scholarly journals Tantalising tongues: male carpet pythons use chemoreception to differentiate among females

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. L. Bryant ◽  
P. W. Bateman ◽  
P. A. Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Mate Selection ◽  
Reproductive Behaviour ◽  
Receptive Female ◽  
Breeding Period ◽  
Searching Behaviour ◽  
The Third ◽  
South West ◽  
Male Mate ◽  
Tongue Flicking ◽  
Tongue Flicks

For animals sparsely distributed across a landscape, finding and identifying a receptive female during a short breeding period can be a challenge for males. Many snakes appear to rely on the production of sex-specific pheromones to synchronise the timing of reproductive behaviour. The rare Australian south-west carpet python (Morelia spilota imbricata) displays non-aggressive mating aggregations of up to six males around a receptive female, suggesting that males are responding to some chemical signal that enables multiple males simultaneously to identify and locate the female. We investigated chemoreceptive response (tongue-flicking) of 10 male pythons under laboratory conditions to 12 (randomly ordered) treatments each presented for three minutes. Cutaneous chemicals (dissolved in hexane solvent) were collected on cotton buds from the skin of six female pythons and male responses to these were compared with six control treatments. Male pythons produced a greater number of tongue flicks during the first minute of each trial, with fewer in minutes 2 and 3. Male chemoreceptive response in the third minute varied significantly between treatments and was only maintained for trials presenting cutaneous chemicals collected from the three relatively largest female pythons. This experiment suggests that male carpet pythons can use chemoreception to obtain information about their social environment, identifying pheromone cues from large, potentially fecund females. This ability would be adaptive for male mate-selection behaviour and is likely to also reduce costs of searching behaviour.

A Review on Adenocarpus mannii; a Main Species of the Genus Adenocarpus

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Blaise K. Nganou ◽  
Jubie Selvaraj ◽  
Pierre Tane ◽  
Alex Nchiozem ◽  
Ingrid Simo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
The Third ◽  
West Region ◽  
South West ◽  
Agriculture Industry ◽  
Microbial Infections ◽  
Chemotaxonomic Markers ◽  
Phytochemical Studies

: The fabaceae are rooted in rosaceae pods known as "vegetables" by the early botanists. They are the third family of angiosperms which includes 642 genus divided into about 18,000 species. The fabaceae family is known as the most important family of the ecosystem as it is indispensable in medicine, agriculture, industry and livestock. The Adenocarpus genus has about 50 species that are frequently found in tropical regions of Northern Africa, the southern part of West Europe and in the central and southern Italy. They are used in traditional medicine for the treatment of several diseases: such as microbial infections, leprosy, scabies, acne, malaria and other plants species are used in agriculture as insecticidal properties. Mainly Adenocarpus mannii species is well represented in the tropical regions of North Africa. It occurs in Angola, Mozambique, Malawi, Guinea, South Africa, Tanzania, and Burundi. In Cameroon, it is encountered in South West Region and West Region. Previous phytochemical studies led to the isolation of several classes of compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids and triterpenes. Several studies report the phytochemical studies on genus Adenocarpus and chemotaxonomic markers of species of this genus. Herein, we outline all the botanical, pharmacological and phytochemical aspects of Adenocarpus mannii. A brief introduction about fabaceae and the genus Adenocarpus has also been included.

scholarly journals § V.—Ancient Sites in the Strymon Valley

1919 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 64-66
Author(s):  
F. B. Welch
Keyword(s):  
The South ◽  
South Side ◽  
The Third ◽  
South West

I Here describe a few sites on the south side of the valley of the Strymon, which I noticed while stationed there in 1916–1918. All except No. 5 belong to the third type described by Wace and Thompson and consist of large, low flat-topped mounds covered with Hellenistic sherds. This part of the country was anciently inhabited by the Bisaltai.1. At kilometre 70 on the Salonika-Serres road, about three kilometres south-west of Sakavcha, and two-and-a-half kilometres west of Makesh. Round the edges the remains of ancient walls can be easily traced; in places they are still three feet high and the same thickness with small towers at irregular intervals. Remains of house walls can be found everywhere a few feet down.

The Misfortunes of William, Fourth Lord Petre (1638–1655)

1971 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Clay
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Total Income ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
South West ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Family ◽  
Large Estate

The Lords Petre were always one of the most prominent of English Catholic families, and they were also one of the richest. Their landed estates had been built up in the middle of the sixteenth century by Sir William Petre, Secretary of State to three Tudor sovereigns. Sir William's son, John, was created a Baron in 1611, but in the early 17th century the family properties ceased to grow in size, partly because Catholicism excluded them from the profits of office, and partly because provision for younger sons offset such new acquisitions as were made. But even so the estates inherited by the third Lord Petre in 1637 were large enough to place him clearly in the ranks of the great landed magnates. In Essex he had a well-consolidated belt of land lying to the west and south-west of Chelmsford, and centred on the two family residences of Ingatestone Hall and Thorndon Hall. Altogether in Essex Petre had about 11,000 acres of freehold land and the lordship of seventeen manors, and these produced some £5,500 per annum or considerably more than half his total income from land. In addition he had a large estate on the opposite side of the country, in Devon. This lay in two distinct areas, one centred on Axminster and extending down the Axe valley and its tributaries, and the other in the southerly projection of the county on the southern edge of Dartmoor, where the principal possession was the vast moorland manor of South Brent. Besides the main estates in Essex and Devon, there were some isolated properties: the manor of Osmington down on the Dorset coast; Toddenham and Sutton in Gloucestershire; Kennett and Kentford on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border.

Prehistoric Roads and Tracks in Somerset, England: 2. Neolithic

1970 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 125-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Coles ◽  
F. Alan Hibbert ◽  
Colin F. Clements
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
South West ◽  
Extensive Region ◽  
Peat Deposits ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
South West England

The Somerset Levels are the largest area of low-lying ground in south-west England, covering an extensive region between the highlands of Exmoor, the Brendon Hills and the Quantock Hills to the west, and the Cotswold and Mendip Hills to the east (Pl. XXIII, inset). The Quantock Hills and the Mendip Hills directly border the Levels themselves, and reach heights of over 250 metres above sea level. The valley between extends to 27 metres below sea level, but is filled to approximately the height of the present sea by a blue-grey clay. The Levels are bisected by the limestone hills of the Poldens, and both parts have other smaller areas of limestone and sand projecting above the peat deposits that cap the blue-grey clay filling. In this paper we are concerned with the northern part of the Levels, an area at present drained by the River Brue.The flat, peat-covered floor of the Brue Valley is some six kilometres wide and is flanked on the north by the Wedmore Ridge, and on the south by the Polden Hills (Pl. XXIII). In the centre of the valley, surrounded by the peat, is a group of islands of higher ground, Meare, Westhay, and Burtle. These islands, which would always have provided relatively dry ground in the Levels, are linked together by Neolithic trackways of the third millennium B.C. Several of these trackways formed the basis of a paper in these Proceedings in 1968 (Coles and Hibbert, 1968), which continued the work of Godwin and others (Godwin, 1960; Dewar and Godwin, 1963).

The European Rabbit in South-Western Australia. I. Study Sites and Population Dynamics.

1985 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 183 ◽  
Author(s):  
DR King ◽  
SH Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Biological Control ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Biological Control Agent ◽  
Control Agent ◽  
European Rabbit ◽  
Breeding Period ◽  
South West ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Breeding Seasons ◽  
Winter Rain

Descriptions are given of 2 study sites in the south-west of Western Australia, on which rabbit numbers were monitored. Breeding seasons began in March or April, with the onset of winter rain, and rabbit numbers peaked in October-December, followed by a fall over the non-breeding period in summer. Winter epizootics of myxomatosis, which were spread by Spilopsyllus cuniculi, caused severe declines in rabbit numbers at both sites. Summer epizootics at one site before the introduction of the flea as a biological control agent, and rabbit mortality during these, was lower than in the winter epizootics.

The Garamantes of Fezzan: Excavations on Zinchecra 1965–7

1970 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
First Century ◽  
The South ◽  
The Third ◽  
South West

SummaryThe Garamantes inhabited Fezzan, now the Saharan province of the Libyan Arab Republic, their capital, Garama, lying c. 105 miles west of Sebha in the wadi el Agial. After an unruly early history they appear to have become pacified and open to Roman influence. Before Garama was founded the tribe inhabited the promontory fortress of Zinchecra c. 2½ miles to the south-west, where excavation has revealed three main periods of occupation. The earliest consists of rock-scooped hearths, the second of rough dry-stone and frond shelters with stone-lined hearths. The third is more complex with buildings ranging from rough shelters to well-built mud-brick ‘houses’, the latest of which date to the first century B.C. and employed dressed stone in their basal courses. At the start of this period a complex of enclosure banks and walls was thrown around the base of the spur. Finally the site was abandoned to cemeteries.

The Effect of Female Color, Size, Dominance and Early Experience Upon Mate Selection in Male Convict Cichlids, Cichlasoma Nigrofasciat Um Günther (Pisces, Cichlidae)

Behaviour ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 116-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne P. Weber ◽  
Peter G. Weber
Keyword(s):  
Mate Selection ◽  
Female Dominance ◽  
Female Size ◽  
Mixed Group ◽  
Homogenous Group ◽  
Color Experience ◽  
Convict Cichlids ◽  
Wild Type Male ◽  
Male Mate

AbstractThis study investigates the role of female color, size, and dominance, and the influence of early color experience in mate selection by male Convict cichlids, Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum. Dark wild-type male fish were reared by dark parents in dark schools (dark homogenous group), and by mixed dark and white parents in mixed schools (dark mixed group), until sexual maturity. Correspondingly a white homogenous group and a white mixed group were also established. Each male was then allowed to choose a mate among two dark (mixed group) and two white (mixed group) females. Males tended to spawn more often with dark females and always spawned with dominant females. Female size is positively correlated with female dominance and this may be either as a cause or as an effect of female dominance. Early color experience appears to be unimportant in male mate selection.

The Function of Oscillatory Tongue-Flicks in Snakes: Insights from Kinematics of Tongue-Flicking in the Banded Water Snake (Nerodia fasciata)

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (9) ◽  
pp. 883-896 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Daghfous ◽  
M. Smargiassi ◽  
P.-A. Libourel ◽  
R. Wattiez ◽  
V. Bels
Keyword(s):  
Nerodia Fasciata ◽  
Water Snake ◽  
Tongue Flicking ◽  
Tongue Flicks

scholarly journals The Archaeological Search for Tartessos-Tarshish-Atlantis and Other Human Settlements in the Donana National Park

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kühne
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
National Park ◽  
Doñana National Park ◽  
Human Settlements ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
The Third ◽  
South West ◽  
Neolithic Age ◽  
The Neolithic Age ◽  
The Middle Ages

Adolf Schulten suggested that Tartessos-Tarshish was the model for Plato's Atlantis. I argued that its capital was situated in what is now the Marisma de Hinojos within the central part of the Andalucian Donana National Park in south-west Spain. This article reports about the preliminary results of an archaeological expedition to test this theory. The preliminary results of the expedition include evidence of either a tsunami or a storm flood during the third millenium BC and evidence of human settlements from the Neolithic Age to the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Demographic increase in the context of divorce and extramarital partnership

2006 ◽  
pp. 325-332
Author(s):  
Nada Polovina
Keyword(s):  
Sex Roles ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Reproductive Behaviour ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Life Conditions ◽  
The Third ◽  
Basic Goal ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Divorce Rates ◽  
Sociology Of Family

The basic goal of this paper is to point to the scope and significance of the share of divorce and extramarital partnership in the issues related to demographic increase. The paper consists of three parts. The first part discusses the relevant demographic data which - through the increase of the divorce rates and the rates of children born extramaritally, as well as through the specification of general indicators within these categories of population (age, marriage length, education, job) - indirectly point to the reduction and impoverishment of the reproductive potentials in this subpopulation. The second part of the paper presents contemporary theoretical-research argumentation which tends to explain the dynamics of the functioning of the pattern of family and heterosexual partnership (postulates of evolution psychology, psychology of sex roles, psychology of reproductive behaviour and sociology of family). The third part presents the concluding remarks and the standpoints of the author herself about the need to construct a new thinking area and discourse which would follow the created changes and processes, as well as to preserve in them the idea of longstanding co-operative relations in which man and woman, in new life conditions and realities, contribute to the benefit of the descendents.

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