Category: bird lice

Blackbird hitches a ride atop a red-tailed hawk

On By A.P.In bird lice, California, Eric Dugan, Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area, Ray Gaudette, red-tailed hawk, red-winged blackbirdLeave a comment

Landing On A Raptor

Brave Little Balckbird

These images show a red-winged blackbird standing on the back of a red-tailed hawk, looking as if it’s catching a ride to another destination. The series of images were captured recently by photographer Eric Dugan at Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area in Northern California. They first appeared in a San Francisco Chronicle story written by outdoors columnist Tom Stienstra.

Dugan described the event:

“I was exploring the wildlife refuge and heard the screech of a red-tailed hawk, loud and repeated. I scanned the sky but didn’t see anything at first. Then, in the distance, I saw a young red-tailed hawk sitting on a telephone pole and the red-winged blackbirds were jumping on and off its back and head, apparently to drive it away from a nesting area.

“I immediately stopped, changed to my long lens, and set up my camera in anticipation for the show. As I walked closer, I anticipated that the hawk would take flight and the blackbirds would pursue it, to drive it out of their territory. I raised the camera and the blackbird actually landed on the hawk multiple times.

“The small bird was so far more maneuverable in flight that all the hawk could do was tolerate it and fly away.”

Dugan stated via email that the photos “are 100 percent legit” and that his only edits were exposure- and shadow-related since lighting was harsh at certain points because of the bright sunshine.

“I went back to the same spot a few days later hoping lightning would strike twice,” Dugan said. “But the red-tailed hawks were hunting way off in the distance.”

His final remark: “Red-winged blackbirds are fearless.”

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/blackbird-hitches-a-ride-atop-a-red-tailed-hawk/

Thanks to Ray Gaudette for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

New type of bacteria discovered in Indiana man’s gruesome wound

On By A.P.In ARUP Laboratories, bird lice, Colin Dale, Indiana, microbe, National Science Foundation, Nature, PLoS Genetics, Sodalis, stinkbug, Thomas Fritz, tsetse fly, University of Utah, weevilLeave a comment

 

An Indiana man’s nasty injury led scientists to discover a new type of bacteria that sheds light on symbiotic microbes in insects.

Two years ago, Thomas Fritz cut down a dead crab apple tree in his yard. He fell while hauling away the woody debris and a branch from the tree impaled his right hand between the thumb and index finger.

Fritz, a 71-year-old retired inventor, engineer and volunteer firefighter, bandaged the gash himself. He waited a few days to see a doctor and by the time of his appointment, the puncture wound became infected. The doctor took a sample of the cyst that formed at the site of the cut and sent it to a lab.

After an abscess, swelling and more pain, Fritz’s wound eventually healed. But the sample from his infection puzzled scientists at the lab who couldn’t identify what type of bacteria they were looking at. The sample was eventually sent to ARUP Laboratories, a national pathology reference library operated by the University of Utah, where scientists named the new strain human Sodalis or HS.

Colin Dale, a biologist at the University of Utah, said that genetic analyses of HS showed it is related to Sodalis, a genus of bacteria that he discovered in 1999 and has been found to live symbiotically in 17 insect species, including tsetse flies, weevils, stinkbugs and bird lice. In such symbiotic relationships, both the host and the bacteria gain — for example, while Sodalis bacteria get shelter and nutrition from their insect hosts, they also provide the insects vital B vitamins and amino acids.

Though symbiotic relationships between microorganisms and insects are common, their origins are often a mystery. The new evidence provides “a missing link in our understanding of how beneficial insect-bacteria relationships originate,” Dale said, adding that the findings show that these relationships arise independently in each insect.

As the strain of Sodalis in this case likely came from a tree, the discovery suggests that insects can get infected by pathogenic bacteria from plants or animals in their environment, and the bacteria can evolve to become less virulent and to provide symbiotic benefits to the insect. Then, instead of spreading the bacteria to other insects by infection, mother insects pass down the microbes to their offspring, the researchers said.

“The insect picks up a pathogen that is widespread in the environment and then domesticates it,” Dale explained in a statement from the National Science Foundation, which funded the research. “This happens independently in each insect.”

The research was detailed earlier this month online in the journal PLoS Genetics.

http://www.livescience.com/25035-wound-leads-to-bacteria-discovery.html