For animals, all's fair in love

There's a book called "Dogs Never Lie About Love." That's the sort of thing people like to believe, but in fact, deception is as common among other species as it is among our fellow humans. Much of this deception is geared toward the basic goals of food and, yes, love. Some animals, upon finding food, will use a predator alarm call so their buddies will run away and the liar doesn't have to share. Others will do the same to keep fellow males away from an attractive female.

Some deception methods are pretty sophisticated, like the orangutans who use leaves held up to the mouths when they call, so they sound like they're coming from a bigger animal.

In other cases, it's so basic that the animal's actual physiology has evolved to do the trick - like the male lizards who don't change to their adult coloration so they can sneak around mating with females right under the nose of a dominant male.

The latest scientfic discovery about animal liars shows that animals will also fake it to make sure their date sticks around when she shows signs of losing interest. Male topi antelopes were caught in the act, as reported by Science News:

Study leader Jakob Bro-Jørgensen noticed that when a female would start to wander away from a male’s territory, the male would look in the direction she was headed, prick his ears and snort loudly — the same snort the animals use when they’ve noticed a lion, leopard or other approaching predator.

“It was quite funny — it made me laugh,” says Bro-Jørgensen, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool in England. “It’s such an obvious lie — clearly there’s no lion.”

Obvious, maybe, but apparently it works. The researchers played recordings and discovered that females couldn't tell the difference between lying snorts and truthful ones. A snorting male would get two or three more chances at mating, and they didn't hesitate to milk it - their snorts were lies nine times more often than they were true.

Let's face it: of course animals lie about love. It's too important not to. They'd lie about themselves on Internet dating sites too, if they had opposable thumbs to type with. The difference is our superior technology, not animals' superior moral nature.

Who's worse, scientists or animals?

We used to be able to think that we were better than the animals for all kinds of reasons, but nowadays, scientists are always screwing up our illusions of superiority. It's bad enough we're not the only ones who use tools, or the only ones who are smart enough to deceive. Now we find out that we're not the only ones who can use tools to deceive.

No, monkeys haven't yet learned how to get breast implants or toupees. But scientists have recently discovered that orangutans in Borneo use leaves, held up to their mouths, to make their calls sound deeper. Because deeper calls normally come from a larger animals, the ruse means that predators may decide that they had better stay away from that BIG orangutan.

The strategy works because, like on the internet, interactions in the rainforest often aren't face to face. As primatologist Madeleine Hardus told the BBC, "Because it is very rare and difficult to get a full view of an orangutan in its rainforest habitat, this could be very advantageous, since a potential predator will have to rely more on sounds than sight in these conditions."

Still, there's some comfort in knowing that although orangutans have learned to lie about their appearance to someone they haven't met in the flesh, we're still the only animal who can use fake photos of ourselves on Internet dating sites... we hope.

Orang using a leaf as a tool to drink water by Flickr user doug88888

Marsupial drug fiends

And if that isn't bad enough... they play hoaxes on innocent believers in the supernatural, AND persuade innocent livestock to follow their lead.

BBC - Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine...

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Lara Giddings told the hearing.

"Then they crash," she added. "We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually.

"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," he added.

Kangaroo on drugs by Flickr user mrmanc

Sneaky transvestite lizards

It is my impression that most human transvestites aren't men who dress up as women to pick up women, but, apparently for lizards, it's a good strategy.

Researchers have recently found a species of lizard in South Africa where non-dominant males delay changing to their adult coloration so they can sneak around and steal women without the dominant males realizing what's going on. This works because juveniles of the Augrabies Flat Lizard all start out the color of females.

"By delaying the onset of colour to a more convenient period, these males, termed she-males, are making the best of a bad situation."

Australian National University associate professor Scott Keogh said opting to become transvestites for a period offered young males a dual advantage.

"They can avoid potentially dangerous bouts with dominant males and still have access to normally inaccessible females," he said.

I almost wrote "steal women right under the dominant males' noses," but in fact, you can fool them by looks - but if the dominant male gets close enough to smell, the she-males are in trouble:

University of Sydney researcher Jonathan Webb said... the she-males needed to be nimble to avoid advances from dominant males smitten by their fake female allure.

"Males are fooled by looks, but not by scent," he said.

"She-males are able to maintain this deception by staying one step ahead of a prying male, and thereby avoiding a nosey tongue that might give the game away."

Maybe a good cologne would help?

(Photo from coverage at Mambaonline.com, Gay South Africa Lifestyle News.)

Bad primate briefs

New York Times:

Frans B. M. de Waal, a professor at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory University, said chimpanzees or orangutans in captivity sometimes tried to lure human strangers over to their enclosure by holding out a piece of straw while putting on their friendliest face.

“People think, Oh, he likes me, and they approach,” Dr. de Waal said. “And before you know it, the ape has grabbed their ankle and is closing in for the bite. It’s a very dangerous situation.”

Apes wouldn’t try this on their own kind. “They know each other too well to get away with it,” Dr. de Waal said. “Holding out a straw with a sweet face is such a cheap trick, only a naïve human would fall for it.”

(Another remarkable chimp face photo by Flickr user ucumari.)

Bad boy bees and prevaricating plants probably deserve each other

In belated recognition of Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, which took place on February 12th, we take a moment to consider some recent research into the pollination of orchids, the subject of some of his important early research.

Some orchids lure bees to pollinate them by tricking them into thinking they're going to get lucky - the flower imitates both the appearance and smell of a female bee.

An additional kink has been revealed in recent research, reported in New Scientist:

Orchid lures bees with the promise of sex with strangers.

Swiss researchers have discovered that the pheronomes used by the orchids actually don't smell exactly like the females in the local population of bees.

"This was not at all what we expected. If the orchids thrive on imitating female bees, the match should be as perfect as possible", says Schiestl.

Unless, of course, the males like their girls just a little bit different...

And indeed, male bees have the hots for exotic perfume. Given the choice between a dummy infused with the pheromone cocktail produced by the girl bee next door and another one with the bouquet of a female from another population, the males visited the scent that was new to them 50% more often.

But orchid scent, with yet greater differences in the pheromone mix, was even more popular. In choice tests it attracted males up to five times as often as that of a local female.

Don't miss the NSFW (if your co-workers are insects) video.

And more than you probably need to know about Pollination through Pseudo-Copulation in Orchids here.

(Photo, of a different species of bee orchid, by Wikipedia user Ramin Nasika.)