Whether a Swallow Is Frightened in a Storm(scientificamerican.com)
scientificamerican.com
Whether a Swallow Is Frightened in a Storm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-we-know-whether-a-swallow-is-frightened-in-a-storm-excerpt/
5 comments
Def a compelling mystery. Turns out to likely be a larger Great White: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mystery-solved-heres-the-animal-th....
Annoyingly, the title is actually "Why We Know Whether a Swallow Is Frightened in a Storm [Excerpt]" - key being, why/how we know, and not actually answering the question posed or not. In fact "Swallow", "Frightened" and "Storm" only ever occur in the title.
Only halfway through the extremely long-winded introduction did I realize that the article was about a much more boring topic than the title led me to believe.
I think it's a more interesting topic. Another article on animal emotions would be inconclusive. But this represents real progress in ecology and environmental protection. A GPS sensor that fits on the back of a bee is incredible.
What do you mean? An African or European swallow?
Seems sort of sad to me how we want to encroach on everything, we can't let even the animals be free, we must surveil and control them too for their own good.
I feel like you put some pre-concieved notion on both the topic and animals. The article talks about tracking animals so we can better provide protection for them and their habitats (which will also provide loads of benefit to humans, as well, as we learn more about them).
Another, somewhat spooky example of a tagged shark demonstrates the chasms GPS technology will reveal to us in time. Off the coast of Australia, a ten-foot-long, tagged female great white shark that went by the name “Shark Alpha,” disappeared from the radar. According to the tracking device, at four o’clock in the morning, the shark was suddenly torn five hundred yards into the depths, with astonishing power and speed. Within seconds, the chip also recorded a spike in ambient temperature, from 8 degrees Celsius to 25. That is the temperature of an animal’s insides; the shark must have been eaten by an aquatic predator. The chip could be followed for the next eight days, at which point it vanished from the control monitor. It was most likely voided. Four months later, it was found on shore, bleached by gastric acid. Researchers suspect Shark Alpha fell prey to a much larger creature. It will have to have been at least five meters long and weighed two tons or more. But what was it? An orca? Orcas usually hunt close to the surface. The deepest killer whale dive on record is 260 yards. Another great white? This species has a body temperature of 18 degrees—not 25. Could it actually have been a monstrous octopod or a megalodon, a gargantuan prehistoric predator that some say may has survived, hidden in the darkest depths of the ocean?