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
Venomous kraits must drink river or spring water that flows into the ocean or rainwater on the sea surface. (Tobias Bernhard / zefa / Corbis)
It was "long-standing dogma" that sea snakes subsist on saltwater, say researchers from the University of Florida and elsewhere. But when they tested venomous kraits in the lab, the snakes drank only freshwater or highly diluted saltwater. Conclusion: the sea-dwelling reptiles must drink river or spring water that flows into the ocean or rainwater that pools on the sea surface.
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
Comments (2)
This is great information for my project thnx <3
Posted by Jacqueline Molina on March 30,2011 | 06:15 PM
Although I had lived in Kenya for 30 years, I had never heard eland knees click. Thanks for recording this extraordinary bit of natural information. I wonder if my son who works near Masai Mara has ever heard this??!!
Posted by Ann Goss on April 19,2010 | 07:48 PM