Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Herbivores are dependent on plants for food, and have coevolved mechanisms to obtain this food despite the evolution of a diverse arsenal of plant defenses against herbivory. Herbivore adaptations to plant defense have been likened to "offensive traits" and consist of those traits that allow for increased feeding and use of a host. [ 1 ]
Mobbing is the harassing of a predator by many prey animals. Mobbing is usually done to protect the young in social colonies. For example, red colobus monkeys exhibit mobbing when threatened by chimpanzees, a common predator. The male red colobus monkeys group together and place themselves between predators and the group's females and juveniles.
Viburnum lesquereuxii leaf with insect damage; Dakota Sandstone (Cretaceous) of Ellsworth County, Kansas. Scale bar is 10 mm. Knowledge of herbivory in geological time comes from three sources: fossilized plants, which may preserve evidence of defense (such as spines) or herbivory-related damage; the observation of plant debris in fossilised animal feces; and the structure of herbivore mouthparts.
An example of poison ingestion derives from the poison dart frog. They get a deadly chemical called lipophilic alkaloid from consuming a poisonous food in the rainforest . They are immune to the poison and they secrete it through their skin as a defense mechanism against predators.
Aposematism is the advertising by an animal, whether terrestrial or marine, to potential predators that it is not worth attacking or eating. [1] This unprofitability may consist of any defenses which make the prey difficult to kill and eat, such as toxicity, venom , foul taste or smell, sharp spines, or aggressive nature.
The specific mechanism by which nudibranchs protect themselves from the hydrozoids and their nematocysts is yet unknown, but special cells with large vacuoles probably play an important role. Similarly, some nudibranchs can also take in plant cells (symbiotic algae from soft corals) and reuse these to make food for themselves.
Natural gas leaks happen nearly every day in the U.S. — and they can be deadly if they go undetected. A report from a group of Texas environmental nonprofits released in June found around 2,600 ...
A cat eating grass – an example of zoopharmacognosy. Zoopharmacognosy is a behaviour in which non-human animals self-medicate by selecting and ingesting or topically applying plants, soils and insects with medicinal properties, to prevent or reduce the harmful effects of pathogens, toxins, and even other animals.