Category: Eco Tonics

Animals use different defense techniques, such as camouflage, mimicry or unusual associations or group living to defend themselves from its predator. The jumping spider who seeks the help of ants in order to protect themselves from its enemy, the spitting spiders, exhibits defense mechanism, which is completely weird and of course different. Interestingly, the ants, which act as a protector for the jumping spiders against the spitting spider, equally love to feed on them. 

We are often fascinated by the bright colors of the animals. In nature, these bright colors of the animals are not just to impress females or a fashion statement, rather are the characteristics of animals with an anti-predatory defense, such as a poison or sting. Predators over the time have understood to avoid attacking such animals, which either can hurt them or might taste awful. 

As proposed by the researchers from the University of Göttingen and the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), plants are capable of making arduous decisions when caught in tough situation and until now, plants intelligence was underestimated. 

Fruits are good for maintaining a healthy body as well as a healthy mind, is a fact that almost everyone knows. A research conducted to understand the genesis of intelligence in the primates also confirms the same. Researchers have found that the lemurs gorging heavily on fruits show better cognitive abilities than the lemurs that feed on a variety of food such as leaves, insects, seed and so on. The finding supports the notion that eating seasonal fruits or fruits that are difficult to get, gives certain cognitive edge to…

Lately, a research has revealed that many animals, including cats, dogs and some other mammals has the ability to see things that are not visible to human eyes. Biologists at City University and University College in the U.K, Ron Douglas and Glen Jeffery say that the secret that empowers these animals to view things is their ability to detect ultraviolet light. 

Humans need gestures of love and affection, especially during tough times. Similar gestures have been noticed in the animal kingdom as well. Animals such as Cats, dogs, chimps, Gorillas, orangutans and birds such as crows, ravens, scrub jays are known to show empathy and love towards their stressed out member of the group. To this list, researchers have added the Asian elephants, who have been noticed to show gestures of love through gentle strokes and through various sounds, communicate with the distress member to express their empathy. 

We have already seen how the rise in temperature is melting away the ice at the poles making the life of polar bears and penguins difficult. Melting ice at the poles is making these animals look for alternate hunting and breeding places. Apart from polar bear other marine animals like ringed seals, gray seals and beluga whales are exposed to these problems. Now researchers have found another challenge that these animals are facing- exposure to new diseases. 

In the animal kingdom, the burden lies with the males to seduce and impress the female for mating. We have already covered an article on peacocks, who had mastered the art of dance to impress the peahens. Apart from dance, singing is another way that male birds try to impress its female counterpart. One such research conducted on hummingbirds, showed that they are capable of changing the tunes of the songs that they learned at tender age or even create a new melody altogether. Traditionally it was believed that these…

We are familiar with the species of ants known as fire ants, which are famous for their painful stings. The venom in the stings causes acute pain in humans and fatal for other species of ants and insects, is known to be twice or thrice more toxic than DDT when compared on a per weight basis. Therefore, these are known to dominate the territory where they reside. However, recently a species of ants have invaded the fire ant territory and giving a tough fight to these native ants. 

Most people believe that the crocodiles are mainly or semi aquatic and therefore, can hide and attack its prey on land and under water. Many of us would not ever imagine a crocodile climbing a tree to attack its enemy or to feed. But this is a fact, as seen by scientists from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, crocodile can easily climb and have been seen reaching up to the tree crowns.  

Black and brown bears are known to go to hibernate during the winter seasons, to stay warm, cozy and to conserve energy. But researchers are curious to find an answer, why polar bears residing at higher latitudes, unlike brown and black bears hibernate and how do they stand the freezing cold of arctic tundra. Only female expecting babies are often seen to hide in caves during winters to save themselves in exceedingly low temperatures.