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Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs Knotted Together

By Guest PostJuly 10, 2011Environment, Naturearctic breeding grounds, atlantic loggerhead sea turtles, chesapeake bay, conor mcgowan, crabs, delaware bay, ecological links, ecosphere, horseshoe crab, james hines, james lyons, james nichols, mid atlantic region, migrating shorebirds, new jersey, nutrient rich eggs, red knot, scorpions, sea turtle, shorebird species, spiders, ticks, U.S. Geological Survey, usgs, virginia

*Research Bolsters Importance of Horseshoe Crab Spawning for Migrating Shorebirds*

LAUREL, Md. – Speculation that the welfare of a small, at-risk shorebird is directly tied to horseshoe crab populations is in part supported by new scientific research, according to a U.S. Geological Survey- led study published in Ecosphere, a journal of the Ecological Society of America.

Population health of the red knot, a shorebird species whose population has plummeted over the last 15 years, has been directly tied to the number of egg-laying horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay — between Delaware and New Jersey — during the red knot’s northward migration each spring. (more…)

People Aren’t Born Afraid of Spiders and Snakes: Fear Is Quickly Learned During Infancy

There’s a reason why Hollywood makes movies like Arachnophobia and Snakes on a Plane: Most people are afraid of spiders and snakes. A new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reviews research with infants and toddlers and finds that we aren’t born afraid of spiders and snakes, but we can learn these fears very quickly.

One theory about why we fear spiders and snakes is because so many are poisonous; natural selection may have favored people who stayed away from these dangerous critters. Indeed, several studies have found that it’s easier for both humans and monkeys to learn to fear evolutionarily threatening things than non-threatening things. (more…)

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Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs Knotted Together

People Aren’t Born Afraid of Spiders and Snakes: Fear Is Quickly Learned During Infancy