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Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Butterflies, clicking antelopes, creatures of the deep and more
By Amanda Bensen, T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Anika Gupta and Abigail Tucker
Smithsonian magazine, January 2009
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The clicking sound of an Eland antelope is from their knee tendon slipping over their leg bone. (Jakob Bro-Jorgensen / Cambridge University)
Eland antelopes use their knees to get a leg up on rivals, according to researchers working in Kenya. When mature bulls walk, their knee tendons slip over their leg bones, making a clicking sound like castanets. The noise, which can be heard hundreds of yards away, may help maintain dominance hierarchies: the louder the tone, the bigger the bull. The downside? Lions can hear it, too.
Additional Sources
"The thermohaline expressway: the Southern Ocean as a centre of origin for deep-sea octopuses," Jan M. Strugnell et al., Cladistics, November 11, 2008
"Knee-clicks and visual traits indicate fighting ability in eland antelopes: multiple messages and back-up signals," Jakob Bro-Jørgensen and Torben Dabelsteen, BMC Biology, November 5, 2008
"Sea Snakes (Laticauda spp.) Require Fresh Drinking Water: Implication for the Distribution and Persistence of Populations," Harvey B. Lillywhite et al., Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, November/December 2008
"Hindwings are unnecessary for flight but essential for execution of normal evasive flight in Lepidoptera," Benjamin Jantzen and Thomas Eisner, PNAS, October 28, 2008
"Daytime micro-naps in a nocturnal migrants: an EEG analysis," T. Fuchs et al., Biology Letters, November 5, 2008
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The Click of the Wild Eland Antelope
Listen for the subtle clicks of the eland bull's knees
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