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Wallowing In Animals
Wallowing in animals is comfort behaviour during which an animal rolls about or lies in mud, water or snow. Some definitions include rolling about in dust, however, in ethology this is usually referred to as dust bathing. Wallowing is often combined with other behaviours to fulfill its purpose; for example, elephants will often blow dirt over themselves after wallowing to create a thicker "coating", or pigs will allow the mud to dry before rubbing themselves on a tree or rock to remove ectoparasites stuck in the mud. Functions Many functions of wallowing have been proposed although not all have been tested by rigorous scientific investigation. Proposed functions include: *Thermoregulation – domestic pigs (''Sus scrofa''), great Indian rhinoceros (''Rhinoceros unicornis''), warthogs (''Phacochoerus aethiopicus''), elephants (family Elephantidae) *Providing a sunscreen – pigs, warthogs, elephants *Male-male conflict social behaviour – wapiti (''Cervus elaphus''), Europea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comfort Behaviour In Animals
Comfort behaviours in animals are activities that help maintain the pelage, feathers, integuement or musculoskeletal system and increase the physical comfort of the animal. Comfort behaviours are performed from an early age and change little during development. Several comfort behaviours are associated with the beginning of a rest period (e.g. grooming), whereas others are associated with the end of a rest period (e.g. stretching), possibly to prepare the body for escape or hunting. Others, (e.g. dust bathing) will be performed only when the appropriate internal and external stimuli are present (see also sham dustbathing). Animals generally perform comfort behaviours only when they are not engaged in essential activities (e.g. feeding, drinking, hunting, escape); these behaviours are therefore sometimes categorised as ''luxury activities''. However, animals can be highly motivated to perform some comfort behaviours (e.g. dust bathing in hens), and conditions that thwart these be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Rhinoceros
The white rhinoceros, white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros (''Ceratotherium simum'') is the largest extant species of rhinoceros. It has a wide mouth used for grazing and is the most social of all rhino species. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies: the southern white rhinoceros, with an estimated 19,682–21,077 wild-living animals in the year 2015, and the much rarer northern white rhinoceros. The northern subspecies has very few remaining individuals, with only two confirmed left in 2018 (two females: Fatu, 18 and Najin, 29), both in captivity. Sudan, the world's last known male Northern white rhinoceros, died in Kenya on 19 March 2018 at age 45. Naming A popular albeit widely discredited theory of the origins of the name "white rhinoceros" is a mistranslation from Dutch to English. The English word "white" is said to have been derived by mistranslation of the Dutch word "wijd", which means "wide" in English. The word "wide" refers to the width of the rhinoce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Grooming
Grooming (also called preening) is the art and practice of cleaning and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior. In animals Individual animals regularly clean themselves and put their fur, feathers or other skin coverings in good order. This activity is known as personal grooming, a form of hygiene. Extracting foreign objects such as insects, leaves, dirt, twigs and parasites is a form of grooming. Among animals, birds spend considerable time preening their feathers. This is done to remove ectoparasites, keep the feathers in good aerodynamic condition, and waterproof them. To do that, they use the preen oil secreted by the uropygial gland, the dust of down feathers, or other means such as dust-bathing or anting. During oil spills, animal conservationists that rescue penguins sometimes dress them in knitted sweaters to stop them from preening and thereby ingesting the mineral oil, which is poisonous. Monkeys may also pick out nits from their fur or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallow Deer
''Dama'' is a genus of deer in the subfamily Cervinae, commonly referred to as fallow deer. Name The name fallow is derived from the deer's pale brown colour. The Latin word ''dāma'' or ''damma'', used for roe deer, gazelles, and antelopes, lies at the root of the modern scientific name, as well as the German ''Damhirsch'', French ''daim'', Dutch ''damhert'', and Italian ''daino''. In Croatian and Serbian, the name for the fallow deer is ''jelen lopatar'' ("shovel deer"), due to the form of its antlers. The Modern Hebrew name of the fallow deer is ''yachmur'' (יחמור). Taxonomy and evolution The genus includes two extant species: Extant species Some taxonomists include the Persian fallow deer as a subspecies (''D. d. mesopotamica''), while others, such as the IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Deer
The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of western Asia. It also inhabits the Atlas Mountains of Northern Africa; its early ancestors are thought to have crossed over to Morocco, then to Algeria, Libya and Tunisia via the Strait of Gibraltar, becoming the only species of true deer ( Cervidae) to inhabit Africa. Red deer have been introduced to other areas, including Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Peru, Uruguay, Chile and Argentina. In many parts of the world, the meat ( venison) from red deer is used as a food source. Red deer are ruminants, characterized by a four-chambered stomach. Genetic evidence indicates that the red deer, as traditionally defined, is a species group, rather than a single species, though exactly how many species the group includes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Deer Wallow - Geograph
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suppuration
Pus is an exudate, typically white-yellow, yellow, or yellow-brown, formed at the site of inflammation during bacterial or fungal infection. An accumulation of pus in an enclosed tissue space is known as an abscess, whereas a visible collection of pus within or beneath the epidermis is known as a pustule, pimple or ''spot''. Description Pus consists of a thin, protein-rich fluid (historically known as ''liquor puris'') and dead leukocytes from the body's immune response (mostly neutrophils). During infection, macrophages release cytokines, which trigger neutrophils to seek the site of infection by chemotaxis. There, the neutrophils release granules, which destroy the bacteria. The bacteria resist the immune response by releasing toxins called leukocidins.Madigan, Michael T. and Martin, John M. Brock Biology of Microorganisms 11th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. US. 2006: 734 As the neutrophils die off from toxins and old age, they are destroyed by macrophages, forming the viscous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumatran Rhino 001
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent islands such as the Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Enggano, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung and Krakatoa archipelago. Sumatra is an elongated landmass spanning a diagonal northwest–southeast axis. The Indian Ocean borders the northwest, west, and southwest coasts of Sumatra, with the island chain of Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, and Enggano off the western coast. In the northeast, the narrow Strait of Malacca separates the island from the Malay Peninsula, which is an extension of the Eurasian continent. In the southeast, the narrow Sunda Strait, containing the Krakatoa Archipelago, separates Sumatra from Java. The northern tip of Sumatra is near the Andaman Islands, while off the southeastern coast lie the islands of Bangka and Belitung, Karim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whales
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (''Choeropsis liberiensis'' or ''Hexaprotodon liberiensis''). Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (). Aside from elephants and rhinos, the hippopotamus is the largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans ( whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, pillar-like legs, and large size: adults aver ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scent-marking
In ethology, territory is the sociographical area that an animal consistently defends against conspecific competition (or, occasionally, against animals of other species) using agonistic behaviors or (less commonly) real physical aggression. Animals that actively defend territories in this way are referred to as being territorial or displaying territorialism. Territoriality is only shown by a minority of species. More commonly, an individual or a group of animals occupies an area that it habitually uses but does not necessarily defend; this is called its home range. The home ranges of different groups of animals often overlap, and in these overlap areas the groups tend to avoid each other rather than seeking to confront and expel each other. Within the home range there may be a ''core area'' that no other individual group uses, but, again, this is as a result of avoidance. Function The ultimate function of animals inhabiting and defending a territory is to increase the indivi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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