reptiles such as the snake reacts too. It has been seen that some snakes leaves their underground places of hibernation in the midst of winter just before the earthquakes. Only to be found frozen on the surface of the ice later.

Understanding that Fitness is equals to the difference benefit and Cost (Fitness = Benefit - Cost) it can be understood that these animals acted on a basis where they were very sure it was more beneficial to do so. It would have proved to be costlier had they stayed or not acted as they usually would prior to a disaster.

How do they Know an Earthquake's approaching?
There are 2 Theories to how these animals know there's an approaching Natural disaster.

One theory is that these animals are able to sense the earth's vibrations. These vibrations due to seismic activities allows these animals with a much more acute sensory system to know of the prior danger.
Another theory would be that these animals are able to detect changes in the electrical charges in air or gases released by the earth.

Therefore, though there's still much research still being done on such animals' behavior. It can be seen that these animals do have an element of survival instincts. Though it might not be really obvious as to what they sense, this natural element allows them to act before we do.

NATURE | Can Animals Predict Disaster? | Earthquakes | PBS
Sources: http://youtube.com/watch?v=r4etr-z7c0g

Humans the superior species? maybe we should think again when our survival instincts are not even half as alert as the rest of the animal kingdom.

Related Links:
Etho-Geological Forecasting - Unusual animal behavior and Earthquake prediction
Can animals sense Natural Disasters?
Natural Geographic News - Can animals sense Earthquakes?

Video Sources:
How did animals in Thailand know the tsunami was coming? - Youtube
NATURE | Can Animals Predict Disaster? | Earthquakes | PBS - Youtube