Lose weight or die

2015/04/13 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia
• Ekologia

Some birds, to escape death, are slimmed. Thus, being lighter, they fly faster and the predator cannot hunt. This strategy, known as "mass predation", was so far a hypothesis, since many researchers suspected that some birds used this strategy, but did not get evidence.

Finally, some ornithologists from the Barcelona neighborhood of Sarrià have shown that yes, that for some birds the bikini operation is something vital. In this neighborhood lives a colony of tarinas. And other tarines go from there. They are the thorns of anecdote. Ornithologists have caught, ringed, heavy and loose at different times. And they discover that the birds of the neighborhood lost 10% of their weight, when a hawk lived there.

During that time, the hawk hunted the tarinas daily and were always anecdotal. They did not know that there was a gull in the neighborhood waiting for their prey and they flew as fleshy as ever. In front of the thin tarines of the neighborhood, they were simple and attractive pieces for the hawk. One day the hawk left and the tarins of the neighborhood took the lost weight. And ornithologists showed that the hypothesis was correct.

The study was published in the specialized journal Journal of Ornithology, at the same time that some members of our species are involved in bikini operation.

 

Published in the newspaper Berria.