Best Buddies Information Clues
A newly-hatched baby cuckoo is in the nest of a warbler bird. A mother cuckoo bird laid her egg in the warbler's nest, which also contained a warbler egg. The warbler egg has a longer incubation time than the cuckoo egg, so the baby cuckoo will hatch first. After hatching the cuckoo will instinctively push the warbler egg out of the nest. The egg will smash on the ground, preventing the baby warbler from hatching and competing for precious food. Mama warbler thinks the cuckoo is her baby and tends it faithfully while Mama cuckoo is out seeing the town.______
Ostrich feet are powerful and are often used as weapons, particularly by the male who guards the nest. The kick, which has been known to disembowel a lion, is more potent than a kick from a horse.Ostriches, zebras, gazelles, and other herd animals group together in a symbiotic relationship. The ostrich with its keener eyes and the hoofed animals with their keener sense of smell make a very useful combination for early detection of predators. An ostrich will perform an "injured act" to lead predators from its nest. Once the predator is a safe distance from the eggs or young, an adult ostrich can speed easily away, leaving the predator far behind. In fact the only predator that can outrun an ostrich is the cheetah, but even the cheetah has not got the endurance of an ostrich.Their sight is excellent, using eyes that are 5 cm in diameter ( tennis ball size)______
The Egyptian Plover is a type of bird that will eat parasites and bits of meat from the skin and teeth of the crocodile. The bird can often be seen riding on top of the head of a croc, until the crocodile swims ashore and opens its mouth. The bird then pecks at the teeth and skin, devouring its meal. The crocodiles rarely eat these “dentist” birds because they enjoy that “just brushed fresh” feeling.
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Q My morning glories are infested. The leaves have some holes which appear to have been used for house building- tunnels which have been created by the ants along the stem of the morning glories. They've stopped chewing holes in the leaves, but under each leaf the ants are active, apparently protecting tiny, whitish aphids which are reproducing like mad. What’s going on with this relationship?
A Aphids provide a food source for ants. The aphids secrete a sugary stubstance that the ants love. The ants will actually protect the aphids from predator insects and move them from plant to plant, milking them for their sweet secretions. Get rid of the aphids and the ants will disappear.
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Commonly called "air plants",epiphytic plants do not have roots, but instead live off of other plants. In Florida, Spanish Moss (an epiphyte) drapes over the branches of oaks and cypress trees. This moss gets needed sunlight that would not be received if it were rooted in the ground. The cypress trees and oaks don’t seem to mind the company.
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The dorsal fin of the remora fish is modified into a sucker with which it forms a temporary attachment to the shark. When the shark feeds, the remora picks up scraps. The shark makes no attempt to prey on the remora.
The honey badger, or ratel, is generally a solitary animal but it has also been observed in small groups. These groups usually consist of about three members, most likely families. Ratels are nomadic and have a large home range. They are very secretive and usually nocturnal, hunting at night. When threatened, a ratel usually attacks and has even been known to attack human hunters and cars. Ratels, especially wounded ones, secrete foul scented anal oils to discourage enemies. Probably the most intriguing aspect of ratel behavior is its symbiotic relationship with the honey guide. The honey guide bird will lead a ratel to a beehive and wait for the ratel to rip apart the hive, exposing the desired parts. The ratel eats the honey and leaves the larvae and wax, as well as hard to get at honey. The honey guide then swoops in for a tasty reward of larvae, wax, and honey.
Buffalo used to travel in herds across the plains. As they walked through the grass the insects would fly out of the grass and the cowbirds would eat them. Sometimes they would even ride on top of the buffalo, waiting for swarms of insects to emerge. Why would buffalo allow hitchhikers? Well, it seems buffalo are very large, but they have poor eyesight. The cowbirds, on the other hand, can spot predators nearly one kilometer away. When they do see oncoming danger, they fly into the air, alerting the beasts to danger.
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Sea anemones are animals, but they live sedentary lives at the bottom of the oceans. They feed on tiny fish and zooplankton floating in the water, but have stinging tentacles to defend themselves from being eaten. The clown fish (like Nemo) builds up an immunity to the sea anemones poison and then lives in the safety of the anemone’s tentacles, venturing out only to catch its food.
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The lamprey is a large invertebrate snake-leech-like animal that attaches itself to other fish. It gets energy and other nutrients from the blood of other animals. The lamprey scrapes a hole in the fish's skin, attaches it’s sucker mouthparts, and sucks the blood out. This can cause sores on large fish, or can cause death to small fish.
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Bromeliads are plants that grow on other plants. They are found in rain forests and often collect water for photosynthesis, rather than having roots to gather water from the soil. Several species of tree frog will lay their eggs inside a bromeliad. This provides a safe pool for the tadpoles to develop into frogs. This does not necessarily help or hurt the bromeliads nor the plants that they are living upon (usually trees.)
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Hermit crabs, worldwide in distribution, occur in sandy- or muddy-bottomed waters and occasionally on land and in trees. They have a soft abdomen, two pairs of antennae, and five pairs of legs. The first pair of legs form pincers and the crab walks on its second and third pairs of legs. It uses its shorter fourth and fifth pairs to grip its shell protection.As the crab grows, it periodically leaves its shell and finds and moves into a larger one, but it cannot make its own shell. It usually finds shells discarded by dead snails to use for protection.