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Cuckoos: Outsourcing Childcare, Hogging the Bed

(Via:)
(Via: Batsby)

Common Name: Parasitic Cuckoos

A.K.A.: Subfamily Cuculinae (Family Cuculidae)

Vital Stats:

  • Range in length from 15-63cm (6-25”) and weigh between 17g (0.6oz.) and 630g (1.4lbs.)
  • The majority of cuckoos are not parasites, but around 60sp. are (about 56 in the Old World, and 3 in the New World)
  • Babies of brood parasites are initially coloured so as to resemble the young of the host species

Found: The cuckoo family is present throughout the temperate and tropical world, with the exceptions of southwest South America and regions of North Africa and the Middle East. Parasitic cuckoos occupy a subset of this range, principally in the Old World.

Cuckoo Map

It Does What?!

Parenting is tough… less sleep, less free time, all those all those hungry mouths to feed. What’s a busy mother to do? You know you need to perpetuate the species, but who has the time? Impressively, cuckoos have come up with the same answer that many humans have: outsourcing! Involuntary outsourcing, in this case.

One of these things is not like the others.(Via: Timothy H. Parker)
One of these things is not like the others.
(Via: Timothy H. Parker)

Once a female cuckoo has mated and is ready to lay the eggs, rather than build a nest and slog her way through childcare, she waits for another female with freshly laid eggs to take off for some food and just lays her egg there, spreading her clutch across several nests. In theory, when the duped female returns, she’ll just settle in and care for the new egg along with her own. Cuckoo eggs have a shorter incubation period than that of their host, so the foreign egg usually hatches first, at which point the baby cuckoo just gives the other eggs (or chicks, if the timing didn’t quite work out) a good shove, and enjoys having both a nest and a doting mother to itself. The cuckoo chick will tend to grow faster than its host species, so it keeps its adoptive parent busy with constant begging for food, having eliminated the competition.

But this wouldn’t be a fun evolutionary arms race if the host species just took it on the chin. Birds plagued by cuckoo eggs have worked out several ways to try to cope with the problem. First off, and not surprisingly, they’ve developed a burning hatred of cuckoos. Adult cuckoos seen in the area of the hosts’ nests will immediately be mobbed and run off by a group of angry mothers. The cuckoos, however, have learned to use this to their advantage by having the male of a pair tease and lure the angry mob away while the female lays her eggs in peace. Advantage: cuckoos.

And this, kids, is how you deal with those annoying younger siblings.(Via: M. Bán, PLoS ONE)
And this, kids, is how you deal with those annoying younger siblings.
(By: M. Bán, PLoS ONE)

A second strategy used by the parasitised birds is to learn to recognise foreign eggs and pre-emptively toss them out of the nest. Cuckoos responded to this in two ways. First, they slowly evolved eggs to match those of their host bird in colour and size (or, in the case of covered nests, very dark eggs which aren’t easily seen at all). Bird species with higher levels of egg rejection just end up with cuckoo eggs which look more and more similar to their own. Second, if a host does reject the foreign egg, the cuckoo who laid it will sometimes come and just destroy the entire nest, killing anything left inside it in an act of motherly vengeance. Advantage: cuckoos.

A third strategy, developed by the Superb Fairy Wren (not to be confused with the equally floridly named Splendid Fairy Wren) is a bit more clever. As soon as the host mother lays her eggs, she begins to sing to them in a very specific pattern. Now, in this case, the cuckoo egg will hatch around the same time as her own eggs, but was deposited there several days later than her own. This means that her own chicks have been sitting there, unborn, learning her song for a longer period of time than the cuckoo has. Once the eggs are hatched, only her own chicks will be able to properly replicate her calls. Can’t sing the song? No food for you. And if, prior to starving to death, the parasite chick does manage to push her chicks out of the nest, the mother will fail to hear the proper response at all and know to simply abandon the nest entirely. Advantage: Fairy Wren. Superb indeed.

Shrikes: don't try to outsmart a bird that kills mammals for sport.(Via: Arkive.org)
Shrikes… don’t try to outsmart a bird that kills mammals for sport.
(Via: Arkive.org)

There is at least one known case of a former host species throwing off the yoke of cuckoo parasitism entirely. The red-backed shrike, aside from being particularly murderously aggressive toward adult cuckoos (and many other things), became very good at identifying cuckoo eggs, very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that researchers believe the cuckoos simply didn’t have time to adapt. In laboratory experiments, the shrikes correctly identified and rejected 93.3% of all cuckoo eggs placed in their nests. Pretty good pattern recognition for a brain the size of a pea. While cuckoo-red shrike parasitism has been known historically for some time, it hasn’t been seen in nature for the last 30-40 years.

Shrikes for the win.

Fun Facts:

  • Even typically non-parasitic cuckoos will sometimes lay their eggs in the nests of their own or other species, but will still help to feed the chicks (parental guilt, perhaps?).
  • The eggshells of parasitic cuckoos are unusually thick, helping prevent them from cracking as their mother drops them from above into the host nest.
  • Striped cuckoos, not content to just shove their adoptive siblings out of the nest, actually peck them to death with their beaks.
  • A few birds deal with homicidal cuckoo chicks by building steep-sided nests, making it difficult for any chick to be pushed out (and raising them as one big, happy family, I guess).

Says Who?

  • Colombelli-Négrel et al. (2012) Current Biology 22: 2155-2160
  • Feeney et al. (2012) Animal Behaviour 84: 3-12
  • Lovaszi & Moskat (2004) Behaviour 141(2): 245-262
  • Spottiswoode & Stevens (2012) American Naturalist 179(5): 633-648
  • Wang & Kimball (2012) Journal of Ornithology 153: 825-831
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The Old Girls’ Club

(Photo by the Author)
(Photo by the Author)

Common Name: African Elephants, Asian Elephants

A.K.A.: Loxodonta africana, Elephas maximus

Vital Stats:

  • Comprise the entirety of Family Elephantidae and Order Proboscidea
  • African elephants are thought by some to be two species; the African Forest Elephant, and the African Bush Elephant
  • Can live for up to 70 years in the wild
  • The largest living terrestrial animals, reaching heights of up to 4m (13’) and weights of up to 7000kg (15,000lbs.)
  • Consume up to 150kg (330lbs.) of food daily

Found: Savannahs, bushlands, and forests in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (but sparsely across these regions)

Elephant Map

It Does What?!

Everyone knows elephants are cool. And weird looking. What they don’t tend to get a lot of credit for is just what complex lives they live, and how well-adapted they are to their surroundings. Far from being the dim, bovine, eating machines they’re often depicted as, elephants have been found to have an intelligence and self-awareness ranking up around that of primates and cetaceans, with comparably nuanced societies.

caption(Via:)
Jumbo renounces vegetarianism.
(Via: One Big Photo)

Elephant herds are matriarchal, being led by the oldest female and consisting of her close female relatives and their young offspring. Males are given the boot around the time they reach sexual maturity during their teens (because even the most intelligent animals find teenage boys a trial) and live the rest of their lives either alone or with a small pack of other exiled males.

Good parenting and discipline (delivered by mom with a swat of the trunk) seem to be extremely important for young male elephants; when orphaned males were introduced to a game reserve in South Africa in the late ‘90s, they immediately began going on killing sprees, hunting down and violently killing over 30 (endangered) rhinos, a completely abnormal behaviour for an elephant. As soon as well-adjusted adult males were introduced, the aggression stopped. Everybody needs a good role-model, I guess.

You may have heard stories about so-called “elephant graveyards,” where elephants go to die and leave remains near those of their relatives. While these have now been found to be a myth, appearing due to large die-offs happening suddenly in times of drought, it’s true that elephants show an inordinate amount of interest in the carcasses and bones of other elephants. Presented with a set of bones, elephants will become highly agitated and touch the bones repeatedly with their trunks, especially the dead animal’s tusks. Researchers speculate that this is because the tusks feel the same as they did in life, and touching is such an important aspect of elephant society. They are the only known animal outside of humans to take a particular interest in the bones of their species.

caption(Via:)
Probably not what evolution intended.
(Via: The Road to Anywhere)

And what about their most obviously bizarre feature? How did a prehensile nose develop?! It’s hard to say for sure, but one interesting theory comes from the fact that elephants use their trunks as snorkels while swimming, sometimes crossing shallow lakes by simply walking across the bottom with only their noses above water. Given that manatees are one of elephants’ closest relatives, some scientists have speculated that elephants evolved from aquatic mammals, slowly becoming terrestrial, but never losing their once-important snorkel. (Or their internal testicles, another trait associated with an aquatic lifestyle.) Other scientists think those guys don’t know what they’re talking about and lack evidence to support this theory. So it goes in science.

Whatever their origin, elephants’ trunks have become enormously important in their lives, and are used in everything from eating to fighting to bonding with family members. Actually a fusion of the nose and upper lip, trunks have over 100,000 muscles and are sensitive enough to crack open a peanut shell and retrieve the seed from it. The ability to grasp comes from one or two (in Asian and African elephants, respectively) finger-like extensions at the trunk’s tip. These “fingers,” combined with the elephants’ high degree of intelligence, have allowed them to learn the use of several tools, including tree-branch fly-swatters, which they probably invented millions of years before we came up with the idea. Different priorities…

caption(Via: Wikimedia Commons)
Yeah, we definitely need a few more of these.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

And finally, let’s not forget the dearly departed cousins. While African and Asian elephants are the only remaining species of Proboscidea, the order containing both mammoths and mastodons, there were once over 160 of them, inhabiting every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Most of these persisted until the most recent ice age killed off nearly all of the largest mammals. Some systematists believe that Asian elephants are in fact more closely related to woolly mammoths than they are to African elephants, and it’s even been speculated that a cloned mammoth could some day be gestated in the womb of an Asian elephant. ‘Cause if we learned anything from Jurassic Park, it’s that reanimating extinct megafauna is a great idea.

Fun Facts:

  • Elephants use ‘seismic communication,’ transmitting messages via a low-pitched rumble, which is detected by distant elephants using the pads of their feet.
  • While they can move surprisingly quickly, elephants don’t technically “run,” due to the fact that their legs never all leave the ground simultaneously.
  • It’s a common myth that elephants get drunk eating fermented marula fruits which have fallen to the ground. Given the low level of alcohol which accumulates in rotting fruit, an animal the size of an elephant would have to eat an unrealistically huge amount in a short time to reach a high enough blood alcohol level. But they do seem to enjoy them as a snack.

Says Who?

  • Choi (2011) “Woolly Mammoths Could Be Cloned Someday, Scientist Says”. Live Science.
  • McComb et al. (2006) Biology Letters 2: 26-28
  • Morris et al. (2006) Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 79(2): 363-369
  • Shoshani (1998) TREE 13(12): 480-487
  • Shoshani & Tassy (2005) Quaternary International 126-128: 5-20
  • Shoshani et al. (2006) Brain Research Bulletin 70: 124-157
  • West (2002) Physiology 17: 47-50
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Living in Filth and Looking Up at the Stars

(Via:)
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Common Name: Dung Beetles

A.K.A.: Subfamily Scarabaeinae

Vital Stats:

  • Many subsist entirely on faeces, while others also consume fungi and decaying plant matter
  • Found in extremely diverse habitats, on all inhabited continents
  • Grow up to 6cm (2.4”) long, and can live for up to three years

Found: Across the temperate and tropical regions of the world

Dung Beetle Map

It Does What?!

Dung beetles… if you believe in reincarnation, these are why you try to stay on the straight and narrow. Otherwise, you might end up coming back as a creature whose life quite literally revolves around excrement. Dung beetles owe their entire existence to the fact that larger animals have inefficient digestive systems, consuming manure for its remaining nutrients and even laying their eggs inside it as food for their future young. Gross, yes, but once you get past the “ick” factor, it’s a pretty practical system.

Dung beetles come in three main varieties: rollers, tunnellers, and dwellers. Rollers, which are the type most people are familiar with, roll faeces into small balls which they roll away with them to consume and bury elsewhere. Tunnellers dig under the dung, burying it on site as an underground food source. Dwellers, the slackers of the dung beetle world, don’t bother with burying their treasure, preferring to simply live in it where it falls. I’ll focus on the rollers from here on in, as they’re the most bizarrely specialised of the bunch.

Dung beetles find their warm, fresh meals either through their excellent sense of smell or, in the case of some species, by simply riding around on their chosen food provider until the right time comes. Studies have shown that the beetles prefer omnivore or herbivore droppings to those of carnivores, perhaps for the more easily-digestible plant matter. One particularly intrepid group of researchers even determined that human faeces are favoured above those of most other large mammals. Good job, guys. Your funding agency must be proud.

It's a hot commodity... so to speak.(Via: Wikimedia Commons)
It’s a hot commodity… so to speak.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Rollers immediately set to work on a new pile of droppings by shaping a dense little ball of up to ten times their weight (about TimBit sized, for you Canadians out there. Mmm!). Before rolling the ball away to be eaten/buried for later, the beetle will climb up on it and do a sort of dance, rotating around its top. Researchers also observed the beetles doing this dance if their rolling path was disturbed, or if another beetle stopped them to try to steal their ball.

So why the dance? As you might guess, it’s a means of getting their bearings, but what’s really fascinating is how they’re doing it. Dung beetles always roll their balls in a straight line directly away from its origin, probably as a means of reducing competition from other nearby beetles as quickly as possible. And they do this despite facing the ground as they roll the ball with their hind legs. During the day, this was fairly obviously accomplished by positioning themselves according to the direction of the sun, using their dorsal vision. However, they can also do it on a clear, moonless night. How?

Using a planetarium and a series of experiments which, hilariously, involved fitting the dung beetles with little cardboard hats to block their overhead vision, a South African researcher has determined that the beetles are actually using the light from the Milky Way to navigate. This is the only known instance of animals using an entire galaxy to orient themselves. Birds and seals have been known to use stars for positioning, but never the Milky Way itself. This from a tiny creature that cleans up piles of poop for a living… there’s probably an inspiring metaphor here somewhere.

Goes great with coffee!(Via: Wikimedia Commons)
Goes great with coffee!
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

In the “But what does it do for me?” department, dung beetles are actually immensely useful to humans. Beyond restoring important soil nutrients, in areas of intense cattle-grazing, the beetles cart off and bury literally tonnes of manure that would otherwise host dangerous parasites and disease-carrying flies. Australia has intentionally introduced African dung beetles for this express purpose. Results have been much better than certain other introductions there.

The value of dung beetles has apparently been recognised for a very long time. Ever heard of the sacred scarab beetles of ancient Egypt? Yep… they’re dung beetles. One and the same. The beetles represented transformation and were linked with the god of the rising sun, who was believed to remake the sun and roll it across the sky each day, like the beetle with its ball. Something to think about next time you’re watching a beautiful sunrise.

[Fun Fact: Dung beetles in the African savanna use their dung balls as thermal refuges, periodically climbing up on them to moisten and cool their feet, which can increase in temperature by as much as ten degrees as they travel over the hot ground.]

Says Who?

  • Baird et al. (2012) PLoS ONE 7(1): e30211
  • Chamorro-Florescano (2011) Evolutionary Ecology 25: 277-289
  • Dacke et al. (2013) Current Biology 23: in press
  • Smolka et al. (2012) Current Biology 22(20): R863-R864
  • Whipple & Hoback (2012) Environmental Entomology 41(2): 238-244
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Necessity is the Mother of Invention, or, How to Eat Like a Shrike

(By: Arthur Morris, Via: Livebooks Blog)

Common Name: The Shrike

A.K.A.: Family Laniidae

Vital Stats:

  • Family consists of three genera and around 30 species
  • Shrikes range in size from 17cm (6.5”) up to 50cm (20”) long
  • Feathers may be black and white, cream, grey, or brown

Found: Various species found in North America, Southern Africa, and Eurasia

It Does What?!

Sometimes a creature aspires to a spot a little higher on the food chain, but doesn’t quite have all the equipment to get there. Behold the shrike, the bird that wishes it were a raptor. Like birds of prey, shrikes have strong, hooked beaks, sharp eyes, and an appetite for meat, but they’re missing a couple of important features. First, and most important… no talons. Shrikes can’t grab a victim and tear it into pieces like a hawk or falcon could. And second, no crop (a sort of internal storage pouch), so they can’t eat a large quantity of meat in a single sitting.

Not to be deterred by their anatomical shortcomings, these inventive go-getters have come up with a single solution to both problems. Two birds with one stone, if you will. After dispatching their prey with a quick beak to the back of the neck, shrikes will carry the carcass to a nearby shrub and actually impale it on a short branch or thorn. Aside from looking incredibly badass, this serves to anchor the body in one place, allowing the shrike to use its beak to rip the meat into pieces. What’s more, the bird can just leave its leftovers hanging there for later, like the meat locker at a butcher shop. [Wondering what that looks like? Here’s a video, set to appropriately ominous music.]

And now they’re learning to use human technology…
(Via: Nature Saskatchewan)

What kind of prey are we talking about here? Anything from small insects right up to mice, frogs, lizards, and other birds. There’s even a record of one killing and impaling a good-sized bat. Impressively, shrikes have also hit on the value of ageing their food – one species hunts the toxic lubber grasshopper of the southern United States. The dead grasshoppers are then left hanging for several days to let the poison degrade before being eaten. Clever birds.

Shrikes are monogamous and share in parenting duties; when the female is sitting on eggs, it’s the male’s job to go out and kill something nutritious for two. Of course, this makes selecting a good hunter an important task for females during mate selection. When a single male wants to advertise his skills, he makes a conspicuous display of his biggest, most impressive kills for any prospective ladies. Once he’s gotten one’s attention, he performs a mating dance that mimics the action of impaling prey on branches and then feeds her from his assortment of carcasses. (Be sure to include this point next time you’re explaining ‘the birds and the bees’ to someone.)

The owner of this lizard is probably off getting lucky.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

I guess when you have only one major skill, you want to make the most of it, because aside from eating and attracting mates, shrikes also use their impaling trick for communication. Bonded pairs are territorial and will defend their terrain from others of their species. In a sort of macabre message to would-be trespassers, the couple will mount their kills around the borders of their land, perhaps in an effort to show others what could become of them if push came to shove. (Did I mention these things actually have a comic book monster named for them? Eat your heart out, Batman.) Unfortunately for them, researchers note that this action often resulted in the prey being snatched by opportunistic passers-by and having to be replaced. It’s so hard to look murderous when everybody keeps stealing your victims…

[Fun Fact: Shrikes with young chicks will often eat only the head of their prey, saving the bodies for the kids. ‘Cause that’s just good parenting.]

Says Who?

  • Keynan & Yosef (2010) Behavioural Processes 85: 47-51
  • Sarkozi & Brooks (2003) Southwestern Naturalist 48(2): 301-303
  • Smith (1973) Behaviour 44(1/2): 113-141
  • Yosef & Pinshow (2005) Behavioural Processes 69: 363-367
You’re next.
(Via: Tough Little Birds)
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Pitcher Plants: Sweet Temptation and the Slippery Slope

(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Common Name: The Asian Pitcher Plant

A.K.A.: Genus Nepenthes

Vital Stats:

  • Over 130 species in the genus
  • The vast majority of species have extremely narrow ranges of only a single island or small island group, and are considered threatened
  • Most recently discovered (2007) was Nepenthes attenboroughii, named for Sir David Attenborough, who is fond of pitcher plants

Found: Mountainous regions of Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Madagascar

It Does What?!

Plants have evolved a variety of different ways to deal with growing in nutrient-poor soils. Some become parasitic, some develop close symbiotic relationships with bacteria or fungi, and some of them… well, some of them just start eating animals.

Lizard: makes a nice, light snack.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

One group of plants that went this route are the Asian pitcher plants (not to be confused with the not-closely-related New World pitcher plants, which tend to have tall, flute-like pitchers). These smallish, climbing plants use highly modified leaves to form what are essentially external stomachs, complete with the plant’s own digestive fluid. These pitchers, which vary in size from one species to the next, have extremely slick, waxy inner walls. When visitors come to eat the nectar produced on the lid (or “operculum”) of the trap, they lose their footing and fall into the liquid below.

That liquid is actually a pretty complex mixture; it’s divided into two phases, like oil and water. The upper portion is mostly rainwater, but has been laced with a compound that makes it more viscous, preventing winged insects from just flying away, as they could from pure water. The trap’s lid actually functions to prevent too much rainwater from getting inside and diluting the fluid too much. The lower portion of the liquid is a digestive acid capable of breaking down flesh into useable molecules (particularly nitrogen and phosphorous), much like our own stomach acid. Analogous to our intestines, the lower inside surface of the pitcher is covered with special glands that absorb suspended nutrients.

Most of what gets caught in pitcher plants is about what you’d expect- winged insects, spiders, beetles, small scorpions. But occasionally, some larger animals find their way in. Things that should have known better, like frogs, lizards, and even birds. Arguably, these plants are doing evolution a favour by taking out any bird dumb enough to fly into its own watery grave. And yes, to answer your next question- they can eat rats, but only a single species has been documented to do this. Nepenthes rajah, the largest of all pitcher plants, has pitchers which grow to a height of nearly half a metre (1.6’) and hold up to three and a half litres (1gal.) of fluid, most of which is digestive juice.

Interestingly, pitcher plants have formed symbiotic relationships with several of the same types of creatures that it otherwise preys on. Nepenthes lowii, for example, provides nectar to a tree shrew. Instead of falling in and being digested, the shrew treats the pitcher as its personal toilet, thereby providing the plant with most of the nutrition it requires.

In one end and out the other.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Other species form alliances with groups of carpenter ants. In exchange for a steady supply of nectar and a place to live- in this case a hollow tendril- the ants basically act as the plant’s evil henchmen (apparently a specialty of ants). When prey that is too large to be easily digested falls into the trap, the ants remove it, rip it to shreds, and then throw the bits back in again.

How’s that for a brilliant piece of evolution? Not only did these plants grow an external stomach… they get ants to chew their food for them.

[Fun Fact: Some pitcher plants primarily survive by digesting leaves that fall from trees into their traps – the ‘vegetarians’ of the carnivorous plant world.]

Says Who?

  • Bonhomme et al. (2011) Journal of Tropical Ecology 27: 15-24
  • Clarke et al. (2009) Biology Letters 5: 632-635
  • Krol et al. (2012) Annals of Botany 109: 47-64
  • Robinson et al. (2009) Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 159: 195-202
  • Wells et al. (2011) Journal of Tropical Ecology 27(4): 347-353
So big it makes them vaguely uncomfortable.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)
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Nights of the Living Dead… Further Horrors of the Insect World

(By: Paul Nylander Via: The Tucson Citizen)

Common Name: The Tarantula Hawk

A.K.A.: Genera Pepsis and Hemipepsis

Vital Stats:

  • The two genera make up Tribe Pepsini in Family Pompilidae
  • Grow up to 5cm (2”) long
  • Stingers are up to 7mm (1/3”) long
  • Quite long lived for wasps, with lifespans of more than a year
  • Adults feed primarily on milkweed nectar

Found: Across much of the tropics and southern hemisphere

It Does What?!

Happy Halloween, readers! Today’s the day when we’re surrounded by images of zombies, witches, ghosts, and spiders- all creatures meant to scare us on some level. Of course, only one of these things is real. And spiders truly are a scary thing for many people. For all you arachnophobes out there who are feeling vaguely uncomfortable about the preponderance of fake spiders out there today, did you ever wonder what the spiders fear? What keeps tarantulas, the biggest, scariest arachnids of them all, awake at night? Tarantula hawks, that’s what. If spiders had Halloween, this is what they would dress up as.

A creature that can kill small rodents being outmatched by a nectar-sipping insect. Sad.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Like any good mother, the female tarantula hawk wants to ensure that her baby has all the food it requires to grow up into a healthy adult wasp. Rather than bag a large piece of prey and have it spoil by the time her egg hatches, she has developed an ingenious system of keeping meat fresh.

Spying a tarantula from the air, she will attack, injecting the spider with her venom as it struggles to bite her. A particularly hard and slippery exoskeleton renders this counterattack ineffective; the fangs simply slip off her. Before long, the tarantula has succumbed to her venom and is alive, but completely paralysed. Once the prey has been neutralised, she sets out over land, dragging the spider up to 100m (quite a long way, considering the scale involved) back to the site of a burrow she has dug out. Here, our mom-to-be lays a single egg on the helpless spider’s abdomen, then proceeds to immure it in the burrow.

A hundred metres starts to look like a very long trip.
(By: Erin Zimmerman, taken during my field work in Guyana)

But this is only the beginning of the horror for the paralysed spider. Soon after, the egg hatches, and the hungry larva tunnels directly into the spider’s flesh, eating as it goes. The larva instinctively knows to avoid the tarantula’s vital organs as it eats, thereby keeping the prey alive for as long as possible. After several weeks of chowing down, the larva finishes off the job and emerges from the spider’s body, having now matured into a wasp. It then simply unseals the burrow and flies away, leaving the late tarantula in its ready-made grave.

Wondering what happens when a person gets stung by one of these? It’s an interesting question, because the answer is both “a lot” and “not much”. You see, the paralytic agent in the venom only works on invertebrates, and won’t actually do any real damage to human tissue. Before you go trying to catch one, though, know that, in terms of immediate reaction, tarantula hawks are considered to have the single most painful insect sting in the world. It’s best described by an entomologist who has actually experienced such a sting:

“Advice I have given in speaking engagements was to ‘lay down and scream’. The reasoning being that the pain is so debilitating and excruciating that the victim is at risk of further injury by tripping in a hole or over an object in the path and falling onto a cactus or into a barbed wire fence. Such is the pain, that few, if any, can maintain normal coordination or cognitive control to prevent accidental injury. Screaming is a satisfying expression that helps reduce attention to the pain of the sting itself.” [Schmidt 2004]

In short… don’t touch these.

A few words now on just how frighteningly well-adapted this wasp is. Not only is it covered in armour and full of incredibly painful venom, but at roughly the size of your little finger, it’s one of the largest wasps out there, and more of a fight than most insectivores want to deal with. It is essentially without predators. And lest any potential enemies forget why they’re not touching it, the tarantula hawk has both a distinct colour and a characteristic odour, meant to remind aggressors of the pain associated with any previous run-ins. Researchers have described tarantula hawks as being “among the best defended animals on earth” [Schmidt 2004]. And because success always spawns imitation, there are now several other creatures mimicking the appearance of the female tarantula hawk as a form of protection, including the more-or-less defenceless males of the same species.

So the next time you shudder at the thought of a tarantula stalking you in the wild, stop and remember what might be stalking it.

[Fun Fact: Despite its phenomenal pain-inducing qualities, tarantula hawk venom is only about 5% as lethal as honeybee venom, based on studies by people who inject white mice with horrible things for a living.]

Says Who?

  • Alcock & Kemp (2006) Ethology 112: 691-698
  • Kurczewski (2010) Northeastern Naturalist 17(1): 115-124
  • Schmidt (2004) Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 77(4): 402-413
  • Schoeters et al. (1997) Canadian Journal of Zoology 75: 1014-1019
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Thank a Horseshoe Crab

(Via: reefguide.org)

Common Name: Horseshoe Crab

A.K.A.: Family Limulidae

Vital Stats:

  • Four extant species of horseshoe crab in three genera (Limulus, Carcinoscorpius, and Tachypleus)
  • Females are larger than males, and can reach up to 60cm (24”) long in some species
  • Believed to live between 20 and 40 years

Found: Coastal waters of southeast Asia, Oceania, and eastern North America

It Does What?!

Like the platypus and the lungfish, horseshoe crabs are what biologists refer to as “living fossils,” meaning their basic form has gone essentially unchanged for many millions of years. In the case of horseshoe crabs, fossils as old as 445 million years have been found that are quite similar to the extant species of today.

Despite their common name, the Limulidae aren’t true crabs. They’re arthropods, like crabs, but are actually more closely related to spiders and scorpions. In fact, beneath that tough shell, they do look quite spider-like. If spiders had tails, that is.

Basically a tarantula in combat gear.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Horseshoe crabs live in shallow coastal waters, feeding off worms and molluscs from the ocean floor. They are able to feed in near complete darkness at night due to a remarkable visual system. The creatures have three different types of eyes – compound, median, and rudimentary – located to both sides and to the front of their shell. What’s more, their compound eyes become a million times more sensitive to light at night than they are during the day. Since that’s roughly how much less light they have to work with at night, the crabs are able to see equally well at night and during the day.

Most people who have observed horseshoe crabs know them from their unusual breeding habits. Each spring and early summer, male crabs will search out a mate and attach themselves to the female’s shell using a special modified leg. Then, during the highest tides of the year, usually at night, the females crawl up onto shore by the hundreds, carrying their male cargo. Having picked a spot that’s moist, but not so low as to be washed away with the tide, they dig a nest into the sand and lay their eggs. The attached males get first dibs at fertilising the pre-laid eggs, but must share the task with numerous mate-less onlookers who rush in to get their shot at fatherhood as well (crabs are so uncouth). Since eggs number in the tens of thousands per female, many will probably be successful. Most of these thousands of eggs, however, will become food for migratory birds, who appreciate the extra protein snack on their long journeys. After a month or so, the uneaten eggs will hatch into larvae, which remain on the beach in groups for a couple of weeks before moulting into juvenile horseshoe crabs and finally moving into the water.

Horseshoe crabs, making more horseshoe crabs.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Now you might be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but what can horseshoe crabs do for me?” Well, as it turns out, these creatures are some of the most prolific blood donors on Earth (whether they like it or not). Like our friend Mr. Spock, horseshoe crabs have copper-based blood, rather than the iron-based concoction favoured by humans. They are literally blue-blooded. And instead of white blood cells to fight off infection, they have amebocytes. These amebocytes are so valuable in detecting certain types of bacterial infections in humans that a quart of horseshoe crab blood is worth approximately $15,000 US. Crabs are caught, transported to a lab, and drained of about 30% of their blood before being released. The company behind this 50 million dollar per year industry states that only about 3% of the quarter million crabs die from the procedure annually, while other studies have found the number to be nearer to 15% (read more about it here). Knowing who’s right may become very important, as horseshoe crab populations are declining worldwide, additionally affecting the migratory birds that feed on their eggs. Either way, next time you survive an E. coli infection, thank a horseshoe crab.

No, no… we don’t mind. Really.
(Via: TYWKIWDBI)

[Fun Fact: Horseshoe crabs are thought to be the closest living relative of the extinct trilobite.]

[Also, here’s a cool video of (who else?) Sir David Attenborough explaining the mating habits of horseshoe crabs.]

Says Who?

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Killing Me Softly, or, The Fatal Embrace of the Strangler Fig

(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Common Name: Strangler Figs

A.K.A.: Ficus species

Vital Stats:

  • There are around 800 sp. of figs, over half of which are hemi-epiphytes, like stranglers
  • Around 10% of all vascular plants are epiphytes (about 25,000 species)
  • The trees which produce the figs we eat are terrestrial, and do not grow in other trees

Found: Tropical forests of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Australia

It Does What?!

What does it take to squeeze the life out of a full-grown tree? A lot of time and some very long roots, apparently. Many parasites eventually bring about the untimely death of their hosts, but few do it as slowly and as insidiously as the strangler fig.

Stranglers begin life as a tiny seed that leaves the back end of a bird and happens to land on a tree branch high in the rainforest canopy. The seed germinates, and the young fig begins to grow as an aerial plant, or epiphyte, taking its moisture from the air and its nutrients from the leaf litter on its branch. Thousands of plant species, including most orchids, grow in this manner. But then an odd thing begins to happen. The seedling produces a single long root. Very long. From tens of metres up in the canopy, this root grows all the way down to the ground. Many young stranglers will die before their questing root reaches the earth, but for those that make it, a connection is formed with the soil through which water and nutrients can be extracted. From this point on the great, towering giant which holds this tiny little interloper is in mortal danger.

The strangler fig, playing “harmless epiphyte.”
(Screenshot from The Private Life of Plants, BBC)

A secure connection to the soil allows the fig to speed up its growth and to begin sending more and more roots earthward. Rather than dropping straight down, like the initial root, these later organs will twine around the bark of the host tree. At first, the roots are tiny, like mere vines crawling over the host trunk. Over time, however, they thicken, covering more and more of the trunk’s surface. Where they touch or overlap, the roots actually fuse together, forming a mesh over the surface of the bark. Up above, the stem of the strangler is growing as well. It rises through and above the host branches, soaking up the light and leaving the other tree shaded and starved for energy.

In fact, this is a war fought on two fronts. As the starving host tree struggles to gather light energy to send downward from the leaves, it is also increasingly unable to bring water up from its roots. This is because the tree’s trunk continues to expand even as the strangler’s grip grows tighter around it. These opposing forces effectively girdle the tree, crushing the vascular tissues that carry moisture from the soil. Eventually, the battle is lost and the tree dies. Fortunately for the fig, its major investments in root growth have paid off – the dead host tree does not fall, taking the strangler with it. Instead, it simply rots where it stands. Finally, many years after its arrival on the scene, the strangler fig has achieved independence. It is now a free-standing tree, completely hollow and supported by its interwoven lattice of aerial roots.

The first root finds the ground.
(Screenshot from The Private Life of Plants, BBC)

So what happens when more than one strangler fig seed lands on a particular tree? Something quite unique… the roots of the different individuals fuse and form an organism which is indistinguishable from a single tree, except by molecular testing. These are what biologists refer to as ‘genetic mosaics.’ What’s more, the individuals actually begin to act like a single tree. You see, figs typically have staggered flowering times, such that it is unlikely for numerous trees in a small area to be in bloom at the same time. This helps in keeping their wasp symbionts well nourished. Once trees fuse, however, they seem to become physiologically linked as well, with researchers reporting that they bloom as a single individual.

The most hurricane-proof tree ever.
(Screenshot from The Private Life of Plants, BBC)

[Fun Fact: Some strangler fig species have very high growth rates, and huge individuals have actually been found engulfing abandoned buildings in the tropics.]

Says Who?

  • Harrison (2006) Journal of Tropical Ecology 22(4): 477-480
  • Perry & Merschel (1987) Smithsonian 17: 72-79
  • Schmidt & Tracey (2006) Functional Plant Biology 33: 465-475
  • Thomson et al. (1991) Science 254: 1214-1216
Don’t meditate under strangler figs.
(Via: Flickr, by vincenzooli)
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The Zombie Apocalypse: Already Underway

(Via: this site)

Common Name: The Zombie-Ant Fungus

A.K.A.: Ophiocordyceps unilateralis

Vital Stats:

  • Whole “graveyards” of 20-30 ants may be found within a single square metre
  • Telltale bitemarks on fossil plants suggest this fungus, or a related species, may have been in operation for the last 48 million years
  • Host species is the carpenter ant Camponotus leonardi

Found: Tropical forests throughout the world

It Does What?!

Despite all the advances of modern neuroscience, the fact is, human understanding of brain chemistry and its manipulation still has a long way to go. Much to the chagrin of those plotting world domination, we won’t be chemically controlling each other’s minds any time soon. How embarrassing then, that a mere fungus seems to have perfected this technique. Almost fifty million years ago. Scooped again, humanity.

It begins with an ant walking along the ground, deep in a tropical forest somewhere. This ant, Camponotus leonardi, lives high in the trees, but must occasionally come down to cross from one tree to another when there is a break in the canopy. As it walks, a minute fungal spore drifts down from above and lands in its back, unnoticed. The unseen spore springs into action, producing an enzyme which breaks down the ant’s exoskeleton just enough to allow a fungal hypha, like a tiny root, to enter. The host’s fate is now sealed.

This is your brain on ‘shrooms.
(Via: Flickr, by Alextkt)

While the ant climbs back up into the canopy and goes about its business, the fungus grows through its insides, breaking down and consuming the non-vital soft tissues as it goes, keeping the animal alive even as it is being eaten. Soon, the fungal tendrils reach the brain and begin to produce chemicals which affect the host’s behaviour in very specific ways. First, it will experience convulsions that cause it to fall out of its tree. These will continue periodically, preventing it from returning to its colony. Over a period of hours, the ant will then wander, erratically and aimlessly, over the ground and low-growing plants.

This is where the precision of the fungus’ mind control becomes truly impressive. At solar noon, when the sun is highest in the sky, the infected ant will abruptly climb the stem of a small plant and find a leaf pointing north by northwest at a height of 20-30cm above the ground. Yes, really. No one knows how this jaw-dropping specificity is accomplished, but it’s what the fungus wants, providing a temperature of 20-30 degrees Celcius (68-86F) and a relative humidity of around 95%. In cases where ants were experimentally moved to different heights or orientations, the fungus was unable to reproduce properly.

What the fungus wants, the fungus gets.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Having found the perfect leaf, the zombified ant will go to its underside, find a major leaf vein, and just bite down on it as hard as it can. The fungus has already destroyed the muscles required to release this grip, and so there the ant stays, slowly dying over the course of the afternoon. Once its victim has been dispatched, the fungus grows toward the leaf, further anchoring itself to the plant. Around a week later, the parasite completes its horrifying circle of life by growing a fruiting body, similar to a mushroom, from the back of the dead ant’s head. This will open to release thousands of tiny spores, raining down over any potential hosts which may be walking below.

While the fungus is able to infect other, closely related, species of carpenter ant, it has less precise control over these hosts and isn’t always successful in getting the ant to do its bidding, suggesting that even minor variations in brain structure can stump it. So we’re probably safe from the fungal zombie apocalypse. At least for the time being…

Says Who?

  • Andersen et al. (2009) American Naturalist 174(3): 424-433
  • Hughes et al. (2011) Biology Letters 7: 67-70
  • Hughes et al. (2011) BMC Ecology 11: 13
  • Pontoppidan et al. (2009) PloS ONE 4(3): e4835
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Death from Below! (The Purse-Web Spider)

(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

Common Name: Purse-Web Spiders

A.K.A.: Family Atypidae

Vital Stats:

  • The family contains three genera; Atypus, Calommata, and Sphodros
  • Females reach up to 30mm (1.2”) in length
  • Fangs can measure up to half the spider’s body length
  • Prey includes crickets, beetles, millipedes, ants, wasps, and other spiders
  • Web tubes measure up to half a metre (20”) from top to bottom

Found: Africa, temperate regions of North America, Europe, and Asia

It Does What?!

Imagine you’re a beetle, peacefully strolling along the forest floor, minding your own business, when suddenly, two enormous black spikes drive up out of the earth and impale you through the abdomen. As everything fades to black, your last beetle-ly thought is, “What the hell was that?!”

You have just become a tasty lunch for the purse-web spider.

So how does this work? Well, unlike most of the spiders we’re familiar with – those with small, pincer-like mouths that sit in webs all day – purse-webs are a type of primitive spider called a mygalomorph. In this group, the fangs are like a pair of large (relative to the spider) tusks that only move up and down; they don’t pinch, and this feature lends itself to some rather creative hunting methods.

Rather than constructing a flat, aerial web designed to have something fall into it, the purse-web spider spins what is essentially a silken tube-sock. The ‘foot’ of this sock lies along a slight depression in the ground, while the upper part lies vertically against a tree or rock (or, in some species, angles downward into the earth). The spider will then place bits of bark and lichen onto both parts of the web as camouflage. Over time, moss will actually begin to grow on the web, completing the disguise. All the spider needs to do now is wait, suspended from the ceiling of her underground lair, for some unwitting creature to walk over it. When this happens, she rushes to the source of the disturbance and spears her prey from below with her fangs before they realise what hit them (like this).

Invisible by spider standards, anyway.
(Via: Wikimedia Commons)

The spider will be vulnerable to larger predators if she ventures out into the open, so she simply cuts a slit in the web, drags her impaled prey inside, and seals up the hole again. Having sucked out their delicious insides, she then drops the dead husks out of the top of her sock like so much household garbage. In fact, researchers determined the diet of the purse-web spider by noting the various exoskeletons hanging from the outside of the web, having gotten caught on their way down. Apparently, all the dead bodies seemingly stuck to the side of a nearby tree aren’t much of a deterrent to other passersby.

So, since these spiders never leave their burrows, and kill anything that approaches, mating must be tricky, right? Right. The male is attracted to the female’s web by means of pheromones, and ventures out to find it. Once he locates the web, he must be very careful, tapping at the outside of the tube in a way that indicates he isn’t prey. Ultimately, though, whether he’s prey or not will be up to her. If the female inside isn’t yet mature or is already pregnant, she won’t hesitate to eat him when he attempts to enter the burrow. Researchers experimenting with placing male spiders in or near the webs of unreceptive females noted, essentially, that they run like hell as soon as they figure out what’s what. Research is amusing sometimes.

A male purse-web spider on what will be either the best or worst day of his life.
(Via: Florida Backyard Spiders)

But in the happy instances where the female is willing to mate, the male enters safely, and in fact continues to live with her for several months of domestic bliss before he dies naturally. And then she eats him anyway. Spiders are not sentimental creatures. Her eggs will take almost a year to hatch, and the young will stay with her for nearly another year after that, before striking out in the world to spin their own tube-sock of death.

Says Who?

  • Beatty (1986) Journal of Arachnology 14(1): 130-132
  • Coyle & Shear (1981) Journal of Arachnology 9: 317-326
  • Piper (2007) Extraordinary Animals: an encyclopedia of curious and unusual animals. Greenwood Press, Westport CT.
  • Schwendinger (1990) Zoologica Scripta 19(3): 353-366