Wild Beauty

There are five major kingdoms of living things: the kingdom Monera, the kingdom Protista, the kingdom Fungi, the kingdom Plantae, and the kingdom Animalia. The kingdom Animalia has over one million species that share certain characteristics. Most animals fall into this category.

Living organisms in the Animalia kingdom are all multicellular, meaning they have more than one type of cell. They do not have rigid cell walls, but rather have permeable membranes surrounded by fluid.

Members of the kingdom Animalia are heterotrophs, meaning they get nourishment from other organisms rather than manufacturing it themselves (as in photosynthesis).

Humans are underneath the kingdom Animalia.  We know why we dominate the kingdom.  What makes the rest of the kingdom deserve to be ranked along side of us?

Beasts are wonderful in a variety of ways.  Their senses are amazing.

Think of the term alligator skin as a compliment: It’s extraordinarily sensitive to minute changes in vibration, which helps locate prey.

Scientists who have studied crocodiles and alligators have taken note of these spots, which they have labeled “integumentary sensor organs” or ISOs (http://jeb.biologists.org/).  A Graduate Student named Duncan Leitch found that these sensory spots are connected to the brain through the trigeminal ganglia, the nerve bundle that provides sensation to the face and jaw in humans.  He also found a diverse collection of “mechanoreceptors:” nerves that respond to pressure and vibration. Some are specially tuned to vibrations in the 20-35 Hertz range, just right for detecting tiny water ripples.  Their finding that the most heavily wired ISOs are located in the mouth near the teeth suggests that the touch sensors help the animals identify the objects that they catch in their jaws. The sensors also appear to provide the sensitivity that female alligators and crocodiles need to delicately break open their eggs when they are ready to hatch and to protect their hatchlings by carrying them in their jaws, the same jaws that can clamp down on prey with a force of more than 2,000 psi.

Alligators are touchy, but the platypus is more the feely type. The only mammal with electroreception, it uses sensors in its bill to detect electrical impulses sent out by prey in murky water.

Electroreception conferred by this “bill sense” explains the platypus’s accurate navigation through light-limited areas. This idea was first suggested when pores on the bill skin demonstrated morphological similarities to the ampullary electroreceptors in electric fish (Pettigrew 1999). Ampullary electroreceptors allow response to low-frequency electric signals that are generated by animal nerves and hearts and it was theorized that the bill functions the same way (Sherwood 2004).   Platypus electroreception was first demonstrated in Australia and detection strengths were measured at 300 μV per cm. Electroreceptive afferents, or sensory input, from the trigeminal nerve described earlier by Home were also later measured to be comparable to that of electric fish (Pettigrew 1999)http://www.naturalnews.com/039948_earthquakes_ant_colonies_premonition.html#

Redwood Ant

Researchers believe electromagnetism may help red wood ants sense imminent earthquakes in time to evacuate their mounds. Someday these creatures may be part of geologic threat-detection systems.

Tests carried out by geobioscientist Gabriele Berberich show that the red wood ants detect changes in environmental gas emissions by using their unique chemoreceptor cells. These cells allow the ants to sense changes in carbon dioxide levels. The ants also have built in radars called magnetoreceptor cells. These help them detect changes in the electromagnetic field.

Elephants, too, are acutely aware of vibrations. They use seismic activity generated by their trunks and feet to communicate with one another about predators, territory and mating preferences.

Thunderstorms and earthquakes produce vibrational cues; these may be used by elephants in order  to attract them to water or avoid earthquakes.  Elephants produce low-frequency vocalizations at high amplitudes such that they couple with the ground and travel along the surface of the earth.  Direct percussion can produce a much stronger signal than airborne vocalizations that couple with the ground, as shown in the Asian elephant.  However, the power that an animal can couple into the ground at low frequencies is related directly to its mass.  Seismic energy transmits most efficiently between 10 and 40 Hz. This is the range in which elephants may communicate seismically.

Star-nosed moles have 22 tiny trunks containing a total of nearly 100,000 nerve fibers — six times as many touch receptors as on a human hand. As the mole burrows, the tentacles sweep ahead like a high-speed broom, faster than a human eye can detect.

Biologist Kenneth Catania of Vanderbilt University, who has been studying the unusual mole, Condylura cristata, since his graduate student days at the University of California at San Diego, recently discovered that star-nosed moles have the odd habit of blowing bubbles underwater through their nostrils. It’s not mere play. Using a high-speed camera, Catania filmed the moles as they created the bubbles — at a rate of between 5 and 10 bubbles per second, or about the same speed at which other rodents sniff — and found that most of the bubbles are immediately sucked back into the nose. He also discovered that the moles aim their bubbles at specific targets; they’ll blow out a bubble to touch the surface of an object, such as a piece of an earthworm (a star-nosed mole delicacy) or a small fish. “When these bubbles come into contact with an object, it is almost inevitable that odorant molecules” — those that impart smell — “will mix with the air and be drawn into the nose when the bubble is inhaled,” Catania says. That means, he says, that the mole uses the bubbles to smell. The finding came as a big surprise to Catania and other scientists. (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-beauty-of-ugly/star-nosed-moles/428/)

Above ground, wolves have a sense of pitch. Not wanting to lose their voice in a howling chorus, they pick their own unique note.

American Breed Bully Pitbull

Scientific analyses suggest that canines have a sense of pitch. Recordings of wolves have shown that each will change its tone when others join the chorus. No wolf seems to want to end up on the same note as any other in the choir. This is why a dog howling along with a group of singing humans is instantaneously noticeable. He is deliberately not in the same register as the other voices, and seems to revel in the discordant sound he creates.

The dogs responded differently to different types of music. When the dogs were played heavy metal music, they became quite agitated and began barking. Popular music or human conversation did not produce behaviours noticeably different from having no sound at all. Classical music, on the other hand, seemed to have a calming effect on the dogs. While listening to it, their level of barking was significantly reduced, and they often lay down and settled in place. In her paper published in the scientific journal Animal Welfare, Wells summarized her findings by saying, "It is well established that music can influence our moods. Classical music, for example, can help to reduce levels of stress, whilst grunge music can promote hostility, sadness, tension and fatigue. It is now believed that dogs may be as discerning as humans when it comes to musical preference”.  (http://moderndogmagazine.com/articles/perfect-pitch-dogs-music/248)

Seals are notable for their whiskers, which can detect the hydrodynamic trail of fish swimming up to 600 feet away.

 Sensing dinner is one thing, but animals from white-crowned sparrows to deer can sense if their diet is lacking in important nutrients. They’ll crave food containing amino acids that can’t be produced or stored by the body.

On the topic of bodies, a catfish’s is wrapped in taste buds. It’s like a swimming tongue that helps detect the flavor of potential prey from all directions.

 Back on terra firma, chemoreceptors that detect chemical changes and provide a sense of taste cover an earthworm’s entire body.

Corn Snake

 Snakes’ tongues do more than taste: They help track prey. Their forked tongues pick up scent molecules that the animal transfers, via specialized ducts in the mouth, to the Jacobson’s organ, which can detect where the scent’s source is located.

Rats and common moles can smell in stereo with independently acting nostrils. Researchers are putting their talents to use in Africa detecting land mines and other explosives.

Up to 40 percent of a shark’s brain is dedicated to sense of smell. No wonder some experts believe they can sniff out prey that’s a third of a mile away in the open ocean.

Parasitic worms also use scent to find hosts. By identifying odors attractive to these parasites, researchers may one day develop traps for worms that pose major health risks.

Sight, not smell, is a raptor’s key sense. Even while diving at speeds of 100 mph or more, falcons can spot prey thanks in part to a reduced number of blood vessels in the retina. Since the vessels scatter light, having fewer of them creates extremely sharp images.

Scallops are no falcons, but some scientists believe they’re able to distinguish between light and dark with as many as 100 eyes on the edge of their mantle. A reflective surface on the back of each eye focuses light onto two retinas to form an image.

“Four-eyed fish,” Anableps anableps, really have just two eyes, but each one is partitioned: The top keeps a lookout for above-surface predators while the bottom watches underwater.

Not only do jumping spiders have eight eyes positioned to create nearly 360-degree vision, but some species can detect ultraviolet radiation, which facilitates mating. (Mood lighting, anyone?)

Worker honeybees navigate using rings of paramagnetic iron oxide in their abdomens that swell or shrink depending on outside magnetic changes, allowing the insects to find their way home by following changes in the Earth’s magnetic fields.

There are five major kingdoms of living things: the kingdom Monera, the kingdom Protista, the kingdom Fungi, the kingdom Plantae, and the kingdom Animalia. The kingdom Animalia has over one million species that share certain characteristics. Most animals fall into this category.

Jewel beetles have sensors that detect infrared radiation from forest fires as far as 50 miles away. The beetles use recently scorched areas for mating. Now that’s putting the “sense” in sensual.

Of these one million species, each of them are completely special.  In 1871, Charles Darwin examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil. It has been proven that we are all beautiful.