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Watch a desert kangaroo rat drop-kick a rattlesnake


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2019 Mar 31, 8:46am   352 views  0 comments

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High-speed cameras reveal the complexity of the rodents’ defensive maneuvers

Deserts of the southwestern United States may be the lair of secret ninja masters: desert kangaroo rats.



Researchers armed with high-speed cameras have captured the complex maneuvers that the rodents (Dipodomys deserti) deploy to avoid deadly bites from sidewinder rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerastes). Two new studies, published online March 27 in Functional Ecology and the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, offer the first detailed looks at those tricks.

Kangaroo rats can avoid attacks using their extremely sensitive hearing and by drumming their feet on the ground to deter predators, says behavioral ecologist Rulon Clark of San Diego State University. But that doesn’t always work.

Clark and his colleagues had seen rats ambushed by snakes in the wild, only to watch many rodents jump with lightning speed and dart away unscathed. These clashes between reptile and rodent happened so fast that the researchers weren’t sure how the rats dodged death. So the team decided to record the encounters.

www.youtube.com/embed/UIXnKZbDMuo

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/watch-desert-kangaroo-rat-drop-kick-rattlesnake?tgt=nr

#DesertAnimals #DesertRat #Rattlesnakes
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