The population of black-tailed prairie dogs in the U.S. has been declining markedly lately, and researchers have been struggling to figure out precisely why. They knew the dogs were succumbing to a plague spread by fleas, but somehow, even after an entire colony of the critters had perished, the disease lived on and spread to new colonies. Just how did it pull that trick? According to the results of a new study out of Stanford University, there's a second culprit: the deceptively docile-sounding grasshopper mouse.
"Grasshopper mice have no respect for prairie dog territories," Stanford associate professor James Holland Jones said. "They're nasty little beasties, and when they eat the carcass of a prairie dog that's died of plague, the fleas climb aboard the mice. The mice then schlep the fleas around to different territories, connecting family groups that otherwise wouldn't be in contact."
Say again? They eat the carcasses of the prairie dog? Just what kind of mouse is this? ... Unlike other mice, which merely supplement their vegan diets with an insect here and there, the grasshopper mouse's main entrees are insects and invertebrates, hence "grasshopper" mouse. Other food items include snakes, worms, other mice (size regardless), scorpions and carrion. ... The grasshopper mouse isn't affected by venom from, for example, scorpions or snakes. It attacks with a quick lunge and bite to the prey's neck. It also stands on its hind legs and howls.
via What is the Carnivorous Grasshopper Mouse and Why is it Killing Praire Dogs?.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
What is the Carnivorous Grasshopper Mouse and Why is it Killing Praire Dogs?
Kathryn Yao has an interesting article about a meat eating mouse. I thought mice only ate seeds and lettuce.
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So, according to this research the plague carried by fleas which attach to the grasshopper mouse is the cause for the spread of the disease. As the mouse travels it carries the fleas to a new population of prairie dogs. This then increases the numbers of prairie dogs dying from the disease.
The grasshopper mouse and prairie dog have just about the same type of natural carnivorous predators: coyotes, owls, hawks, bobcats, eagles and at one time, particularly in the case of prairie dogs, ferrets, which is all but extinct in the wild now.
Although population numbers of several species of owls (barn, spotted, burrowing etc.) and hawks (Ferruginous, Swainson's, Red-Tailed etc.) are decreasing in North America, as are populations of bobcats (because of habitat destruction), the numbers of the super-adaptive coyote are increasing just about everywhere including urban and peri-urban areas.
But, flea populations tend to be seasonal. In warmer weather their numbers tend to increase.
So, climatic change may also be responsible for the spread of the plague. That, and the decreasing number of carnivorous predators that would otherwise help coyotes to keep the grasshopper mouse and prairie dog populations down may also be responsible for the spread of the disease. Maybe?
Speaking of animal extinction, or nearly so:
Paul Pedant (UK, southeast, England) in "Last Word," New Scientist, answered a question, "why no blue mammals?" this way:
Why no BLUE mammals?
I'm being hunted to extinction,
They're making sushi from my tail.
I'm being hunted to extinction,
They're making sushi from my tail.
Call out that International Whaling Commission
'Cos I am really one Blue Whale.
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