The Importance of Olfaction in Survival

These birds have astonished scientists with an ability to apply complex social reasoning, incredible feats of memory, and an outstanding aptitude for crafting and using tools.

Survival of organisms depends on adaptive behavior and species interactions. Taxis is less or more automatic movement towards or away from a stimulus or direct movement. An example of taxis is when a plant is put by a windowsill. The plant grows towards the light. Another example is when stream fish automatically swim upward in the upstream direction. This example is considered positive taxis. This type of taxis allows the fish to swim in the direction of food and allows them to not be swept away.

Evolutionary adaptation has been widely recognized as shaping life forms into definite, distinguishable groups with significant traits. Some animals have evolved into odd ways, that they could be removed from their parent group. For instance, the vegetarian eagle is related to the Golden Eagle, however its distinctive feature is that it attacks palm trees instead of animals. This eagle has a special adapted digestive system, which separates itself from the rest of the eagles. You may be wondering how it can live without a typical meaty diet that all other eagles experience. This is because the bill of a vegetarian eagle opens nuts, and obtains the fats inside to compensate for a typical meaty diet. This bird is an excellent interpretation of

The purpose of this experiment is to test the hypothesis that small bird’s physical characteristics can greatly impact their species population growth over time. Using the Finch as a test subject for multiple trial runs on a simulated computer system we can alter the characteristics of the finch and run diagnostics for two completely different locations and set of experiments. This simultaneous testing and comparison will either prove or disprove the hypothesis that small bird’s physical characteristics can greatly impact their population growth. The base line for this comparison will be two islands

Food requirement variations lead to color vision being an exponentially valuable trait in the evolutionary success of the primates based on its influences in foraging behavior. If an animal is unable to discriminate a piece of fruit from being ripe or unsafe to eat, they could potentially become sick, thus negatively impacting their chances of reproduction and survival (Regan et al., 2005).

One of its most important characteristics is its beak. The finch adapted to have a thin, long beak to probe through moss, bark and leaves in search of food (Wildscreen Arkive, N.D.). These finches have the thinnest beak out of the 13 finches; which aids them to find small insects. The Green Warbler finch are mostly found in humid highland forest where their primary food source is found. These adaptations made them more fit to survive on available food. Over the years the finch’s beak has evolved as the bird developed different taste for insects. Another famous adaptation is how they camouflage in their environment. The Green Warbler is restricted to the forest and is greener in body colouration, while the Gray Warbler is found in shrubby, dry thickets and is greyer and duller looking (Certhidea olivacea, 2010). Their coloration helps them camouflage in their own environments, and to hide from predators. Recent studies have found that there are in fact two separate species of the Warbler Finch, the Green Warbler Finch and the Grey Warbler Finch, but are considered as a single species (Wildscreen Arkive, N.D.). The Green Warbler finch mainly occupies larger, inner islands, while the Grey Warbler finch inhabits the smaller, outer islands (Green Warbler Finch,

The aim of this work is to answer the question, “Can we generalize why certain people were able to survive more than others”? To survive the Gulag, many prisoners had to fight with others for food, shelter, and simple medical care. Certain prisoners went into religious and intellectual medications to preserve at least the appearance of intelligence. The survival required willpower, strength of mind, skills, mercilessness, and a lot of luck.

The adaptability and evolutionary history of Raptors is remarkable and a learning opportunity for humans.

Burrowing owls often live in occupied prairie dog colonies. Researchers have proposed several theories regarding why this occurs. One reason may be that owls avoid predation because they share many of the same predators with black-tailed prairie dogs and the presence of the prairie dogs helps to reduce predation. Another theory is that the burrowing owls live in active prairie dog colonies in order to listen to the prairie dogs for cues on when a predator is near. This behavior has been documented between other groups, usually mammals or reptiles responding to bird alarm calls. This study aimed to show whether burrowing owls responded differently to prairie dog predator alarms compared to other sounds, both biological and man made.

F. Divina, "Game Birds and Fowl." In Foods of the Americas, 224. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2004.

The purpose of this experiment is to get the count of certain birds in the area that is being tested.

The average person will find him/herself in a survival situation at least once a day. There has been an ongoing debate on whether survival is selfish. Studies have shown that people involved in a life-threatening situation are more likely to focus on saving him/herself rather than helping the others around them. Other people say that survival is smart rather than selfish; however, in a life threatening situation there is little that separates smart from selfish which makes the smart thing to do also the selfish thing to do. Survival is selfish because people will jeopardize the lives of others to save him/herself and people become indifferent towards others around them when they are in a life-threatening situation.

“No fool would eat a bird at this time,” Ender simply meowed with a poker face. He licked his paw and continued, “The heat has been driving birds in Windmay crazy. They’ve been drinking and eating from the sewage system. I’ve seen it. They’re practically inedible right now, you wouldn’t want to know the stuff they have to digest if you ate it,” Ender gestured to the bird. All the cats had their eyes widened.

Thermosensation plays a similar role in predator-prey interaction by the use of TRPA1 and TRPV1 ion channels. The vampire bat can sense infrared radiation by using a modified TRPV1 channel. In other mammals, TRPV1 is used to detect noxious heat greater than 43ºC , vampire bats however, have an activation threshold for this receptor that is around 30ºC. To further differentiate the vampire bat’s TRPV1 receptor from other mammals, it is not expressed in the dorsal root ganglia. Instead it is located in their facial nerves located near the bat’s upper lip and nose. Giving bats the ability to find locations of their prey with the easiest access to blood. (Gracheva et al, 2011) To combat this, prey have been shown to reduce the bats’ feeding time

Taste Aversion Learning by Birds in Colchester, Vermont on the Saint Michael’s College campus: A Study of Batesian Mimicry