Animal Behavior Exam 4

foraging models can fail because animals are not _____

omniscient, they dont have perfect knowledge of the environment, they may need to sample but that means sometimes they are not optimal ex. Smith and Sweatmans Great Titmice

Smith and Sweatmans Great Titmice

• let titmice into an aviary with high and low density patches

• if there were enough to satisfy their hunger they should have only been in the high density one but they spent some time in other patches (should have been 100%)

• next day removed highest patch, and they went to second highest patch, quickly turned to next best patch so had to have known that the second best patch was the second best

foraging models arent optimal because animals dont have calculus and computers

they may have been programmed to use simple rules of thumb taht lead to an approximation of the optimal behavior predicted by scientists ex. brockmanns great golden digger wasp

brockmanns great golden digger wasp

• they go for katydids, they will occasionally take over an abandoned burrow and not dig their own

• can save a lot of time and effort by taking an available one

  • often an abandoned burrow isnt actually abandoned the other ones just gone so they will fight it out when they cross over

• ex. if one puts 3 and one puts 1 and you need 5 to feed the grub, for both it would be beneficial to seal off the nest

• would they fight equally hard or would the one who put more fight harder?

  • rule of thumb is stick them in until its got 5, “concord fallacy” → you should keep putting resources in because youve already put so much in (the wasps ahve already put so much in so they keep putting resources in)

• so confused dr burk sucks at explaining

brockmanns experiment how to digger wasps make nest

anti predator behavior categories

solitary vs. social

primary (prevents predator from making attack makes location difficult, makes one look like non prey, increases search time) vs. secondary (after predator begins attack, makes capture difficult or stops attack increases handling time)

go back and rewatch the moth stuff slide2 and 3

primary defenses

1. crypsis (camoflauge) (peppered moths, grasshoppers)

2. countershading (sharks dark on top and light on bottom and backswimmers which swim upside down and have opposite, gulls)

3. specific object resemblence (masqarade or mimesis) ex. walking sticks, sea dragons that look like seaweed

4. disruptive coloration (butterflies, zebras) to break up outline of butterfly to make it harder to catch

5. removal of clues of ones presence (egg shell removal, petiole cutting, feces removal, cryptic begging calls that are hard to locate)

cryptic toad

blends in with rocks, primary defense

peppered moths

match background primary defense

grasshoppers experiment

being in the right place matters, if your green green background, brown against brown background

how does a grasshopper know what color it is, they look at their front legs and what they are standing on

concealment vs. conspicuousness

if your not edible want to make that clear and have a clear outline

white admiral disruptive stripes

why do zebras have stripes?

breaks up the horse outline from biting flies who can spread deadly diseases

tingergens eggshell experiment

• took gulls eggs and put them in different locations from broken eggshells

broken eggshells closer to next increased predation risk and was a cue to crows to look for nest

ballestic defication in skipper caterpillars

• GO BACK AND LOOK IT UP

anti predator modification of chick begging calls

the ones that nest in the trees have lower frequencies than ones on the ground who have more confusing calls

. disperse widely

temporal avoidance: nocturnal animals generally, desert cicada, defensive conspiciousness FINISH

desert cicada sweats!

• example of temporal avoidance

• dont start calling until its 105 F because when 104 F the wasps go home

• they sweat and have pores that evaporate which allows them to stay cool

defensive conspicuousness 3 types

• aposematism (warning colors, displays, sounds, scents)

• mullarian mimicry (protected model and mimic aka two dangerous species)

  • if everyone looks the same then only need to have one bad experience and all others are protected

• batesian mimicry (protected model and vulnerable mimic aka non dangerous mimcing dangerous)

  • bad experience with posionous species keeps you safe

aposematic example

mullarian mimicry: blister beetles that mimic monarchs bc both are poisionous

mutillid wasp

they dont fly but bite and sting which is really bad, white and reddish orange like monarch and the blister beetles

spotted skunk

does handstand to show that its gonna get sprayed aposmatic mimicry

heliconious butterflies

they feed on poisonous plants as caterpillars

experiment with heliconius butterflies

when you paint them black they got eaten more to show that the contrast colors do work

upland melanic mimics

only one of the types of butterflies is posiounous the rest arent

monarch and viceroy

both are posionous, mullarian mimics NOT batesian, make their own poision rather than from caterpillar poison (in our part of the world viceroys are actually more poisonous than monarchs)

wasp mimic

hoverfly, hornet moth, wasp beetle all look like wasps

king snake

batesian

has popped up a couple times in evolution through convergent evolution

secondary defenses

once attack has begun

1. caution/vigilence (stickleback, dugongs)

2. pursuit deterrence signals

3. escape behavior: speed, “protean” behavior (show unpredictable behaviors so they dont learn how to catch you), refuges (disappear)

4. physical/chemical defenses

5. startle displays (eyespots, hisses)

6. misdirection behavior (false eyes, detachable body parts, deception displays)

7. Interspecific defenses

   1. exploitation (monarchs, hedgehogs)

   2. mixed flocks? (baboons good eyesight and zebras good smell)

   3. ants and other insects (acacia trees dont get fed on, and plant sucking insects which give ants access to food and ants protect plant from other predators)

why do thompsons gazelles stot?

pursuit deterrence signal, cheetah usually gives up with stotting but doesnt when it doesnt (they only stot when cheetah is far away)

anolis lizard push ups

lizards do push ups to show how fit they are to predators

pronghorn antelope facts

second fastest of all land animals (40 mph for a long time)

have an insane VO2 max, 7x the aerobic capacity known for most runners, nothing can catch a running pronghorn

why are pronghorns overengineered?

• much faster than they need to be which is evolutionarily disadvantageous

  • they are one of the longest-surviving current mammal species

    • there used to be a north american cheetah, so needed it then and havent deevolved it yet

• most animals have a 2:1 overcapacity in skills, pronghorns have 7x