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Filial Cannibalism
Filial cannibalism occurs when an adult individual of a species consumes all or part of the young of its own species or immediate offspring. Filial cannibalism occurs in many animal species ranging from mammals to insects, and is especially prevalent in various species of fish. Exact evolutionary purpose of the practice in those species is unclear and there is no verifiable consensus among zoologists; it is agreed upon though that it may have, or may have had at some point in species' evolutionary history, certain evolutionary and ecological implications. Types Total Total or whole clutch cannibalism occurs when a parent consumes its entire brood. This usually occurs when a brood is smaller or of lesser quality. The most obvious purpose of total or whole clutch cannibalism is the termination of care for the parents. The main benefit of this action can only be an investment in the future reproduction of potentially larger or healthier broods. Partial Partial clutch cannibalism occurs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Offspring
In biology, offspring are the young creation of living organisms, produced either by a single organism or, in the case of sexual reproduction, two organisms. Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way. This can refer to a set of simultaneous offspring, such as the chicks hatched from one clutch of eggs, or to all the offspring, as with the honeybee. Human offspring ( descendants) are referred to as children (without reference to age, thus one can refer to a parent's " minor children" or " adult children" or " infant children" or " teenage children" depending on their age); male children are sons and female children are daughters (see kinship). Offspring can occur after mating or after artificial insemination. Offspring contains many parts and properties that are precise and accurate in what they consist of, and what they define. As the offspring of a new species, also known as a child or f1 generation, consist of genes of the father and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conspecific
Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organisms or constituents of living organisms of being special or doing something special. Each animal or plant species is special. It differs in some way from all other species...biological specificity is the major problem about understanding life." Biological specificity within ''Homo sapiens'' ''Homo sapiens'' has many characteristics that show the biological specificity in the form of behavior and morphological traits. Morphologically, humans have an enlarged cranial capacity and more gracile features in comparison to other hominins. The reduction of dentition is a feature that allows for the advantage of adaptability in diet and survival. As a species, humans are culture dependent and much of human survival relies on the culture and so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhynocoris Tristis
''Rhynocoris tristis'' is a species of assassin bug family (Reduviidae), in the subfamily Harpactorinae. ''R. tristis'' is a polyphagous predator found in sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov .... Life History ''R. tristis'' is associated with '' Stylosanthes guinaensis'', and this association is thought to be due to the prey species attracted by flowers of ''S. guinaensis''. ''R. tristis'' is unusual in the insect world in that males provide paternal care by guarding egg masses from parasitic wasps and insect predators. Males will also cannibalize some of the eggs that they guard. ''R. tristis'' prefers to lay its eggs on the stems of plants, in contrast to most members of the harpactorinae, which prefer to lay them on the undersides of leaves. Refere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassin Bug
The Reduviidae are a large cosmopolitan family of the order Hemiptera (true bugs). Among the Hemiptera and together with the Nabidae almost all species are terrestrial ambush predators: most other predatory Hemiptera are aquatic. The main examples of nonpredatory Reduviidae are some blood-sucking ectoparasites in the subfamily Triatominae. Though spectacular exceptions are known, most members of the family are fairly easily recognizable; they have a relatively narrow neck, sturdy build, and a formidable curved proboscis (sometimes called a rostrum). Large specimens should be handled with caution, if at all, because they sometimes defend themselves with a very painful stab from the proboscis. Taxonomy The Reduviidae are members of the suborder Heteroptera of the order Hemiptera. The family members are almost all predatory, except for a few blood-sucking species, some of which are important as disease vectors. About 7000 species have been described, in more than 20 recognized subfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brood Parasite
Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's. The evolutionary strategy relieves the parasitic parents from the investment of rearing young. This benefit comes at the cost of provoking an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host as they coevolve: many hosts have developed strong defenses against brood parasitism, such as recognizing and ejecting parasitic eggs, or abandoning parasitized nests and starting over. It is less obvious why most hosts do care for parasite nestlings, given that for example cuckoo chicks differ markedly from host chicks in size and appearance. One explanation, the mafia hypothesis, proposes that parasitic adults retaliate by destroying host nests where rejection has occurred; there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicrophorus Vespilloides
''Nicrophorus vespilloides'' is a burying beetle described by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Herbst in 1783. The beetles are 10 – 18 mm long. They have two conspicuous orange-yellow bands on the elytra. The color of the antennae are an important distinguishing feature, being totally black. This is one of the most well studied of the burying beetles with over 1,000 citations found via Google Scholar. What had been considered ''Nicrophorus vespilloides'' in mid and eastern Canada and northeastern USA was determined by Sikes et al. in 2016 to be a separate, overlooked sister species of ''Nicrophorus vespilloides'' that had been named by Kirby in 1837. This sister species, ''Nicrophorus hebes'' Kirby, is restricted to ''Sphagnum'' bogs and marshes,. ''Nicrophorus vespilloides'' occurs throughout the northern Palearctic, Alaska and northwestern Canada where it is found in open forest habitats. The restriction of its sister species ''N. hebes'' to bogs in North America has been att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burying Beetle
Burying beetles or sexton beetles, genus ''Nicrophorus'', are the best-known members of the family Silphidae (carrion beetles). Most of these beetles are black with red markings on the elytra (forewings). Burying beetles are true to their name—they bury the carcasses of small vertebrates such as birds and rodents as a food source for their larvae. They are unusual among insects in that both the male and female parents take care of the brood. They are carnivores. The genus name is sometimes spelled ''Necrophorus'' in older texts: this was an unjustified emendation by Carl Peter Thunberg (1789) of Fabricius's original name, and is not valid under the ICZN. The American burying beetle (''Nicrophorus americanus'') has been on the U.S. endangered species list since 1989. Reproduction Burying beetles have large club-like antennae equipped with chemoreceptors capable of detecting a dead animal from a long distance. After finding a carcass (most usually that of a small bird or a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brood Reduction
Brood reduction occurs when the number of nestlings in a birds brood is reduced, usually because there is a limited amount of resources available. It can occur directly via infanticide, or indirectly via competition over resources between siblings. Avian parents often produce more offspring than they can care for, resulting in the death of some of the nestlings. Brood reduction was originally described by David Lack in his brood-reduction hypothesis to explain the existence of hatching asynchrony in many bird species. Hatching asynchrony occurs when the parents start incubating their eggs before all of them have been laid. If resources are limited, it benefits the parents to allow brood reduction, because it reduces the amount of work they must do and increases their chances of surviving and reproducing again in future years. Brood reduction has been observed in many avian species including seabirds such as black-legged kittiwakes, birds of prey such as Swainson's hawk and several e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantail Darter
The fantail (''Etheostoma flabellare'') is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish, a darter from the subfamily Etheostomatinae, part of the family Percidae, which also contains the perches, ruffes and pikeperches. It is widely distributed across streams in North America. Distribution and habitat The fantail darter is distributed across much of eastern North America, from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basins to South Carolina and northern Alabama, in small streams. They can be found as far west as northeastern Oklahoma. These darters, like many others, live in smaller streams. Due to their breeding habits, they are found in areas of the stream with cobbles and flat stones. These fish are especially abundant near large slabs of limestone or shale. Partly because of their wide range of habitats, fantail darters have not been labelled as endangered. It is well-adapted for stream life, and the environmental changes that occur in streams as the seasons change. Changes ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clutch (eggs)
__NOTOC__ A clutch of eggs is the group of eggs produced by birds, amphibians, or reptiles, often at a single time, particularly those laid in a nest. In birds, destruction of a clutch by predators (or removal by humans, for example the California condor breeding program) results in ''double-clutching''. The technique is used to double the production of a species' eggs, in the California condor case, specifically to increase population size. The act of putting one's hand in a nest to remove eggs is known as "dipping the clutch". Size Clutch size differs greatly between species, sometimes even within the same genus. It may also differ within the same species due to many factors including habitat, health, nutrition, predation pressures, and time of year. Clutch size variation can also reflect variation in optimal reproduction effort. In birds, clutch size can vary within a species due to various features (age and health of laying female, ability of male to supply food, and abundan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androgen
An androgen (from Greek ''andr-'', the stem of the word meaning "man") is any natural or synthetic steroid hormone that regulates the development and maintenance of male characteristics in vertebrates by binding to androgen receptors. This includes the embryological development of the primary male sex organs, and the development of male secondary sex characteristics at puberty. Androgens are synthesized in the testes, the ovaries, and the adrenal glands. Androgens increase in both males and females during puberty. The major androgen in males is testosterone. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and androstenedione are of equal importance in male development. DHT ''in utero'' causes differentiation of the penis, scrotum and prostate. In adulthood, DHT contributes to balding, prostate growth, and sebaceous gland activity. Although androgens are commonly thought of only as male sex hormones, females also have them, but at lower levels: they function in libido and sexual arousal. Also, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhabdoblennius Nitidus
''Rhabdoblennius nitidus'', the barred-chin blenny, is a species of combtooth blenny found in coral reefs in the western Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ... ocean. This species reaches a length of SL. References nitidus Taxa named by Albert Günther Fish described in 1861 {{Blenniidae-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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