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Autotomy (from the Greek auto-, "self-" and tome, "severing", αὐτοτομία) or 'self-amputation', is the behaviour whereby an animal sheds or discards an appendage, [1] usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allow escape. Some animals are able to regenerate the
Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within an animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience , awareness , subjectivity , qualia , the ability to experience or to feel , wakefulness , having a sense ...
Savaging; overt aggression directed to newborn offspring by a mother animal, often including cannibalistic infanticide. [28] Self-cannibalism (autophagy, autosarcophagy); an animal eating itself. [29] [30] Self-injury; an animal injuring its own body tissues. [31] Sham or "vacuum" dustbathing; dustbathing in the absence of appropriate substrate ...
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs .
In general, domesticated animals possess common characteristics that differentiate them from their non-domesticated counterparts (for example, in the case of Canis familiaris compared to their relatives, Canis lupus, among many other cases): they tend to be more docile and playful, exhibit less aggressive behavior, and show marked neoteny, often resulting in a smaller body, a slightly smaller ...
The animal is then tested by being played an intermediate stimulus C, e.g. a 15 Hz tone, and observing whether the animal presses the lever associated with the positive or negative reward, thereby indicating whether the animal is in a positive or negative mood. This might be influenced by, for example, the type of housing the animal is kept in ...
Several species of the soldierless Apicotermitinae, for example those of the Grigiotermes and Ruptitermes genera, have workers that can also use autothysis. This is thought to be one of the most effective forms of defense that termites possess as the ruptured workers block the tunnels running into the nest and it causes a one-to-one exchange ...
Domestication has been defined as "a sustained multi-generational, mutualistic relationship in which one organism assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another organism in order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest, and through which the partner organism gains advantage over individuals that remain outside this relationship ...