Killer Mice Gang Up On Sea Birds

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Pah. Psychology is bunk. Animal psychology doubly so.

BS.

And, I might add, bunk which could quite easily be done in a lab.

We can induce them to teach behavior to offspring?

[Zkribbler]

remove the mice

How the heck does one do that?!? Say, "Here, mousie mousie mousie"? What do you do if the mice don't come peacefully? Import preditors, such as snakes and/or cats? Use flamethrowers??

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
completely isolated

It appears to the present author that the introduction of mice may suggest that perhaps this particular location is not completely isolated.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
How the heck does one do that?!? Say, "Here, mousie mousie mousie"? What do you do if the mice don't come peacefully? Import preditors, such as snakes and/or cats? Use flamethrowers??

You spread out fake human fingers, covered with poison. The mice just can't resist the temptation to bite

Btw, mice are like bulldogs. Once they bite you, they won't let go, no matter how much you wave your finger around

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
We can induce them to teach behavior to offspring?

If they do it in the wild, why not in a lab?

Originally posted by Zkribbler
How the heck does one do that?!? Say, "Here, mousie mousie mousie"? What do you do if the mice don't come peacefully? Import preditors, such as snakes and/or cats? Use flamethrowers??

The usual approach is a sustained poisoning campaign. There are no other small mammals on the island, so there are unlikely to be any accidental casualties.

[Mr. Harley]

Those of you posting about why doesn't the chick defend itself - it's a toddler, Morons. Unprotected human toddlers get bitten by rodents, more often rats than mice, but that's because rats get first dibs at those large, unprotected food sources. The parents are not at the nest, you will note the mice are attacking unprotected chicks.

The parents most likely have to range far distances to collect sufficient food. So for them, having a predation safe nesting area is critical. Humans screwed that up. If you want to take the attitude who cares - then you are soft on crime, and want to see rapists go unpunished, right?

It seems that the bacteria with the enzyme for high temperature DNA polymerase exists in a single hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. Also through WW2 many US hot springs were essentially paved over and piped into healing spas. The reason we didn't do that to Yellowstone was this guy named Theodore Roosevelt. A Republican, strangely enough, who was an ardent Conservationist to differenetiate from Environmentalist, it's a different philosophy.

Now, who knows which species on this island, or some other isolated island, might have some enzyme, or biomechanical trick, etc. that could help create the next breakthrough. Did you know Polar Bears have de facto IR stealth (they show up brightly on UV, not a lot of research on it yet, but against those Aliens from Tau Ceti we might really need it)? Don't cavalierly throw out ecosystems, you don't even know what you are loosing.

[Barinthus]

shawnmmcc well said

[Geronimo]

Yeah, maybe baby albatross is good eatin'. Humanity would miss out on a rare treat!

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Those of you posting about why doesn't the chick defend itself - it's a toddler, Morons. Unprotected human toddlers get bitten by rodents, more often rats than mice, but that's because rats get first dibs at those large, unprotected food sources. The parents are not at the nest, you will note the mice are attacking unprotected chicks.

The parents most likely have to range far distances to collect sufficient food. So for them, having a predation safe nesting area is critical. Humans screwed that up. If you want to take the attitude who cares - then you are soft on crime, and want to see rapists go unpunished, right?

It seems that the bacteria with the enzyme for high temperature DNA polymerase exists in a single hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. Also through WW2 many US hot springs were essentially paved over and piped into healing spas. The reason we didn't do that to Yellowstone was this guy named Theodore Roosevelt. A Republican, strangely enough, who was an ardent Conservationist to differenetiate from Environmentalist, it's a different philosophy.

Now, who knows which species on this island, or some other isolated island, might have some enzyme, or biomechanical trick, etc. that could help create the next breakthrough. Did you know Polar Bears have de facto IR stealth (they show up brightly on UV, not a lot of research on it yet, but against those Aliens from Tau Ceti we might really need it)? Don't cavalierly throw out ecosystems, you don't even know what you are loosing.

I agree with the apparent motivation behind your post (that of avoiding the loss of any species).

However, I should point out that hyperthermophiles are the oldest lineage on Earth and certainly had yellowstone been paved over we would still have been able to find a taq polymerase equivalent from the other species. In fact we have already found the DNA polymerase from Thermococcus litoralis to have a proofreading exonuclease activity that makes it superior to Taq for many purposes.

As to the polar bear IR 'stealth' ability this is simply demonstrative of how well insulated the animal is. Not some sort of exotic biological mechanism that erases heat signitures.

I don't think people will be convinced to spare species like bird species on the basis of such arguments given that intuitively it will seem too outrageous a stretch to imagine economic pay offs from something unknown about such organisms.

[Vesayen]

Any bird species too stupid to try to defend itself or even...FLEE-is not worth saving.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Any bird species too stupid to try to defend itself or even...FLEE-is not worth saving.

Well to be fair they are baby birds. As was pointed out earlier, how do you think humans of the same age would react to being eaten alive by mice?

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Any bird species too stupid to try to defend itself or even...FLEE-is not worth saving.

Suppose there's an island somewhere with a human tribe in which people have lived in peace and harmony. The last murder committed was over 2000 years ago.

Then others show up and start to boss them around - I bet you they would not know what to do, at least not at the first.

Does that make them stupid? No.

[Kuciwalker]

Your problem is that the premise isn't plausible.

[Vesayen]

I thought they were attacking the nesting mothers, not the babies? They said they were up to 200x their size...

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Vesayen
I thought they were attacking the nesting mothers, not the babies? They said they were up to 200x their size...

check out the video. it's a big downy baby bird. nowhere near as big as the adult certainly but huge compared to the mice.