When a Turtle Dies, Something Comes Out of It

foreign [Music] ERS crabs they live in the North Atlantic Ocean and are very small usually they reach a maximum length of 0.4 inches naturally given these Dimensions the crab can't swim for a particularly long time it can endure only 45 minutes at 82 degrees Fahrenheit and then it drowns so the crab had to look for another way to travel and decided to hitch a ride these crabs build their homes on anything that floats Timbers ship holes plastic debris and even sea turtles the last option is especially interesting because the crabs hide in a small area between the tail and the shell of the turtle eighty percent of loggerhead sea turtles have been found to have such neighbors but is it normal for turtles to coexist with crabs under their tails I mean they gotta be bothering them so maybe it's better to just get the crabs out of there nope people used to believe that crabs feed on Turtle feces but now scientists are certain that these tiny Crustaceans fill a cleaning role it means they don't do any harm things get even better there's also enough space under the turtle's tail for a couple of crabs that is they find a partner find a turtle's butt and live happily mating and breeding in their love nest under the tail that looks like a good place for a chair I'm not saying the curtain's there shark it's a shark hey there tone it down please huh the nerve and then Steve and I thought that there must be a scientific name for this kind of behavior scientists love giving names to everything and we were right this is called commensalism that is a type of relationship between two living organisms in which one organism benefits from the other without harming it the reasons can be different for example shelter or food there are actually many cases of commensalism in nature and for some reason they often have something to do with butts for example Pearl fish which have a very thin scaleless body often get into the body cavities of invertebrates such as clams oysters and starfish and some even live exclusively in the anuses of sea cucumbers as soon as this fish stumbles upon a sea cucumber it Finds Its anus it's not difficult it just needs to follow the current of water expelled through the anus after finding it the fish gets inside and no longer wants to get out usually there's one fish per sea cucumber in rare case as a couple but in 1977 a researcher found an entire hostel 15 fish inside a poor sea cucumber 15. unfortunately or maybe for the best we don't know for sure what sea cucumbers feel when the Pearl fish decide to use them as shelter however they don't seem to be happy it's clear that sea cucumbers can't utter their discontent they simply have no organ to speak with but sometimes sea cucumbers have been known to try to block their anuses so no one gets in although they do need to breathe anyway so Pearl fish simply squirm up into the hole and wait for the sea cucumber to take a breath and then they calmly get inside but the most interesting thing is that some sea cucumbers are quite toxic and this is a completely normal way to fend off Predators most of them simply won't eat a creature that can poison them but no toxin will help against Pearl fish these fish have simply developed immunity most likely thanks to the mucus that coats their bodies in short if they see an unoccupied sea cucumber they'll get inside it and nothing will stop them compared to this behavior oxpeckers that sleep in the armpits of giraffes are quite civilized actually the fact that birds like to sit on large African mammals during the day has long been known to anyone buffaloes giraffes elands any animals will do if there are enough tasty parasites like ticks in their coats though no one knew until recently that yellow-billed oxbackers also spend the night on their hosts they choose a quieter and more comfortable place like between the legs or on the stomach thankfully giraffes don't go through the same experiences sea cucumbers and oxbackers aren't trying to get deep in giraffe's armpits work fine for them they choose to spend the night there to reserve the mammal and not look for a new animal every day just to grab a bite in this case spending the night on The Chosen giraffe is the perfect strategy sometimes up to seven oxpeckers can stay in the armpits of one giraffe does it tickle scientists haven't been able to figure this out yet but let's give them a little time because this is the first study of the behavior of birds at night they're usually observed only during the day birds are actually damn smart when it comes to commensalism and observation take for example the tropical forests of Central and South America this is where you can find army ants and if you've already seen some of our videos then you probably know that many insects and small animals try to stay as far away from army ants as possible so as soon as the army ants head out their potential prey scurries to get out of the way the birds notice this and quickly realized that if they follow the army ants they can find a lot of food but the thing is that some bird species not just began to use it for their purposes over millions of years of evolution they've become so accustomed to eating next to army ants they've completely lost the ability to get food in any other way and this is quite interesting because ants can actually kill birds that use them to find food ants don't really care who they eat however for the birds the benefit seems to outweigh the risk of death since they've chosen to follow the ants and be entirely dependent it on them at the same time other birds are so to say on the giving end of commensal relations their work is exploited by Wizards tuataras are cute reptiles endemic to New Zealand like many endemics tuataras require strict determined conditions to thrive for a comfortable life the body temperature of the Tuatara should be within 60 to 70 degrees fahrenheit temperatures in the forest they live in can drop significantly lower than this Market night so the animals have to warm up again the next day one way to do this is to bask in the Sun but this is a very slow process so the tuatars have come up with something better they spend nights in Burrows which are made by fairy prions and tuataras don't care whether the owners of the borough are at home or not perhaps it's even warmer when the birds are there Studies have shown that a night spent in a burrow allows reptiles to raise their body temperature faster during the day which means they have a head start this way to Ataris get more time to forage for food which allows them to grow faster reproduce more actively and generally become more successful than other reptiles Without Shelter however one of the most famous examples of commensal relations involves jackals and tigers if you've read The Jungle Book by Kipling you probably remember tabaki the Jackal who was always tagging along with Shere Khan and this is not something the writer made up lonely jackals banned from their pack enter into a commensal relationship with tigers The Jackal chooses a tiger and tags along at a safe distance in order to feed on its prey as a payment The Jackal may warn the tiger of danger with a loud howl but this doesn't necessarily happen usually Tigers simply tolerate such companions allowing them to hang around and don't show any kind of aggression moreover there was a case when other Tigers ignored the Jackal which accompanied one of them and then I thought our video could use some spiders well we've already mentioned the ants so why not before you get to the point though you need to know that most spiders eject silk only from the glands at their rear ends but the spider of these cytoads genus is an exception it can also shoot silk from its mouth part and it does so with great force and impregnates the strands with toxins in order not only to trap its prey but also immediately poison it sounds scary you bet it does even other spiders are wary of their spitting cousins moreover Saito spiders often prey on small fentellipia tensa spiders and even build their nests right above them and catch them as soon as they leave their home sometimes side toads even tap on their praised Nest to see if anyone's home and yet the little spider is not completely defenseless because it knows what commensalism is saitodes really hate Asian Weaver ants because they're on the ant's menu so they try to steer clear of them even the trademark expect doesn't work against them it may immobilize a couple of ants but not all of them which means that the spitting spider is doomed Penelope atensis understands this quite well these small spiders settle next to the Weaver ants so that the ants can be seen or at least smelled that's it that'll do the trick the spinning Predator will never get close to dangerous opponents the little spider will be safe and the Ants themselves well they don't even know that someone out there is using them for protection they just live their ant life now imagine you're an emperor shrimp despite the Majestic name you're a very small creature who finds it difficult to travel long distances since all the turtles butts are already occupied by crabs you need to look for an alternative way to get around uber doesn't work underwater so you have to use a sea slug Emperor shrimps are especially fond of slugs known as Spanish dancers and sometimes two shrimps May travel on one slug the slug is toxic to many creatures which is why most Predators avoid it which means they don't bother the shrimp too also shrimp sometimes feed on the poop of the slug one can say that lunch is included in the cost of the trip a shrimp can stay with the same slug for a long time but if it suddenly finds a good place to feed it can get off its back and grab a bite well when the shrimp is full and realizes that it's ready to hit the road again it jumps on the back of another slug and keeps going and finally I'd like to tell you about the cutest case of commensalism in nature in my opinion of course let's talk about butterflies like many other living things they need to get sodium from somewhere flowers aren't of any help so the butterflies have to look for an alternative Source some species of butterflies dive into poop as their sodium Source others find it in the dirt and some prefer tears it could be turtle tears though the turtles aren't particularly thrilled about that or crocodile tears crocodiles are perfect for that because they tend to go torpid which means they slow down their metabolism and lie still for long periods in short butterflies have plenty of time to get sodium however they also pay attention to birds although this happens much more often at night because at night the birds enter a similar numb State due to a body temperature drop and just ignore butterflies I gotta say that this method of obtaining sodium is typical not only for butterflies moths do the same and so do bees and animals who shed tears just have to deal with it well as long as insects do neither harm nor good they don't have to do anything about it this is how commensalism works see you later

Channel: WATOP

Views: 2,101,838

Keywords: WATOP, Wa Top

Id: Ke9666YKXU8

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 13 2022