The Pups
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| Google books | books.google.com |
|---|---|
| Originally published | July 15, 2014 |
| Authors | David Perlmutter |
| Genres | Fantasy Fiction |
| Humorous Fiction | |
| Date of Reg. | |
| Date of Upd. | |
| ID | 2915254 |
About The Pups
This is the story of the Pups, a team of canine superheroes-cum-comedians who exist in a future universe where canine beings such as they, while sentient and intelligent, are denied full "human" rights. . . .
Yorkshire Wildlife Park welcomes new sea lion pups
... The pair are the first to be born at the South Yorkshire park, and staff said The Pups were " thriving"...
Mother seals recognise pup's voice at two days old
... When The Pups are suckling, mothers lose around half their body mass, while pups undergo a seven-fold increase in body weight, because of the " exceptional fat content" of their mother s milk...
Storm Arwen: Orphaned seal pups in Norfolk animal shelter
... The Pups, who are each getting through about £27 of food per week, will be allowed into an outdoor pool after four months before being released in the spring...
Mother seals recognise pup's voice at two days old
" It's a cacophony in a seal colony, " explains Dr Caroline Casey , where hundreds of mums and Pups call at once.
Now, research led by the California-based scientist has revealed that mother elephant seals can pick out their own baby's voice just Two Days after Pups are born.
This ability helps Pups - and Mothers - Survive during a precarious time.
But it has left researchers puzzling over why female seals often feed each other's Pups .
The findings are
" Females fast for the entire month they are nursing, " explains Dr Casey, who is based at the University of California Santa Cruz . " So it makes no [evolutionary] sense for them to use their resources on another mother's pup.
" But at this site [The Colony in California] that we study, there have been a lot of observations of females feeding Pups not related to them. "
Pup playbackDr Casey has studied vocal communication in elephant seals for a decade. So she and her colleagues designed an audio experiment to find out if The Animals were able to recognise their own babies amid The Noise of a breeding colony.
With a microphone on the end of a long pole, The Scientists recorded calls of individual Pups and played the recordings to mother elephant seals, using a Small Speaker .
The researchers then monitored The Mothers ' responses to recordings of their own Pups , as well as to a series of calls from a similar-aged pup. Mothers were much more attentive - Looking at and moving towards the Small Speaker to investigate - if it was playing The Sound of their own offspring.
" It was dramatic - we see the recognition after just A Day or two, " said Dr Casey.
This early recognition makes sense, the researchers say, because The Relationship between mother and newborn Elephant Seal is extremely physically dependent.
When The Pups are suckling, Mothers lose Around half their body mass, while Pups undergo a seven-fold increase in body weight, because of the " exceptional fat content" of their mother's milk.
However, Dr Casey suggests humans may have played an unexpected role in The Elephant seals' urge to feed other Pups , of, arguably, closely-related females.
In the late 1800s, the species was hunted to near extinction. " So we think all of the individuals alive Today - Around 300,000 animals - are related to about 20 animals that survived, " said Dr Casey.
" So the genetic similarity between all elephant seals is very high. "
So are they more likely to feed The Pups of sisters or cousins? Could that behaviour be linked to an extreme population bottleneck caused by humans?
" That's something we would like to investigate, " Dr Casey said.
This video can not be played
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Media caption, The rather rude sounds of an Elephant SealFollow Victoria
Source of news: bbc.com
