This article was originally posted at Amazing Zoology . View original article at https://amazingzoology.com/bat-roost-curb-malaria/ 110 years ago, one man set out to rid Texas of Malaria – with the help of what was then a very unlikely source… bats! Dr. Charles A. Campbell had a simple plan. He knew that bats eat mosquitoes, and believed that if he could entice thousands of bats to live in Malaria-ridden areas, they would single-wingedly eradicate the disease. After years of fruitless experimentation with small roosting boxe s, he decided to go BIG, with a 30-foot tower containing roosting shelves, guano lures, and a meal plan – three large hams! The $500 contraption was, alas, a flop. Campbell realized that he didn’t understand bats enough to provide suitable homes. He spent months studying caves and roosts to learn what bats needed most. In 1911 he constructed a new, improved tower at Mitchell’s Lake, where 90% of the locals were sick with Malaria. Within...
This article was originally posted at Stingrays can chew their food, like mammals [toc] Is chewing a unique mammalian feature? Unlike mammals, other animals usually don’t have the ability to chew their food. Chewing can be defined as the interaction of upper and lower teeth by compressing and shearing food in between. And the peculiarity of mammalian chewing is the opposable motion of upper and lower jaw. Chewing is a very recent evolutionary adaptation. There are a few animals along with mammals to do that. Chewing is estimated to have evolved some 60-70 million years during the diversification of mammals. Some scientists even believed chewing one of the key innovations that allowed mammals to flourish, by dining well on insects, grasses, and other abundant sources of food. Now, recent findings using high speed videography has given scientific evidence to show that chewing is not just a mammalian adaptation. Recent study [1] reveals that ocellate river stingray ( Potam...
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