Latest news with #JayFalk
CBC
19-04-2025
- Science
- CBC
Apr 19: What the dinos did, and more...
On this week's episode of Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald: There's not a more vulnerable creature in nature than a baby bird. Tiny and immobile, they're easy pickings for predators. But the chicks of the white-necked jacobin hummingbird have evolved a unique defence. They disguise themselves as poisonous caterpillars to discourage those that might eat them. Jay Falk, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado and Scott Taylor, director of the Mountain Research Station and associate professor at the University of Colorado, studied these birds in Panama. Their research was published in the journal Ecology. Seals can dive at length to tremendous depth thanks to some remarkable adaptations, like the ability to collapse their lungs, and radically lower their heart rate. Chris McKnight, a senior research fellow at the University of St Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit in Scotland, led a study looking to see if tweaking oxygen and C02 levels changed the seals' dive times. The researchers discovered that the seals have the unique ability to measure the oxygen levels in their tissues, so they can anticipate when they need to return to the surface before they get into trouble. The research was published in the journal Science. As the joke goes, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Researchers recently demonstrated that fruit flies enjoy more than just aged produce. Using a custom carousel built to fly scale, scientists found that some, but not all, of their fruit flies would play on it, enjoying an activity that had nothing to do with the necessities of life. This brings up the possibility of variability in personality for fruit flies. Wolf Hütteroth is an associate professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle and was part of the team, whose research was published in the journal Current Biology. Krill, the small, shrimp-like creatures that swarm the world's oceans and are particularly abundant in southern oceans, play a big role in marine food webs, connecting microscopic organisms with many of the oceans' larger animal species. Researchers in Australia investigated how krill respond to predator cues, like the smell of their feces. Nicole Hellessey, from the University of Tasmania, said the mere whiff of penguin feces affects the Antarctic krills' feeding behaviour and causes them to take frantic evasive action. The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. Dinosaur bones can tell amazing stories about these prehistoric beasts, but how do we piece together how they behaved? A new book dives into the many lines of evidence that can shed light on the behaviour of these extinct creatures. From fossils, to tracks they left behind, to their modern day descendents, paleontologist David Hone from Queen Mary University of London explores how scientists develop robust theories about how dinosaurs lived in his new book, Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior: What They Did and How We Know.
CBC
18-04-2025
- Science
- CBC
What the dinosaurs did and more...
How a helpless baby bird protects itself from hungry huntersThere's not a more vulnerable creature in nature than a baby bird. Tiny and immobile, they're easy pickings for predators. But the chicks of the white-necked jacobin hummingbird have evolved a unique defence. They disguise themselves as poisonous caterpillars to discourage those that might eat them. Jay Falk, an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado and Scott Taylor, director of the Mountain Research Station and associate professor at the University of Colorado, studied these birds in Panama. Their research was published in the journal Ecology. Seals have a sense of their oxygen levels, which makes them better diversSeals can dive at length to tremendous depth thanks to some remarkable adaptations, like the ability to collapse their lungs, and radically lower their heart rate. Chris McKnight, a senior research fellow at the University of St Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit in Scotland, led a study looking to see if tweaking oxygen and C02 levels changed the seals' dive times. The researchers discovered that the seals have the unique ability to measure the oxygen levels in their tissues, so they can anticipate when they need to return to the surface before they get into trouble. The research was published in the journal Science. Fruit flies can show a playful sideAs the joke goes, time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. Researchers recently demonstrated that fruit flies enjoy more than just aged produce. Using a custom carousel built to fly scale, scientists found that some, but not all, of their fruit flies would play on it, enjoying an activity that had nothing to do with the necessities of life. This brings up the possibility of variability in personality for fruit flies. Wolf Hütteroth is an associate professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle and was part of the team, whose research was published in the journal Current Biology. Scaring krill with a dose of penguin pooKrill, the small, shrimp-like creatures that swarm the world's oceans and are particularly abundant in southern oceans, play a big role in marine food webs, connecting microscopic organisms with many of the oceans' larger animal species. Researchers in Australia investigated how krill respond to predator cues, like the smell of their feces. Nicole Hellessey, from the University of Tasmania, said the mere whiff of penguin feces affects the Antarctic krills' feeding behaviour and causes them to take frantic evasive action. The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. Fossils tell us what dinosaurs were. How do we know what they did? Dinosaur bones can tell amazing stories about these prehistoric beasts, but how do we piece together how they behaved? A new book dives into the many lines of evidence that can shed light on the behaviour of these extinct creatures. From fossils, to tracks they left behind, to their modern day descendents, paleontologist David Hone from Queen Mary University of London explores how scientists develop robust theories about how dinosaurs lived in his new book, Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior: What They Did and How We Know.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Baby hummingbird with appearance of dangerous caterpillar discovered in Panama
A newly hatched hummingbird with a unique appearance has been discovered in a national park in Panama. This tiny hummingbird chick, a white-necked jacobin, took on the look of a caterpillar upon hatching. According to a news release from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Jay Falk, a U.s. National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow working at the University of Colorado - Boulder and at the STRI in Panama, has studied the white-necked jacobin species of hummingbird for 10 years, but he mostly focused on adult birds. When Michael Castaño-Díaz, a Ph.D. student, and Sebastián Gallan Giraldo, a research assistant, both working for STRI saw a white-necked jacobin nest in Soberanía National Park with an egg inside and a momma bird keeping watch over it, they alerted Falk. Together, they all kept watch over the nest, until a few weeks later when they noticed the egg had finally hatched. How To Watch Fox Weather Scott Taylor, Falk's advisor, was with the group when they found the baby hummingbird, and he noticed something he'd never seen before – long, fluffy feathers down its back gave the hummingbird chick the appearance of a dangerous type of caterpillar, the release said. According to the release, the group realized this could be a new discovery, and started looking up photos of newly hatched hummingbirds to see if this had ever been seen before. They found that most hummingbird species didn't have these special characteristics when they hatch, so they knew they had something unique. How Birds Navigate The Clouds It's possible the hummingbird was mimicking the caterpillar's appearance to ward off predators or to camouflage itself. Researchers also noticed that when a carnivorous wasp neared the chick, it proceeded to shake its head upwards, like some caterpillars do to ward off predators. The group also noticed that the nest was covered with seeds of hairy-looking Balsa trees, further camouflaging the nest, the release said. More research and observation will need to be done on white-necked jacobin hummingbirds to determine if all of these characteristics are unique or an evolution of the species, STRI article source: Baby hummingbird with appearance of dangerous caterpillar discovered in Panama
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Baby hummingbird appears to mimic caterpillar to avoid death
A baby hummingbird might have a special way of warding off predators, which threaten tropical hummingbird species in infancy. Baby White-necked jacobins (Florisuga mellivora) in Panama seem to pretend to be a fuzzy and dangerous caterpillar. The findings are detailed in a study published March 17 in the journal Ecology. White-necked jacobins are a medium-sized neotropical hummingbird species primarily found in Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America. They feed on the nectar in the area's plentiful trees and breed early in the wet seasons. In Panama, the rainy season is roughly from May through December. In March 2024, the team from this study spotted a White-necked jacobin nest with one female and one egg inside within Panama's Soberanía National Park. Since this was the first of these hummingbirds that some of the team had ever spotted, they monitored the nest regularly and recruited a videographer to help document the events. About 18 to 20 days later, they noticed that the egg had hatched. Surprisingly, the new baby hummingbird sported long, fluffy down feathers on its back. This plumage made the tiny bird look like a dangerous caterpillar. Some caterpillar species cover themselves with stinging hairs that can cause skin reactions and inflammation, and even headaches, nausea, and fever in humans. Additionally, a bird called Cinereous mourner (Laniocera hypopyrra) is known for chicks that mimic toxic caterpillars. Keeping this species in mind, the team scoured the internet for photos of related humming bird species and some non-related hummingbird species to see how common these types of feathers are. Most of the other hummingbird species they looked at do not have these particular feathers, showing just how special they are. The team also saw that the nest appeared to be covered in seeds from local balsa trees. These seeds are also hairy-looking and help camouflage the chick and it is possible that the feathers are used more for hiding the chick and not for making predators think they are caterpillars. However, they did observe the chick moving like some of the caterpillars do when a carnivorous wasp was nearby. Since White-necked jacobins build open cup-like nests in exposed tree branches near the ground, these strategies might have evolved in this species over time. More long-term research is needed to support these hypotheses. According to the team, who represent the University of Colorado – Boulder, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and the National Science Foundation, tropical forests like these are full of mysteries and future discoveries. These findings show how every observation and collaboration especially might reveal something exciting. 'We know so little about what nesting birds do in the tropics,' Jay Falk, a study co-author and postdoctoral scholar working with the University of Colorado – Boulder and the STRI, said in a statement. 'But if we put more effort into observing the natural world, we might discover these kinds of behavior are very common.'
