Allanimalia

In order to understand this topic, let's first answer some questions critical to it's background... 1) What we mean by the term 'endangered species?  Image credits: Tim Flatch An endangered species is an animal or plant that's considered at risk of extinction. 2)Why do we need to conserve the species becoming extinct?   Image credits: Roni Bintang Extinction is supposed to be a natural phenomena. However, the current mass extinction of animal species at an unprecedented rate is largely caused by anthropogenic actions.The rate of species extinction is estimated at 100 to 1000 times higher than natural background rates. Progressive habitat fragmentation and destruction is resulting in accelerated decline of biodiversity on a global scale. The Rivet Popper Hypothesis, proposed by Paul Ehrlich explains the importance of species richness in the maintenance of the ecosystem. Ecological interactions are extremely complex and intertwined and sometimes, t

In the past few years, many animal scientists have taken up a very exciting field of research known as 'Animal Linguistics'. It refers to the study of how and what animals try to communicate with each other.  Animals, including humans, have developed various means of communication over the course of evolution and the mechanism by which they accomplish this is truly fascinating. Let's try to find out how some of these animals establish communication keeping aside the discussion of humans (here's hoping that my readers know how humans communicate😅) 1} Dolphins Dolphins are known for their ability to communicate with their pods from miles away in the Sea. They hunt together, and form intricate social networks with their calves and mating pairs. This is achieved in several ways as follows: i) Sound communication is enabled in water as sound travels nearly 5 times faster through water than through the air. Scientists are of the opinion that every bottlenose dolp

Have you ever thought that when you and your pet dog (or cats- I'm not a cat person so I'll just keep them in parenthesis) are spending a lazy weekend on the couch, watching a movie on the television, you both are essentially looking at two different movies?  If you think that I'm trying to confuse you with some kind of riddle, then you are absolutely wrong! Your pet has a different visual perception than you, in simpler terms it means that all the colours that you are able to see in your surroundings may not be visible to your dog. In fact, it's not just dogs or cats, but nearly every different animal has a unique vision ability and as a result, they see a world that is quite different from what meets our eyes! Today we make an attempt to see the world through the eyes of 3 peculiar animals known to us, and unveil the science behind it.   1] Dogs Dogs have a dichromatic vision, which implies that they can see only a part of the visible spectrum, usually two

People have always speculated about the abilities of animals to sense natural calamities much before their occurence; And there's nothing unnatural about these speculations, once we explore the various events when such a phenomenon occurred: 1) The earliest events that mention the eerie behavior of animals prior to catastrophe include that of the Greek historian Thucydides(373 bc), who mentions about the snakes, dogs, weasels and rats, deserting the city of Helice in unison days before an earthquake occurred there.  Also, the earthquake in Naples in the year 1805 had triggered the Oxen, sheep, dogs and geese to make strange alarming cries minutes before the ground shook.  image courtesy: CHOO Yoon-KONG/AFP via getty images 2)  The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004   killed atleast 2,25,000 people from a dozen of Asian and African countries, and a major reason for such a massive scale of destruction was attributed to the failure of warning signals, that could give no useful