Blog Archives

Thor? Loki? Is that you?

12/27/2020

You know it's a great day when you're standing on top of a mountain and one of your favorite types of birds swoops in and poses majestically with a stunning backdrop! My fellow birders might say this is a Common Raven, but my fellow geeks can debate whether this is Huginn or Muninn.

It's easy to see why Odin would have ravens as assistants. Corvids are some of the most intelligent creatures in the animal kingdom, rivaling apes and even young humans in their problem-solving abilities and their ability to plan for the future. They learn quickly, make tools, remember faces and events, and plan their moves several steps ahead.

Check out this excerpt from a recent study:
"Until recently, planning for the future has generally been considered to be unique to humans... It has been argued that planning in foraging and natural tasks is not the same as planning in a more general way. Kabadayi et al. tested ravens with tasks designed to specifically assess their general planning abilities... We tested whether ravens can make decisions for an event 15 minutes into the future, and over longer intervals of 17 hours. We additionally tested whether ravens can exert self-control when making decisions for the future. Well-developed self-control is essential to planning because impulsivity keeps one stuck in the immediate context. [The results show that] ravens plan for events unrelated to caching— tool-use and bartering—with delays of up to 17 hours, exert self-control, and consider temporal distance to future events. Confirming their forward-planning abilities, the birds performed at least as well as apes and small children in this complex cognitive task." Here's the full study: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6347/202

So there you go - a great New Year's resolution: plan for your future and think several steps ahead, at least as much as a raven does!

Ahoy, matey!

12/20/2020

For today's Sunday Squee, we're essentially looking at Dr. Seuss' Whoville - a whole colony of teeny critters comprising a little blue sailboat. Meet the By-the-wind Sailor. That thing that looks like a blue jellyfish with a clear, gelatinous sail on top is actually a hydroid colony.

A hydroid colony is a group of polyps like sea anemones. They form a tight cluster and appear to be a single organism. Within the colony are different types of polyps with different functions. Some specialize in feeding, others provide structural support, and others protect the colony. There are no polyps that control locomotion; the colony cannot control its travels. The triangular sail catches the wind and the By-the-wind Sailor is blown across the ocean even in a gentle breeze.

All that being said, a couple of people have posted blogs stating that there was a study showing that the Sailor may be a complicated individual rather than a colony, but they did not include any citations. If anyone does have a citation to the research paper, please send me a note.

Moon jelly

12/19/2020

Look! It's an astronaut!

My first excursion after returning to the Pacific Northwest was to the People's Coast - Oregon's beautiful ocean beaches. I was greeted with several interesting surprises, including a Moon Jelly. Unlike the stereotypical jellyfish with long, trailing tentacles, the Moon Jelly has really short tentacles that gracefully sweep in tiny foods, such as plankton and diatoms.

Fun fact: the Moon Jelly got to ride in the space shuttle! They didn't quite get to the moon, but about 2500 went into orbit in a study about weightlessness and its effect on internal organs. The jellies got along quite well with each other. By the time the study was complete, over 60,000 jellies were orbiting Earth.

Jellyfish can sense up and down; they orient themselves to gravity in a similar way that we do. A Moon Jelly has crystals inside tiny pockets at the margin of its bell which are coated in specialized hairs. When a jelly rolls (ha!), the crystals slide around inside the pockets, move the hairs, and that tells the jelly which way is up.

The studies showed that artificial gravity does impact the development of internal organs. The space-bred jellies suffered from vertigo. Although they appeared normal, they couldn't move around very well once they came back to earth. Their ability to sense up and down was impaired.

So what does that mean for future humans who may be born in space? We'll have to consult with Star Trek fans for that answer. Oh, sure, you're thinking scientists would be better experts on this matter. Fine. You're just no fun at all! You ask the scientists, and I'll consult with my fellow cosplayers.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

12/6/2020

I was filling up the bird feeders when this little beauty flew in so close that I had to back up to get it in focus. The Red-breasted Nuthatch is one of my favorite backyard birds. Unlike its cousin the White-breasted, the Red-breasted is more friendly and is usually very comfortable around people. In fact, they've been known to eat out of your hand if you're patient.

So what on earth does "nuthatch" mean? The term refers to the bird's tendency to jam a nut into a crevice to hold it like a vice, then the bird uses its bill like a hatchet to crack open the nut.

Another clever tool in the nuthatch's toolbox is the use of resin. The bird will often collect resin from conifers, and using slivers of wood as a paintbrush, the bird applies the resin to the entrance of its nest cavity. It's believed that the sticky resin deters predators and other birds. Nuthatches dive directly through the hole so the resin doesn't affect them.

To attract Red-breasted Nuthatches to your feeder, put out black-oil sunflower seeds and shelled peanuts. When you see a small, cinnamon-chested bird that creeps along tree trunks upside-down like Spider-Man, you'll know you've got a Red-breasted Nuthatch.