Questions tagged [zoology]
The biological study of animals. Very broad use so be sure to add additional clarifying tags
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What is right below skin?
I was skinning a gopher so my cat can eat it (it was a pest and we didn't want to waste it). I thought its organs would fall out and make a mess, but that didn't happen. There was this sticky, ...
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Has a bird ever been seen stalling?
Note: I am not sure this is the right site, but I believe birds are off-topic on Aviation SE.
Has a bird of any species ever been seen experiencing an aerodynamic stall by increasing the angle of ...
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What determines the color of the air sac of a Portuguese man o' war?
I know that the Portuguese man o' war is a colonial organism composed of many "zooids", one of which is the pneumatophore, which essentially serves as a flotation device for the whole colony....
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Flora and fauna of early homo sapiens environment?
Where can I find as much detail as possible on the flora and fauna (and perhaps geological structures too) between the time of the origin of Homo Sapiens say ~300kya to their "out of Africa" ...
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Are giraffes living on Calauit island an example of Island dwarfism?
When I traveled to Calauit island I was stricken by the small size of giraffes living there. The giraffes are the descendants of Africa animals imported in the 1970s.
Like Noah and the biblical ark, ...
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Do lions crabwalk?
Cats turn sideways arch their back and puff their fur, to apppear bigger, when trying to intimidate someone. Do lions do that? What is the largest feline that does that?
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Which horn configuration is more effective as a weapon?
For horned animals, there are two common configurations of cranial horns.
One long horn above the nose (Styracosaurus, Rhino).
Two long horns above the eyes or forehead (Triceratops, cattle, African ...
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Are the spikes or prongs in the frill of Ceratopsids considered horns?
Many Ceratopsids, mostly of the subfamily Centrosaurinae, have long spikes or prongs sticking out from the edge of the frill, most famously Styracosaurus, but also Diabloceratops and Rubeosaurus and ...
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Estimates for the volume and mass of most ancestral multicellular organism, and a similar question for alive animals with radial symmetry
please I'm interested in an estimate for the volume and weight, the mass, of (most) ancestral multicellular organisms. Wikipedia has the article Multicellular organism, and my main interest are ...
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Ducks highest body temperature
Normal body temperature for ducks are 106-108°F (41.1-42.2°C).
Young ducks 102-106°F (38.9-41.1°C).
How hot can a duck's body temperature get?
Possible causes are fever and viruses, as well as stress ...
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Specific Heat Capacity and Thermal conduction of Blood
Is the specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity of animal blood (e.g., steer for beef) and bird blood (e.g., broilers, ducks) [e.g., immediately after slaughter] similar/same as human blood?
I ...
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Smallest animal that produces food for humans
I was thinking about how bees can produce honey and human can eat it. After that I came up with question. What are the smallest animal that can produce food for human?
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Does the most known image of Long-finned pilot whale depict one with the melon inflated or not inflated?
The most common image of the Long-finned pilot whale shows a bulbous head. Some may think this is merely an inflated melon:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/76/...
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Superbugs in eusocial animals
I am not a biologist, and I'm interested in eusocial animals, and the porous habitats in which they live. I know few facts about diseases in these animals: I know some interesting instances of viruses,...
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How are ray-finned and lobe-finned fish related in terms of their evolutionary history?
I'm trying to trace human evolution back to the first eukaryotic cells (as a tool to research the evolution of various bodily systems), and I understand that lobe-finned fishes are considered a key ...
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Why are green monkeys (West Africa, Barbados) green?
Melanin in fur, hair and bare skin (eumelanin, pheomelanin) does not create green colors, which is why green mammals are so rare....
Green sloths (Americas) are covered in some sort of algae, which ...
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Can dogs see infrared radiation, i.e., heat?
I, like most of my fellows, prefer my meals served piping hot. As all know, humans sometimes feed their dogs table scraps. If I put down a small piece of chicken from within a piping hot chicken pot ...
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Special food for big cat cubs?
For house cat kittens there is special 'kitten food', containing more nutrients than normal cat food in order to compensate for the fact that at pretty much any time of the day kittens spend a ...
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Can a broken Swordfish's bill bone regrow?
The Broadbill Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) is characterized by a long bill or a "sword" which is an extension of its upper lip bone. The swordfish uses its sword in fighting, including ...
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Size of Purussaurus, a giant Miocene crocodylian (2022) [closed]
What is the currently accepted size estimates (length and mass) of Purussurus barsiliensis? I quote the relevant part in Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purussaurus
The skull ...
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How strong are the peristaltic contractions of the small intestine of guinea pigs and can they be accelerated by introduction of a saline laxative?
Researchers disagree about the presence of peristaltic contractions in the intestines of guinea pigs. Some claim that it exists, but it is very weak. Others claim that in guinea pigs, food is pushed ...
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database of Animals/insects which would contain their queriable geographic location?
Is there a database of Animals/insects which would contain their queriable geographic location?
I would need to perform a rather simple query, such as ...
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Identification by tail feather
I saw the remains of a bird today I did not recognize, and it was pretty mangled so it was hard to describe it. It was about the size of a robin. However, it had a dark brown mottled body like nothing ...
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Snake Identification in India
Location: Kharagpur, West Bengal, India.
Time: Near the end of September at around 1:00 pm.
This snake was spotted in a drain near my hostel in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Can somebody help me ...
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ID Large, broad flat bone found in Gulf of Mexico [duplicate]
`1
Is this a tooth? A rib? Or a fish?
I found this in about 4’ of water in the Gulf of Mexico/Galveston.
It is slightly curved and the side edges have numerous pointy parts. On one side at the bottom ...
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Identification of a strange skull
My father is a fisherman in the Baltic sea, and he has found this very strange skull. I would like to know to which animal it belonged. Can someone help identify it?
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Source for Squirrels Dislodging Nuts to Drive-Off Predators
I was reading a recent article by the Boston Globe on Harvard's Arnold Arboretum and it off-handily mentioned something very interesting:
‶I love the hickory collection,″ [Michael] Dosmann admits. ‶...
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Identification of butterfly from caterpillar
i visited a butterfly house and they didn't know which butterfly will be the caterpillars in the picture, my first guess is 'papilio aegeus'. I think the eggs/ caterpillars were on a 'paulownia ...
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Beneficial effects of the fungi of a termite mound on the diseases suffered by the termites
My motivation to join this Biology Stack Exchange is the article by David Pride that I've read from the Spanish edition of Scientific American, that's Investigación y Ciencia. The article is [1], and ...
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If Myxozoa is animal, so what is really animal?
I read about the new discovered creature call Myxozoa and it say that Myxozoa is animal because of it possess cnidocysts like other cnidarian. But why doesn't it is a converge evolution ?
Myxozoa ...
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Anyone able to identify this mite?
Located in a chicken coop crawling on windows. I’m guessing this is a bird mite as I’m only seeing them at night on the coop itself, but want to confirm so that I’m able to treat them effectively. I ...
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How does Anabantoideis' labyrinth function? What does it look like?
Anabantoideis are fish with an organ that allows them to take oxygen directly from the air outside of water. However, I cannot find much on how this functions, nor can I find any clear image of what ...
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What are these stinkbug-like insects?
Lots of these insects appeared on a wall in my garden for about a week. I've never seen these before, and they behave like ants. They look like stink bugs and are 2-3mm long.
My search on google lens ...
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What do Wild Silverfish Eat?
Silverfish are famous for eating wallpaper paste.
The paste is made of starch mixed with water. Wikipedia says silverfish love starch
They consume matter that contains polysaccharides, such as ...
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Help identifying small snake in southern India
I found a baby snake near a hill in Karnataka, Southern part of India.
It's monsoon season here.
Approximate length - 15 cm
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Are there animal species who would sacrifice their lives to save their offspring?
In the comment section of YouTube animal videos, there are people who say that animal mothers love their offspring very much as if human mothers do. But are there actual animal species whose parents ...
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Identification of insect casing
Photo of specimen with a US quarter (~24 mm diameter) for size reference. Please help identify what left behind this casing. It was found in middle of the yard, approximately 25 feet from nearest tree ...
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Identifying a Texan horned butterfly
I found this butterfly on some late-season bluebonnets in Fort Worth, Texas, this evening. You can get some sense of scale if you know how big bluebonnets are; the body is probably about the size of ...
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Are there any examples of social animals which show collective behavioral change in response to disease?
When Covid-19 happened, collective behavioral changes were taken in order to curb the spread of the virus by the human race. Do things like these happen in other animals as well? Like isolating a ...
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What is the deepest living underground organism?
A quick search reveals Halicephalobus mephisto which was
detected in ore recovered from deep rock fracture water in several gold mines in South Africa [...] 3.6 km (2.2 mi) under the surface of the ...
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What is the technical term for a combination-mouth-anus?
Some organisms have a single hole that is used both for food intake and for waste excretion. Does the scientific community have a name for that hole? What is it called? Or is it simply called the ...
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What Philippine snake is colored black with yellow markings?
I am from Philippines, found a snake inside our house and my father killed it. It is small about 10 inches or more. I doubt this snake was venomous though I didn't want to kill it.
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How to Scale Metabolic rate and drug dosage according to Mass?
I was reading a book "Biology and evolution of Crocodilians" by Gordon Grigg and David Kirshner.
And I can't understand the part about metabolic scaling no matter which method I tried I can'...
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What kind of scorpion is this?
This is in Nevada; it's about the size of a tooth pick in length.
(click to enlarge)
What kind of scorpion is this?
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Found this under a rock at the beach, removed it carefully and couldn't find any other bones, must be a marine mammal of some sort
Does anyone know what this is? I know this is not a land mammal because [details needed].
Unknown skull found under rock at beach.
No sign of eye sockets or jaw with teeth.
I have no idea what this ...
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What is the bird that are on house and make sound during part of the night?
For a few weeks, my neighbour is disturbed by a sound that seems to comes from me. It's mostly heard at the end of a day, but he said the sound stops in the night.
After checking, yes, it seems to be ...
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What is this marine creature? Is this a fossil?
Found this on a beach on the East coast of India - Vishakhapatnam, India
Is this a fossil? A coral?
Its small enough to fit in my hand
These tunnel-like structures are hard like rock/calcified
...
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What types of spider and caterpillar are these, and what are they doing?
What varieties of spider / caterpillar(?) are these?
And what is the spider doing to the caterpillar?
This is in Texas.
This went on for hours, with the spider dancing with the caterpillar in the ...
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Why are animal's whiskers in a square lattice?
I was observing my cat up close when I noticed his whiskers were in a square lattice as a novice mathematician, took notice of it and wanted to know if any other animal had this peculiar feature, so I ...
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Have any animal been discovered which don't have any kind of symmetry?
Bilateral symmetry is a common feature, yet we come across starfish that has rotational/circular symmetry.
But is there any animal that has no symmetry?
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