Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Animals & pets hobby thread: News & personal stories

#1
C C Offline
Australian water rats cut cane toads open with 'surgical precision' to feast on their hearts
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/o...eir-hearts

INTRO: Australian water rats have learned how to kill cane toads, eat their hearts and carve out their organs with “surgical precision”. In only two years, highly intelligent native rakali in the Kimberly region of Western Australia discovered how to safely destroy the deadly toad – by removing its gallbladder and feasting on the heart. The rats even targeted the biggest, most poisonous toads they could find, leaving their bodies strewn by the riverside, according to research published in Australian Mammalogy.

Cane toads were first introduced into Queensland in the 1930s and have been marching slowly west ever since, devastating native animals and driving them towards extinction. The toads first arrived in a site monitored by the researchers in WA in 2011. But to their surprise, the scientists found the native water rat – better known as the rakali – was fighting back. The highly intelligent rodent has extremely sharp claws and teeth, and can grow to up 1kg in weight.

Dr Marissa Parrott, the paper’s co-author, said the scientists began to see dead toads appear, cut open in a “very distinctive” way. “It was a small area of creek, three to five metres in size, and every day we were finding new dead cane toads,” she said. “Up to five every single morning. “They were flipping them over, making a very distinctive, almost surgical precision cut down the chest. They would even remove the gallbladder outside the body, which contains toxic bile salts. They knew to remove that bit.”

“In the medium-sized toads, as well as eating the heart and liver, they would strip off the toxic skin from one or both legs and eat the non-toxic thigh muscle. They have very strong sharp teeth, very dextrous little hands. They can pick up a fish or a yabby and open them up very quickly and target the areas they like.” According to the paper, researchers observed 38 toad carcasses, floating in the river or on the creekbank, over 15 days. (MORE)



Why rats prefer company of the young and stressed: Research sheds light on rats' preference to socialize with stressed-out youngsters
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...095806.htm

RELEASE: Researchers have identified a neural pathway implicated in social interaction between adult and juvenile animals, according to new research in rats published in JNeurosci. Adult rats have been shown to prefer the company of stressed-out juveniles. This preference could be mediated by connections between the insular cortex, an area that integrates emotional and sensory information, and the nucleus accumbens, an area involved in determining reward.

Rogers-Carter et al. manipulated this pathway in adult rats to see how it affected their interactions with stressed and relaxed rats of various ages. When the insular cortex was inhibited, the rats lost their preference for stressed juvenile rats, but their avoidance of the stressed adults persisted. The researchers believe that young, stressed animals trigger parental instincts, whereas a stressed adult might be a sign of danger. This parallels the increased empathy humans have towards children over their peers.
Reply
#2
C C Offline
A pack of feral hogs in Italy reportedly destroyed $22,000 worth of cocaine hidden in the woods
https://www.insider.com/feral-hogs-italy...ds-2019-11

EXCERPT: . . . A pack of feral hogs found and destroyed $22,000 worth of cocaine hidden in a forest in Tuscany by a gang of suspected drug dealers, Newsweek reported. After digging up the hidden drugs, the boars broke into the package, littering it across the Tuscan forest near Montepulciano, according to a Fox News report. It is not immediately clear how the boars reacted to exposure to the drugs. [...] Despite helping in this drug bust, the wild animals are considered a menace in other cases in the United States and in Italy (where their population has grown), causing sizable amounts of damage to farm animals and crops, as well as posing a danger due to their large size. (MORE)
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Guitar thread (hobbies) C C 29 298 Mar 16, 2024 03:18 AM
Last Post: C C
  Superbowl LVIII thread (general madness, pre-game outrages, on field heroics, etc) C C 5 154 Feb 12, 2024 11:57 AM
Last Post: Zinjanthropos
  Article Mouse tidies shed (Mouse watching hobby) confused2 4 143 Jan 12, 2024 07:07 PM
Last Post: Zinjanthropos
  Tinkering with creative writing thread: poetry, lyrics, prose, rap, etc (hobbies) C C 43 1,216 Nov 17, 2023 09:30 PM
Last Post: C C
  Fun with snakes hobby (Survival Skills Asia) C C 0 156 Aug 11, 2022 07:25 PM
Last Post: C C
  Offbeat and experimental verses & prose thread (writing hobbies) C C 25 761 Feb 21, 2022 09:33 PM
Last Post: C C
  Meteorite crashes into woman’s bed in Canada (meteorite collecting hobby) C C 1 73 Oct 15, 2021 09:44 PM
Last Post: Magical Realist
  Football-size goldfish are taking over US lakes (fleeting pet hobby consequences) C C 0 63 Jul 15, 2021 06:05 PM
Last Post: C C
  Elon Musk admits 'a bunch of people will probably die' (Mars colonization hobby) C C 3 304 May 9, 2021 02:36 AM
Last Post: Secular Sanity
  Reviews thread#1 - misc (hobbies: books, cinema, etc interests) C C 2 191 Feb 8, 2021 11:02 PM
Last Post: C C



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)