Tristram Wyatt: "Animal Behaviour: A Very Short Introduction" | Talks at Google

Thank. You. So. Thank you very much for coming this afternoon. One. Of the nice things about writing one of these books, in the series. Of very short introductions. Is, that. It's a chance to have, an overview of the subject and you can delve everywhere, what. You do find is, suddenly. As you go outside your, own area, of expertise, you're, actually learning in the way that the reader would be learning and, there. Is an enormous amount of interesting work that I've. Squeezed. Into the very, small number of words in the book bringing. Is right up to date but. My own work is on, smell. And. I. Wrote, this book on animal, behavior and pheromones, which. Is all about communicating, by, smell, and these. Are the invisible, signals. Between. Animals of the same species. One. Of the things that surprised me when I was writing that book is, that, as you go across the animal kingdom everything. Is by the sense of smell it's, not by taste it's, by smell, and it's, by, those amazing, noses. That you see as you go across the animal kingdom, so. Its, detected. By the sense of smell and it. Really is the key to, behavior. Right the way across, the. Animal kingdom now. I get to talk about pheromones, just a few times in the book I realized, that I have to cover the whole of animal behavior but. It's a special year this year because. It's. The 60th, anniversary of, the. Identification. Of, the very first pheromone, and, this. Was in the salt moss bird. And aunt was a chemist in Germany, he'd, already won the Nobel Prize for. Identifying. In the, structure. Of the human, steroid. Hormones, the, first of the reproductive hormones, and he. Then spent with a big team twenty years working, out the. First pheromone, and the problem with pheromones, is that the animals concerned, are, in. Be sensitive so. Only a few molecules are, needed to excite the male moss but. That makes it very challenging, for. The. Chemist because. The quantities, are tiny and, he. Made a very wise choice, he, chose the domesticated. Silk mass and that allowed. Him to get half a million moths, because. That was the number he needed to get 11, milligrams of, material. The. Other thing that was great. About it, was he worked, out, how. He could use the male moths behavior. To, tell him when the pheromone, was present in his solutions, because, it was completely invisible and beyond. The chemistry, at the time but, he could ask the moths so, what. He devised was, what we call a bio si so, there's gonna be a female, moth coming in across the screen. And. There's. A male there, he's. Motionless. Until the female arrives and, he. Detects, the molecules, a pheromone, that are coming from, her, pheromone. Gland and. They're. Pretty feeble but eventually he will find her but. This allowed him to track, the presence of the pheromone, and ultimately, to synthesize. It and then go back to, the male moths and say have. We got the female sex, pheromone, right and it's the sixtieth anniversary. This. Year. So. There's, extraordinary. Evolutionary. Pressure selection. Pressure on the, male moths to be the first one and they. Evolved, these extraordinary, and, Tennie almost. Like molecular sieves to track. The molecules, as, they fly upwind. Now. Since 1959. Pheromones. Have been identified to write their way across the animal kingdom if you're, intrigued about where we are with humans I did, a TED talk and. Basically. The answer is disappointing, there could be a strong placebo, effect of spending 50 dollars and getting. The pheromones, in the post but actually there really is no evidence at all but, they work underwater, in goldfish, and crabs possibly. Even in birds but you can probably spot your favorite, animals, there. No. I said. That I had to cover the whole available behavior in the book and I want to go right back to the beginning of, human. Observation. So. When did we start to watch animals. And I think the answer is probably as. Soon, as we were becoming, human, and there's, a bit of evidence for that if. You go to the cave paintings, in lusco, in France. You. Find these. Beautiful, paintings. Complete. With the handprints, of the artists, now, not shown on this particular photograph. But. On others you, can see a. Male. Cow. Of milk cattle. I met a bull even, sniffing. At. A, cow, who's. In East hrus and it's. Just, the same kind of behavior that you can watch on David Attenborough now on, a. Farm, so I, think as soon as we were hunting. Animals as soon as we were domesticating. Animals we, were interested in animal behavior because. That would allow us to catch them but also to look. After them better, the. First written records. Are. With Aristotle and, in. His. Voluminous. Account. Of zoology. He, includes all sorts of behaviors. He, talks about the ways that bees. Arrive. If you give them sugar sugar, water and bees, appear, from nowhere, once. You have one be lots. Of other bees will follow he.

Talks About parental, care in catfish. He. Talks about the way the nightingale, learns. Its song and that's. Actually still a model system so. He. Was prescient he got lots of things wrong but, he was the first person to record. Animal behavior that we have records of. By. The time you get to the 19th century. Our. Observations. Are actually going more, towards anthropomorphism. So. People, are writing about dog behavior, and it's, all about how the dog is feeling sorry and for, biting the furniture, and it's. Really, not telling us very much of what animals are doing an exception. Is Charles, Darwin who describes. Their behavior of honeybees not. So much the dance but. The way that the hexagonal. Cubes. Hexagonal. Containers. In. The. Honeycomb. Must. Be designed by the bees and how their behavior must have evolved to. Produce those so, Charles Darwin takes characteristically. A much more analytical approach, but. Where it starts to move into a. Generally. Scientific, approach is that the I guess, the end of the 19th century through into the early 20th century and, we, have the development of, what. We would call now. Comparative. Psychology. So. These were early observers of, animal behavior but. It was comparing, the abilities, of animals, between. Species, trying, to understand, human. Behavior and, psychology in the context, of what animals were doing and. One of the very first. Was. Charles, Turner he. Was particularly interested in. Insect. Behavior he. Was the first person. From. An, afro-caribbean background. To get a PhD from the University, of Chicago and, one. Of his early papers was, investigating. Color vision in. Honeybees are, published in the barnacle bulletin and basically. He, solves, the argument, the. Debate he, says yes, there is conclusive, evidence that, honeybees, do, see in color about. 20, years before von Frisch showed. The same in. Germany. Another. Early pioneer. Was. Margaret. Washburn, and, she. Wrote. The. First basic, textbook, on. Comparative, psychology, the went to three editions. But. These, pioneers, have tended to be forgotten, and. In. Their place we tend to think of Pavlov. With. His conditioned, reflex, in, the dogs in response to the bell they, start salivating in response, to that stimulus. And, of. Course Skinner with, the Skinner box and. It's. Quite, typical that, he is wearing a, white lab coat because. By the time Skinner. Skinner's. Approach is taking over. Psychology. Instead, of being broadly comparative. And looking at honey bees and ants and dogs in the, wild. It. Really has become a lab study so. One. Of the early presidents, of the American Psychological Association. Joked. That the Journal, of the Society was. Basically the Journal of pigeons, and. Rats. Because basically those of the animals were being, studied. At the time, so. There was a movement in, the 20s, against. That to actually go back to watching. Animals in the wild and this. Was the field they. Coined the word ethology. And, in. 1973. Three. Pioneers. Of, ethology were, awarded, the, Nobel Prize Lawrence. A von Frisch with his honeybees and Tim, Bergen. So. The first of those was von. Frisch and, here. He's looking at bees, that, have arrived at, a sugar, water. Station, and they're, going to be going back to the hive to tell their nest mates to. Come, out to, find. The. Sugar source and, the. Thing that he noticed was. Something that had. Been noticed before but he actually demonstrated. That this really was a proper, signal, and. What. The bees are able to tell their, fellow, nest mates back in the hive is, the. Direction, to fly in, relation. To the Sun. To. Find. The sugar source usually. Of course in nature, the. Nectar a patch, of flowers, but. Also by. The duration, of, waggle run how. Far. How often they bee. Waggles, as she. Shows. This in the hive how. Far the bees, should. Fly and this, is an arbitrary signal, the. Bees in Egypt, waggle. For a different, period. Of time to indicate a certain, distance, there. Was a huge, controversy in, the 1960s. Where. Some scientists, said that the, bees were not doing anything by, way of signal, with the dance all. The message was from the scent that, the other bees were picking up and finally, that, was actually, shown to be the case that it really was a. Directional. Signal giving both the. Direction. In relation to the Sun and also, the distance to fly. The. Second Nobel Prize. The. Person, sharing it was - Konrad Lorenz who's. Famous for his work on imprinting. And, one. Of the illustrations I've used in the book is. This sketch by nico tim bergen who. Visited, from. Holland where he was based, -. Konrad Lawrence's, field station, and, that's. Lawrence in, his plus fours and basically. He's. Attracting. The, Gosling's, who've imprinted, on him, rather. Than their mother who. They ought to be following so, basically the Gosling's imprint, on the first moving object, they see after. They've hatched. So. Tim bergen. Again. Took questions, into the field but.

What He was very good at was asking questions and. Devising. Simple, experiments, to, try, to tease out what might be going on, so. The question here was, why did the gull parents, remove, the eggshell and this is a very characteristic behavior. Once, the. Guard. Chick has hatched out, of the egg the. Parent, picks up the eggshell and flies. A short, distance and, drops, the, eggshell so, why. Were they doing it. Well. What, Timberman hypothesis. Was that the white inside of the broken shell will, be conspicuous. To visual, predators. So. He. Wondered. How, you. Could test that idea whether at the crows and. Larger. Girls black-headed, girls, would. Actually, find. The. White, eggshell. So. How could you test the idea well he didn't have enough girls eggs to. Test, it so. He painted, chickens. Eggs hens. Eggs in. The, camouflage. Pattern. And then. He. Would take an intact. Egg and then. A broken. Egg with the white inside of, the, shell, showing, and he. Placed the broken eggshell at different distances, from the. Intact one and then, wait a few, days to see how often. The. Whole, egg was taken and the. Answer is the, closer the. Broken shell is to the whole egg the, quicker the, Predators find it so. He. Was able to show that it does seem indeed, to be the function of the behavior that, the parent picks, up the broken eggshell after, the gull chick has hatched and, takes, it away so, that the visual predator, doesn't, find the, rest of the eggs that have, not, yet hatched. Now. Usually. We, can't see evolution happening, but. Sometimes, in animal behavior we. Can and. This. Is some work by Malin. Zook in. Hawaii. And, what, she noticed, over a few years is that. The, crickets, on the island, she. Was working on, disappeared. She. Also noticed. That. She couldn't hear, any crickets, and even. As the crickets came back in numbers. There. Was no longer any cricket. Song so. Ed young one of the science journalists, on the Atlantic, called. This the Silence of the crickets so, what. Was going on. Well. The answer turned out to, be this fly, this. Fly is a, phonotactic. Fly it basically, will, fly up to a loudspeaker that. Is playing. The song of the male cricket, and. What, was going on was revealed when. If you look away now it's a gruesome slide, of. The. Maggots, inside, the male cricket, so. This a poor cricket has been parasitized by, the fly she's, laid her eggs on the, cricket and if, you open up the cricket is basically full of the maggots when, those pupate. The. Females of that fly, will then go off and find new male crickets. So. What. Was the explanation for. Firstly the disappearance. Of the crickets, but then the return of silent. Males. So. The answer of course was, that there had always been rare. Mutants. Who never really found very many mates because. They couldn't, sing because, their wing was, malformed. So, they would only rarely, find females, but. There were still mutations. Every now and again but in, the presence, of the. Fly only, those. Males. Survived, so the population, rapidly became, dominated. By those males and so that's, why we, have the science of the crickets, now. I. Mentioned. That you can get parasite, to take over and we, have, zombie. Cockroaches. And. Zombie. Ants and. This. Is now an enormous, field within animal behavior. Because. What. You can use, these. Natural. Experiments. To do is to, actually work out what's going on inside. The, brain of an, animal and, what. Often happens, is that, there are precise. Injections. Of. Neurotoxins. To different parts of the brain just in. The same way as your dentist, would, direct. An injection, if she's doing some root canal, and you. Can actually understand. A bit more about, what's going on now in a longer talk I discuss. All sorts, of examples of this including, a Toxoplasma. Which might, affect humans. And, make us more reckless but, the, example I want to talk about today is a. Wasp and, it's. An example of where the wasp rather than the postman, always. Stings. Twice, so. This. Is the jewel wasp and if. You google or. Look, on YouTube you'll, find lots of amazing, video, of this very fast-moving. Beautiful. Wasp tracking. Down a cockroach. Now, these cockroaches move, fast this is the big American cockroach and, if you've ever tried to catch one you know it's really hard but. These wasps manage. It they they. Sort of, creep. Towards, it and then jump and they, bite and was, there grabbing on to the. Side. Of the cockroach, the. Pro notum she. Then. Brings. Her abdomen, forward and stings. And. She makes two, stings. So. The first sting is. To the walking centers, in. The ganglion so in insects. Their. Nervous system the central, nerve cord runs down the front on.

The Underside, so. Her first sting which, basically. Prevents. The cockroach, from moving it, basically, momentarily. Paralyzes. It and. That. Allows, her, to do. A precision. Second. Sting, now. The second, sting. This. Is a. Painting. She. Basically is, going. In through the soft, tissue of the neck and then, she's probing, around. Inside. The, brain to, find the right place to, make her injection, so, it's very much the same when. If you've got a good dentist they don't have to do the. Injection. Very often and this. Wasp. Is amazing, so. What. The scientists realized. Was. That the. Sting. Can, be coming in from, all sorts, of different angles, so. It's actually really quite an interesting problem, for, the wasp because, she has to put the injection, in the right place but. She won't always be coming in from the right place because. She'll have grabbed to the cockroach which. Is having to do in haste that various. Places along. Its pro notum so. The. Researchers. First. Looked, at where. The venom was going so they used a radioactive venom. A, radioactive, label in the venom and showed, that there were particular places that, it was going and they. Were able to look at the scanning electron microscope. Pictures. Of the. Tip of the sting and they, were able to show the raw mechanoreceptors. So, as she's feeling in, she. Can actually get feedback to the her brain as to where she is a bit like having, doing. Keyhole, surgery when you've got a video camera so she can see what she's doing but she's doing it by touch and she'll, also have chemo sensors, so she'll also be able to know, as it were by the taste and. The. Researchers, did something really fun. Which is. They. Started. To look at what, were, the cues, that, the. Wasp was using to work out where, to put the sting so what. They're timing here is the, string duration. In minutes -. The, two things in red the head sting in black, the, thoracic skin, a sting. So. In the control. She's. Quick so in less than 30. Seconds, she's making the first sting and it's taking a less than a minute to do the head sting. If. You remove the brain altogether that. Doesn't affect how quickly she, gets, the thoracic, sting, the first one but. Basically she takes ten minutes and. She knows the brain must be there somewhere but she can't find it because, the. Experimenters, have cruelly, taken it away. If. They put soft gel soft. Agar there, then, basically, she's. Pushing but, there's nothing to push against, so again, she takes about, ten, minutes. But. If they put a small. Pellet of hard, agar. Which, is about the same consistency, as the brain. Basically. She. Thinks. That she's found the target and so she gives, her injection, so. The nice thing about this is the way that you can dissect. The behavior, and. Work. Out what. The cues are that the female, wasp is doing, now where does this relate. To. Neural. Circuits, in the cockroach, well. One thing I didn't mention was. The second, injection, does something really weird the. First thing is that, it basically sets, the a cockroach, off. Cleaning. Her. Her. Limbs and she's basically totally, distracted, so it's a bit like putting butter on the paws of a kitten basically. They're, distracted, and don't run away. But. What it also is telling us that. The, cockroach, no, longer moves but. Can. Be walked, to. A burrow that the wasp has prepared. Just. Like a self-propelled. Lawnmower, and the. Reason that works is the ability. To start, walking, has been switched off by the second, injection but. Not the neuro circuits for. Walking. So, once the wasp tugs, the. Cockroach. Can walk and those, automatic. Circuits, will start going now. Those. Kinds. Of circuits, that are automatic, are, highly. Conserved across the animal kingdom it's. The same kind of circuit, that works in vertebrates. Like us to. Control breathing and for. That much of walking it, means that we don't have to think with every step and. Those. Circuits. Are. Really interesting, so, one of the first things though is. When. A cockroach is still it's, not the same as when it's being stung by the, wasp in the head, so. The first. Cockroach was just resting if you touch it with the paintbrush it walks and it runs but.

The Second cockroach has had that sting so, they actually will, no longer probably. Walk, until you actually tug it along, so it's actually quite different it's not just being silent. But. The reason it's interesting is, one. Of the times that walking, stops. Working is. When you have Parkinson's, disease and, the. Republican. Team and one, of the things about this. Head sting venom, is it's full of proteins, that are part of the venom we. Don't know which are the ones that actually are doing the work but. Basically this is providing, some drug leads and, whenever, you see this in a press release it actually means that in about ten or twenty years they'll, have found a drug so, it was very exciting, but. Actually were a long way off. So. What. About another, topic. Collective. Behavior is a big area in animal behavior it's. Turning, out to be very exciting, indeed and it's all about many individuals, working together, so. If you have one common. Starling, it looks like this and they are beautiful, iridescent birds, if. You have a murmuration, of, 10,000. It, looks something like, this. And you've, may, have seen these their, prominent. Over Brighton this, is a film, from the Netherlands, and, they. Are just truly extraordinary, so. How do they do this magical. Moving. In, tandem. In fact in sequence, in synchrony. Well. Some. Of the work has been done over, Rome where, they have a really big problem, and there's, some beautiful footage of this in the, David Attenborough program, about. Animals. Living in cities and. Some. Physicists. Took. Stereoscopic. Photos. Of the, flocks. Of starlings the, murmuration server Rome they, digitized, in 3d, and then, they modeled the behavior, and. It. Seems, that. What. The starlings, are doing is looking, at the birds about. The seven or six. Birds that are around them and following. Them so, it's actually an immediate, response to the closest Birds now. Why, is that useful well. The first thing you have noticed about the film, of the, starlings. Is that. The density changes so. Sometimes, they're very close together sometimes, though far apart, why. Does it matter then the mechanism that. They're using well. The answer, is that. One, of the reasons they're doing this, flocking, may. Be to, avoid, predators and. If. You. Are. Looking. At many. But. With very low cohesion, then. There's, a chance that when the hawk comes in it, will be split off from, your. Flock from. The murmuration, if. You're tracking. Other. Animals, no matter how far away they are then. You'll always stay, in a coherent group and that might be the. Reason that they're doing it this way but. One of the nice things about this is, that many of these examples can. Be modeled, in very, simple, ways. So. The final story is about. One, example. Perhaps, to of applying, animal, behavior and the first is about, elephants, and bees, so. The. African. Wild. Bees are. Very. Vigorous, defenders, of their, nests, and even. Elephants, are scared of them because elephants, have sensitive, spots, around their eyes where. Although, the rest of their skin is thick, the, honey bee sting can, get in. So. Some researchers, noticed, that, the elephants. Were avoiding. The. Honey. Bee nests, that were rather. Were avoiding the acacia trees, that, had nests. In them and so. They. Reasoned, that. It. Could, be that the elephants, were avoiding the bees so. The first thing they did was do playback, experiments, over angry bees the buzzing of angry. Bees and it turned out yes the, elephant's ran away and. Were over they, had, an alarm signal, so, that if one elephant heard, the bees will started running they. Would give. The rumble, of be. Alert and all, the other members of the family would, run too. So. The next idea was, to. See whether this could be useful in, resolving. Some, of the conflict, between. Farmers. And elephants. And. The. Problem, with, that with. Using playback, of the songs of, angry, bees is, that. The elephants were very quickly realized, that there. Weren't any real bees that actually was a loud speaker so. It turned out the solution. And. This was done, in some, experiments, collaboratively. Between, the scientists, and the farmers, was. To set up beehives. Around. The. Allotments. And the, beehives are connected, with a wire and if. The elephants creep, in and try. To sneak. Between, the beehives, it. Trigger. The wire that shakes the. Beehives and the bees come out and sting the. Elephants so, it actually works to keep them away from the crops, but. It's also providing. Another. Source of income because. You've. Got honey and beeswax, also, coming from. Those, beehives. So. If you'd like to learn more there's. Much more in. The, book of course on. BBC. Earth. You, can find a fantastic. Collection of videos if, you google Ted, pheromones, there's a very short talk about armpits, on worse and if. You'd like to know more about the zombie ants and fearless mice and there's, a talk I gave at Gresham College earlier.

In The year and if. You want to follow me on Twitter it's, all there so thank you very much indeed. My. Question is back to the wasp and the cockroach why does. The wasps do that to the cockroach so. Why is the wasp doing it to the cockroach. It's. Because. It's, a highly, evolved relationship, all, to the cockroaches, just disadvantaged. So. Basically. In, other. Species, of. Related. Wasp she, simply lays her egg inside, the cockroach, in. This, case. She. Lays, her egg on the outside, of the cockroach but, she has to keep it alive, for. The whole period that. Her wasp grub is feeding. On the. Still-living cockroach, so, yes it's much worse it was before, 9 o'clock so I couldn't show you the rest it's, just really gruesome and it's, actually one of the things that. Darwin. Wrote about in. The origin and. It's. One of the things that almost causes. Him to question and, the, hand of God how. Is it that. These. Really. Bizarre and, unpleasant. Relationships, have evolved, between these parasitoid. Wasps, these, igni more'd wasps. They're poor insect. Hosts. And. There. Are pretty well in fact there are more, parasites. Than. There are, animals. Hosting, parasites, and. One of the reasons for that is the. Wasp. Is a parasite, on the cockroach, there is almost certainly, at least another, was but that's smaller that, parasitizes, the wasp and there. May even be a hyper hyper parasite, that, parasitizes. That wasp so. Basically whenever there's an unused food resource a, parasite. Evolved, to parasitize. It and, it's just a very good way of living and, the cockroach has to spend its days, searching. For food and, running. The risk of being eaten all those other things. By. Taking. A fully-formed, food object, that cockroach, putting. In sin a secure burrow with. Her egg that will hatch into a larva. She. Actually provides. For her offspring, in, a beautiful way so, there's. All the benefit to her so, that's why a parasitism. Is such a profitable, way of, living. For. About a month. It's. Basically, a husk by the end yeah. And often. The the videos. Show the. Beautiful. Jewel wasp emerging. From the, pupae next, to the husk earther, cockroach. So. What was the comments you are going to make about Toxoplasma. In humans so, Toxoplasma. This. Is a brain. Parasite and. People. Studying, wrap, behavior. Realized. That the, rats that were infected by. This brain parasite, it's related, to malaria but. In this. Case it's actually lodged. Inside the, brain inside. Neurons. And glia inside, the brain. It. Changed, their behavior profoundly, and, instead. Of being scared of, cats they. Now approached, cat urine and. And so. There's. A beautiful set. Of papers which are all about fatal, attraction. So. It. Looks as though in rodents. The. Infection. By the parasite, changes. Their behavior and the. Story goes along. The lines of the. Parasite, needs to get into the, cat for the next stage in the life cycle so. What. The parasite, is doing is changing, the behavior of the host. The. Rat or mouse so. That it is more likely to go, to the next stage in, the, cat. So. People. Then discovered, that. Humans. Often show traces. Of. Infection. So basically, it leaves an immune trace antibodies. In, your blood if you've been infected and. There. Are some beautiful studies showing that if. You look at. Army. Recruits, in the, US with a very big sample and look. At the exposure. To, the parasite, it. Does look as though those. Recruits, are more, reckless, they get involved, in more vehicle crashes and there. Was some Czech work that suggested, something similar about and they. Were more like to be run over at the people and one liked to be run over and, appear, in a any if they had, an infection, there. Was even a suggestion that. It might be involved in, schizophrenia. That it might be. Some. Kind of relationship, between infection. With the parasite, in the brain and changes. In human, behavior. The. Problem, is that the story, is. One. Of those that I wish was true, but. May not be quite as neat as it sounds, so, as. You. Go around the world the. Infection, rate varies. Enormously between, different countries so in some countries it it's at about 2% in, others, at about 30% but. For example schizophrenia. Rates don't follow that at all and of course as you'll know schizophrenia. Is incredibly, difficult to identify to. Diagnose, and they, may have more what causes in any event, and. When people have gone back to the Roman work even. That work, turns out perhaps. It. Doesn't, always give the simple story so. It's. One of those intriguing. Things that it may well be true. From. My own point of view I think it's one of those that sort of unproven in Scotland, and they, have, the. Verdict is it not proven, so you have guilty not, guilty and not proven. And. I think in this case it is one of those it's.

One Of those stories that you just wish was true and it really is fascinating. But, there's a big literature on it and it's. Worth searching out but it's just one of thousands. Of examples, of. Parasites. Apparently, manipulating, the behavior of their hosts so thank you I. Was. Wondering if pheromones, were detectable, protein between species and sort, of the scope for confusion that that creates so. Our pheromones, detectable. Between species and the answer is yes and. It's. In, part because any. Broadcast, signal. Can, be and sniffed, it, can be detected by and, something, else the same as a Wi-Fi signal could be can, be sniffed and picked up somewhere else so. There are lots of examples, where, Predators, have. Receptors, that, are just as sensitive as their, prey to. Their preys, on pheromone, so. One, of the things in California, was, in the 1960s. When people working, on. Bark. Beetle, pheromones, so in California the. Bark beetles attract, other, members of the same species to, overwhelm. The defences of a tree and, basically all of them land, on the same tree they, overwhelmed, the tree. So. The researchers, at. UC. Davis and UC Berkeley were. Trying to work out what the molecules were so they put them out in the field and they were expecting. To catch bark. Beetles what. They found was, again about, 600,000. Predators. Who. Were homing. In on the bark beetle pheromone. And when later. Hannumas. Departure, in Norway looked. At the, receptors, those. Receptors, on the Predators were just as sensitive as, the receptors, on the prey so, you can eavesdrop. It. Actually gets even more, twisted, there. Are spiders, that. Illegally. As it were synthesize, the, pheromones, of their, prey so, they. Pretend. To be female, moths and they. Released the pheromone at night and, they. Instead, of having a web the. Web is. Contracted. Into a sticky. Ball and, they, swing it a bit like a gaucho. And. They're, called bolus spiders. And they. Detect the male's flying, upwind and when the male gets close they. Flick, the, sticky. Bolus. Catch. The. Male wasp and draw it in so, you can have deceit in both directions you can have eavesdropping. By. Illegal, receivers. But you can also have illegal, production, of. Pheromone, and, you, can you, can have a very good living that way it's. A very good question thank you, thank. You for this funding we're really interesting I'm. Always intrigued by the influence, that animals. And humans have on each other so looking. At like dogs or cattle that essentially, we have created I, guess which. Animals have had the, biggest influence on human, evolution be, it unwitting. Or whittany so. Which animals have had the biggest, effect. On human evolution. Yes. Yeah. And. That's a really good question because usually, we tend to think about domestication, in the other direction but if they, are domesticated us, I think. The biggest change, is. Lactose. Tolerance. So. Basically. In. Northern, Europe. There. Was selection, for. The. Ability to continue, digesting. Lactose, from. Milk so that's the milk sugar. After. Weaning, and so. We're, very good at it. My. Husband. Whose parents, came from, the Caribbean and ultimately from West Africa he's, lactose-intolerant. Because. In his ancestry, there. Wasn't selection, for, lactose, tolerance, and so. He's, on soya milk. Whereas. I can drink. Regular so. There, is an effect but that's not switch on our behavior and apart, from choosing, soy rather rather, than regular. I'm. Not sure, there. Are some nice, suggestions. That there's a big group in Hungary, who's. Looking. At the. Interaction, between. Dogs. And humans, and. The. Suggestion, is that compared. With wolves, dogs. Really do look as in the eye. So. There. Is a real, communication so, wolves, are not bothered if we're pointing but. Puppies, and, adult. Domesticated. Dogs will, follow the pointing, and, take. That as a signal now. Whether they've had an influence on us to. Point. They. Certainly have had an effect on. Telling. Us when it's, time to feed them, so. When. I'm going to stay with friends they the. Dogs and cats all get very, active. At about nine o'clock and. They suddenly become very friendly, because.

It's Nine o'clock is the time they get fed every evening so in that sense in the short term there. Is definitely effect on our individual, behavior. Longer. Term I don't know but. Your question is a good one because. Every. Evolutionary. Interaction. Between species, goes both ways, so there must be so, thank you yep, hi. Thanks, so much for this talk I'm going. Back to the lactose why do you humans wean in the first place why. Do humans, wing well. That's something actually that you see right there across mammals. The. Thing that defines mammals, of course is producing milk and. It's. A very. Energy. Intense. Food. It's. A way of. Getting. Your, young, through, a vulnerable, period. Until. They. Can really handle and solid. Food. In. Some. I. Wasn't. Saying something someone was it how. Long that takes. Varies. From species to species. But. At a certain point. Because. Producing. Milk is also very energy intensive if. Your, young are actually able to do the digestion themselves. Or whatever food you your, young feed on then. It's time for them to stand. On their own four legs and, start. Feeding so. In. Every mammal species there, is a moment when, the, mother, in effect, tells. Her offspring, time. To do it on your own and. She. Starts, to dry up she, her. Hormones change she starts but stops, producing, milk. And this. Has been investigated, in some detail. In, terms, of the interaction, between the, mother and the offspring, so. Pat. Patrick, Bateson. Over. Many years studied. The. Weaning, behavior, in, domestic. Cats and kittens, and basically. There. Is a moving. Away and, eventually of pushing away. By. The mother. Because. The kitten. Would actually still like the milk. But. It's. Time for the kitten to start eating solid food and it's the same in sheep so. The mother. Willingly. Feeds. The lamb and then at a certain point is actually time for the lamb to just, not video and grass there. Is also, a. Link. To a much more theoretical, question, which is. All. About the. The. Question, of. What's to the benefit of the offspring and the. Parent so, it's a big error in animal behavior called, parent-offspring, conflict, so. From the point of view of the kitten or the lamb or for that matter a, human, baby it's. All about them, so. For. Them what. They want is milk for the longest possible time. But. For the mother it's. At. The cost of future offspring so. At a certain point she needs to stop feeding, this. Generation. Or rather this litter and. Start. To, keep. Her resources, for. The next time she's, going to produce a litter or a, baby, and so. That's another reason for the conflict so it's not just that the, lamb. Or baby or kitten, should, be, on their. Own two feet it's, also that. There is a conflict between the, interests, of the, reproductive success of their mother, longer-term, and, this. Particular kitten. So. It's actually a very interesting area which has been studied in, some detail now thank, you. My. Question is do you have a favorite, animal and why, so. Do I have a favorite animal. Um. No, I'm and. That's not just to know like being a parent you know do you have a favorite child um. I'm. Actually fascinated by. Animals. For every kind and I still find myself amazed, he. Was actually Tim Bergen who, I never met but. It was his books that got me into animal, behavior he, had a book for young adults called, curious, naturalists. And it. Was all about his work in the sand dunes on wasps. And then later on the gulls and I, was just basically hooked and. Over. My career. I've worked on. Fish. In the Red Sea on, octopus. On. Insects. On moths beetles. I've. Never worked with every. Kind of our I've never work with our with elephants, so. There were lots of animals I would love to work on but.

One Of the things you, also realize, is it's. Actually sometimes much better watching, them on on films. Because one of the things about animal behavior that they don't tell you is it's really, boring because. What, you see on. David Attenborough are the edited, highlights that. They've been waiting no three years, for, the the belly, belly, flopping and blue, whale or whatever and all. Those times and, they've been bitten by mosquitoes in the jungle if they're looking at some other behavior, and, what. You see is the best bits so. I don't, have a favorite animal but I actually just love watching them so no thank you do you have a favorite one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I, wanted to ask why, would, for me for, what kinds of communication. Or messages are pheromones. Good for us against just sound or. Visual. Communication. So what kind of messages, are pheromones, good for as opposed to sound and other ways of signaling. The. Answer is, especially. At night, so. One. Of the things that pheromones, can be useful, is. Particularly. Nocturnal, animals so that's one reason that moths. Perhaps use them because, they're flying at night and finding the female. It's. Very, good for long-distance. Communication. Because. So. Long as the molecules, can get carried by the wind or the water. Downstream. There's. Almost no limit and one of the things about visual, signals is that you need to be in line of sight and for. Sound, depending. On the habitat that attenuates, very quickly. One. Of the problems, with, pheromones, in the, wind or water is that it's very hard to locate the source and so, animals we evolved all sorts of. Neat. Ways of navigating. Orientating. Upwind and that's a whole area of study in itself. One. Of the interesting things is that you have multi. Modal signals, so the, humble fruit fly. Uses. Both sound. And pheromones, and touch and taste, for. Its signals so, sometimes. It's a pheromone sometimes, it's sound sometimes. It's all of them and. One. Of the fascinating. Things is, to, relate the. Use of pheromones, to. Particular. Habitats, to particular. Species and sometimes. It's almost traditional, in an animal group, so if. You're a morse female. You. Tend to use a pheromone, and that's, what he reflected, the phylogeny it's reflecting, the, evolutionary. History, but. That whole. Question about when do animals use pheromones when do they use other modalities. And is a fascinating, one so thank you yes. Thanks. For the talk it was really, really interesting so talking, a little bit about human, behavior in your talk you've discussed setting, up controls, and lab experiments. And so and I'm given how. That's not possible for humans and also the longevity of, human I guess. Life spans. What. As I don't know some of the ways we can study human. Behavior by, analogy to animal behavior or, from you. Know sort of the challenges in that area so. Learning, about human behavior from animal behavior um. I. Think. In a way that. Basic. Question underlies, so much, of the interest in animal behavior whether. That's moral, systems for. Alzheimer's. In. Mice. Where. You're looking to see whether or not those tower proteins, are doing something in the brains of mice. One. Of the problems, though is that. Even. Going between mice and rats, it. Turns out they're very different and. What. Doing, experiments. Doing observations, on, animal. Animal, behavior. What. Those experiments, can observations, can tell us is, always, with. The big caveat with the big question, how does it apply but. It is the kind of thing, so. Long as you are very cautious and. Good scientists, are, it's. Always of interest so you, can particularly. In higher, primates, and see. Things. Like affiliative. Behavior, the, friendships, between. Different. Animals in a group the, way that conflicts, are resolved. All. Sorts. Of different behaviors, can. I think tell us things, the. Problem, is the, wild speculation, and the.

Book, I didn't write. Is. One. Of those many books that. Has. A little bit of animal behavior and then suddenly. Twenty. Pages of speculation, that this means that this means but. It is, the, ever interesting, topic because, we've always watched animals, and whilst. We're watching animals we're trying. To see if that gives us an understanding of how we behave and I, think in the way that Darwin. Always. Recognized. We, are simply another, animal, and, I think we've. Got. All sorts of things that other animals don't have, the. List of things that are super. Special, to humans, keeps on diminishing, whether that's different, kinds, of language, to. Use almost. Anything name. Turns. Up well there's an animal that does something similar so all. The behaviors that animals do, probably. Do have some clue to what. We do as humans so yes thank you very much. You. You.

2019-07-04 02:06

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