The No Ordinary World blog’s goal is to communicate science in an interesting and educational way to the public and foster awareness of and raise funds for endangered species. We strive to make science more readily accessible to the public while providing accurate and informative insights into the animal world. We love the natural world and want to show you how you can too!

Search

Main menu

Tag Archives: cool

Where do bees get their buzz? No, I’m not referring to the sound their vibrating wings make when they fly. In fact, I’m talking about a much more colloquial “buzz” – the one you get from caffeine when you drink a cup of coffee. It turns out bees also enjoy the little boost in energy they reap from coffee plants when they drink the nectar, which contains low levels of caffeine that the pollinators obtain much satisfaction from.

Plants originally evolved caffeine as a defense against herbivory because it can be toxic at high levels. However, at low levels, it encourages honeybees to return to the plant – thus increasing the plant’s pollination efficacy – because the honeybees’ learning and memory abilities are enhanced, and therefore the honeybee reaps a benefit from the plant. So what began as a deterrent for herbivores is now a triple whammy for the plant, which now 1) attracts more bees because the bee enjoys the caffeine buzz, 2) ensures the bee will return because its learning and memory are enhanced due to the caffeine, and 3) repels herbivores at the same time!

This amazing creature is a master of disguise, blending in to its surroundings to the point that it is nearly indistinguishable from the litter of the forest floor where it makes its home. The gecko, which has evolved its elaborate camouflage to escape visual detection by predators, sports leaf-shaped tail and leaf-patterned skin, complete with veins, folds, and insect nibble marks.

Both crypticity and mimicry deceive the beholder into believing that the animal is something that it is not. Crypticity typically involves an animal avoiding detection through colors and patterns and can be visual, olfactory, or auditory (Stevens & Merilaita 2009). Visual crypticity can include camouflage, disruptive coloration, and background-matching, and can be quite striking. Crypticity is distinguished from a similar phenomenon, masquerading, in that masquerading involves the matching of specific inanimate object like twigs or rocks rather than matching the general background (Gullan & Cranston 2010).

The majority of individuals of the few extant (living) species of leaf-tailed gecko on Earth are endemic to Madagascar and a few surrounding islands and are inextricably linked to the survival of the Madagascan rainforest, meaning that habitat destruction primarily in the form of deforestation poses a potential threat for these cool critters. There are several protected areas in Madagascar that are therefore crucial for the leaf-tailed gecko’s continued existence. Some of the species are of “least concern” on the IUCN’s conservation status scale, meaning that the protected areas are doing their job for the most part; however, illegal harvesting of these animals has caused some species’ numbers to drop and vary from “near threatened” to “vulnerable” status. These little guys are unique and incredible, and offer just another reason to save the earth’s rainforests, without which many interesting species such as this one could not hope to survive!