Questions tagged [zoology]
The biological study of animals. Very broad use so be sure to add additional clarifying tags
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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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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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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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What is the name of this creature?
What is the name of this creature?
It looks like either a crustacean or a conch.
user60848
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Seasonal fur shedding
How does an animal's (specifically dogs and cats) body "know" to shed fur in the spring and retain fur in the autumn?
Google just tells me that it happens, not the biological process of ...
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Are the muscles of all animals mechanically similar?
For instance, is the skeletal muscle of an elephant made of the same balance of fibers and cells as the skeletal muscle of a hippopotamus?
I recognize that slow- and fast-twitch muscles are a thing, ...
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Do cheetahs compete with lions?
Do cheetahs compete with lions for the same prey?
A quick Google search says the answer is no:
Lions hunt big animals such as buffalo, giraffe, wildebeest, and zebra. What prey do cheetahs hunt? ...
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What mammalian species has the greatest relative variance in adult size?
The smallest adult chihuahuas weigh about 2 kg, and the largest adult English Mastiffs are around 104 kg, making them 52 times larger by weight.
Of course, this enormous variance is the result of ...
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Is there "limbic mimicry" in real life to distract animals? (like it was portrayed in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore")
In the movie "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore", one of the characters comes up with the idea of "limbic mimicry" to distract dangerous animals from violent behavior. ...
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Do *Ambystoma macrodactylum* predate on *ceuthophilinaens* like the one I observed?
I observed this Ambystoma macrodactylum within half of a meter of this Ceuthophilinaen under an old board. I can imagine salamanders eating cricket-like things, but this question is far outside my ...
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Has anyone seen/read interspecies competition that is different at spatial scale for the same group of animals?
I work at a highly fragmented wildlife sanctuary in North Borneo, Malaysia. We have 8 species of hornbills here and from our observation they've grown to be less territorial in terms of where they ...
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What types of sounds do sperm whales produce?
Sperm whales produce echolocation clicks, what are the other types of clicks and other sounds they can produce?
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What is the name/type/species of this insect?
Facts:
Found in a bathtub in western Washington (state) (the pacific northwest).
3/16-1/4" long, 1/8-3/16 thick.
Gray colored.
No elongated noise but two antennas.
No pets in home, older 1969 ...
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Animal specific names with non-alphabetic characters
I'm part of a research team that investigates and documents native bee species, and we identified one of our Andrena specimens as A. w-scripta. With over ten years of experience in insect and ray-...
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Why is the sex ratio of male and female cats close to 50/50 (with males actually being more prevalent)?
According to this study from 1970, cats are about 50% male and 50% female. Furthermore, there appear to be about 100 male pedigree cats born for every 92 female cats.
I couldn't find any info about ...
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A level 2022 Biology percentage increase question [closed]
In January 2022 WBI12/01 they asked:
9c. In 1963, there were only three males and 12 females of
C. hoodensis left in the wild. These 15 tortoises were used in a
breeding programme.
ii.The wild ...
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