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The birds are best known for building massive nest mounds of decaying vegetation, which the male attends, adding or removing litter to regulate the internal heat while the eggs develop. However, some bury their eggs in other ways; there are burrow-nesters which use geothermal heat, and others which simply rely on the heat of the sun warming the ...
A so-called "cathedral" mound produced by a termite colony. Structures built by non-human animals, often called animal architecture, [1] are common in many species. Examples of animal structures include termite mounds, ant hills, wasp and beehives, burrow complexes, beaver dams, elaborate nests of birds, and webs of spiders.
Some of the mounds are 3 m (10 ft) tall and 10 m (33 ft) wide, and they are spaced about 20 m (66 ft) apart. Underneath the mounds are networks of tunnels that required the excavation of 10 cubic kilometres (2.4 cu mi) of dirt. Scientists performed radioactive dating on 11 mounds. The youngest mound was 690 years old.
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Colonies of Microhodotermes viator produce initially small, [6] conical mounds on soil with sufficient clay content. [3] Sociotomy, or the mass movement of representatives of all castes in a colony in order to found a new colony, is unknown in Hodotermitidae.
Moles may be viewed as pests to gardeners, but they provide positive contributions to soil, gardens, and ecosystems, including soil aeration, feeding on slugs and small creatures that eat plant roots, and providing prey for other wildlife. They eat earthworms and other small invertebrates in the soil. [4] [5]
Crepuscular, a classification of animals that are active primarily during twilight, making them similar to nocturnal animals. Diurnality, plant or animal behavior characterized by activity during the day and sleeping at night. Cathemeral, a classification of organisms with sporadic and random intervals of activity during the day or night.
Sometimes, the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground, while at other times, they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard-packed. [20] Some mounds, known as dome craters, can be as high as 20–30 cm (7.9–11.8 in). Other mounds, known as rim craters, can be as high as 1 m (3 ft 3 in). [20]