Wild Things: Life as We Know It
Cobras, sharks, lemurs, hermit crabs and more...
- By T. A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Erica R. Hendry and Abigail Tucker
- Smithsonian magazine, July-August 2010,
(Nathan Bailey)
Name: The field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus.
Some Sing Males attract females by rubbing their forewings together to chirp. Males who can’t or don’t “sing” lurk near singers to mate with lured females.
Who Listens? Females do, for sure—but so do juvenile males, note biologists at the University of California at Riverside.
What Happens? Males who grow up amid lots of singers tend to have bigger testes than those who don’t. They’re in better physical condition and more likely to sing. The study shows that insects’ behavior and bodies are keenly attuned to their social environments.
Additional Sources
“Birch (Betula spp.) leaves adsorb and re-release volatiles specific to neighbouring plants – a mechanism for associational herbivore resistance?” Sari J. Himanen et al., New Phytologist, March 10, 2010
“A seasnake’s colour affects its susceptibility to algal fouling,” R. Shine et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, April 7, 2010
“Mate choice and mate competition by a tropical hummingbird at a floral resource,” Ethan J. Temeles and W. John Kress, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, February 3, 2010
“Socially induced brain development in a facultatively eusocial sweat bee Megalopta genalis (Halictidae),” Adam R. Smith et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, March 24, 2010
“Conditioned taste aversion enhances the survival of an endangered predator imperiled by a toxic invader,” Stephanie O’Donnell et al., Journal of Applied Ecology, April 13, 2010
Comments (4)
@jeff,
See the "video gallery" in the right border.
Dan
Posted by Dan on September 6,2010 | 04:18 PM
I have read about these "vacancy chains" in several different species of hermits, and have recently observed it in my tank of marine invertebrates from the Georgia Strait. There were a few "arguments" over the first shell, with a medium-sized hermit challenging the larger one, and quickly backing down. After that, everything went smoothly, with the next smallest occupying the most recently vacated shell.
Posted by Susannah on July 9,2010 | 01:55 AM
The article "Shell Swap Meet" (July-August 2010) jumped out at me. My wife and I saw the same sort of shell swap in June of 1977 at the Stella Maris resort on Long Island in the Bahamas. The scene was as described in the article except that there were two hermit crabs fighting to get into an empty shell.Unfortunately we did not observe the formation of the fight. On leaving our unit, the crabs were all lined up on the ground level patio of our unit and the battle was under way. Each fighter had his (her?) own line of piggybacking crabs with the largest of the piggybackers first in line behind one of the fighters. As one of the fighters seemed to be winning by moving partly out of its shell, every one of its piggybackers began to move in an attempt to occupy the shell of the next biggest crab. The battle went on for half an hour with no clear winner. We watched fascinated, but had to leave to join our group snorkeling trip. By the time we got back a few hours later there were no crabs to be seen, and no single left- over shell anywhere. The researchers on Belize might be interested that "Shell Swaps" occur in the Bahamas, and that possession of a prize shell can be contested by two fighters with their piggybackers hanging on for the possibility of getting a new home.
Posted by David Asdourian on July 9,2010 | 01:09 PM
Where is the video listed in the magazine. ??smithsonian.com/wildthings
Posted by jeff mark on July 5,2010 | 09:56 AM