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Walk from Stockgrove Centre to Rushmere SP9129
Blackbird
It is easy to dismiss the Blackbird as just another common, year-round, garden resident. But to do so would overlook some fascinating behaviours. Research, for example, has revealed that at least 12% of the Blackbirds present in Britain and Ireland during the winter are immigrants from elsewhere in Europe and, far from just feeding on fruit and earthworms, Blackbirds have even been observed to take tadpoles and newts from the shallows of garden ponds.
Making the most of gardens
The Blackbird is a species of woodland and woodland edge, but one that has adapted very well to the urban environment. In fact, it is thought that urban Blackbird populations may even act as a source for less productive woodland populations, which face significantly greater levels of nest predation. The most serious threat to urban-nesting Blackbirds is probably prolonged periods of dry weather, which restricts access to earthworms living within parched garden lawns and puts Blackbird chicks at risk of starvation.
Much of our understanding of these urban and suburban Blackbird populations comes from a small number of intensive studies. These demonstrate that traditional breeding territories and feeding sites may be used year after year, particularly by socially dominant individuals. The availability of food throughout the year – Blackbirds are catholic in their dietary tastes – enables the birds to maintain compact, tightly packed territories, sometimes with individuals also using ‘communal’ feeding areas outside of their established territories.
Interestingly, information from the weekly BTO Garden BirdWatch reveals an underlying seasonal pattern of garden use, with a drop in garden use from August through until the end of October. This ‘autumn trough’ is probably linked to the availability of fruits and berries in local hedgerows and more widely to the post-breeding moult - when moulting individuals become rather shy and retiring in their habits.
Night-time singing and early arrivals
The Blackbird is one of a small number of species that sometimes sing during the night, a behaviour that occurs more often in the presence of street-lighting. Blackbirds have large eyes, relative to their body size, and BTO research has revealed them to be the first species to arrive at garden feeding stations on dark winter mornings. Visual capability at low light levels influences when a species is first able to move around and find food.
BTO research has also demonstrated that Blackbirds living within urbanised landscapes arrive at garden feeding stations later than those living in rural gardens. This finding seems to run counter to the influence of light levels on arrival times – since urban areas have more street lights – and suggests that temperature may also play a role. Urban habitats have higher levels of heat pollution, which raises local temperature above that in the surrounding countryside; since small birds have to burn energy reserves to keep warm overnight, you might expect rural birds to expend more of their reserves overnight, this increasing the urgency for finding food in the morning.
Blackbird (Time to Fly migration map)
Winter arrivals
The arrival of many thousands of Blackbirds during the autumn months goes largely unnoticed, primarily because they look the same as those birds that are here all year round. However, an early morning visit to some berry-laden coastal scrub and hedgerows will reveal these immigrants, feeding alongside newly arrived Redwing and Fieldfare. The efforts of BTO bird ringers have revealed that our winter immigrants originate in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, with others arriving from the Netherlands and Germany. Some of these birds are only passing through, and will continue south to winter in Spain, France and Portugal.
Windfall apples and berry-laden hedgerows may draw wintering Blackbirds into our gardens, with the numbers using gardens increasing during periods of poor weather. Being able to watch several Blackbirds together should help you to recognise the different plumages, separating the brown females from the black-plumaged males, and young birds (with some juvenile wing feathers still retained) from older individuals. Occasional individuals showing one or more white feathers, may also be noticed in a garden setting. These are birds, most likely, with a plumage abnormality called ‘leucism’ or ‘progressive greying’, both linked to an absence of pigment cells.
4 immature
Snow Goose SNGO (Chen caerulescens)
off of
Sidney Waterfront
Sidney, British Columbia
DSCN2198
These geese were feeding in flotsam of a tideline way out there --- as we sometimes see Black Brant doing
This is my first time seeing SNGO doing this...
It was a bit of a surprise in the Scope
:)
I did a look in my best/most trusted references and could NOT see ANY references to SNGO feeding out in a marine environment over a couple of miles from shore
looked to be about 1/2 way or more ...the distance from Sidney to Sidney Spit...
but was N of the Spit from my view point
Sidney Spit is
9.7 km
6 miles
from
Sidney
Y no hay mapa para el comportamiento humano, son terriblemente caprichosos; luego, de repente se transforma en felicidad; pero, oh, nos vemos envueltos en el intercambio de las emociones humanas; cada vez de manera satisfactoria. Y no hay mapa, y una brújula no ayudaría en absoluto...
At Whyalla, i witnessed an amazing behaviour by some juvenile cuttlefish. A group of about five cuttlefish were playing keepings off with a cuttlefish bone. One cuttlefish would grab the bone, and the others would be in hot pursuit trying to get it. If the cuttlefish let it go, the natural bouyancy of the cuttlefish bone would force the bone to the surface, and all the cuttles would chase it to the surface. The winning cuttle would grab it in its tencticles/arms and bring in back down into about 2-3 m of water, where it would release it and the cycle would begin again. It reminded me of watching a squid taking the bait off a fisherman i saw only days earlier, and i believe this play was a lesson to teach young cuttles how to capture prey and feed. The fact that the learning tool is potentially the bone of its predecessors (possibly even its parents) that come here to give birth to them and then die, i find truly amazing.
More photos at:
The boat gently leans into a turn, rather like a motor cycle - except in this case it is automatic. The mechanism is not widely agreed, but I strongly believe that when the boat turns at speed, the side of the boat on the inner side of the turn is subject to low pressure underwater. This gently pulls the boat downwards on that side, causing it to lean into the turn. The behaviour is beneficial, because it helps to prevent people being thrown overboard on sharp turns. Incidentally, as predicted, the boat still leans into the turn with the mast up, overcoming the centrifugal force from the mast.
This is a unique behaviour of this species I observed after a long time, for which I had no idea before! It seemed to me like a kind of mating rituals. I waste not my time to record this event. I remained scared lest they get disturbed, and thereby I knew that I was breaking some basic ethics of a nature lover. The whole event went for 20 minutes or so, and I recorded only a fraction of this whole event.
My sweet water aquariums are always my wonderful windows to underwater nature. These are of my amazing micro-nature study and I spend hours and hours to experience and document fascinating behaviour of fishes and other creatures, plants, and even macroscopic members of a micro ecosystem under various conditions. Sometimes I study activities of minute creatures at night under low light conditions when all the fishes sleep. My hobby educates me every single moment I observe so close to them. I enjoy beauties of life everyday from so close, and they are my immense source of energies to stay happy.
It's fun to see Ava's personality and quirks emerge as she's getting bigger. She has 2 behaviours that are trademark of each of her parents. The first being how she lays down with one paw pulled in a bit closer to her - totally momma Nina's repose.
The other is water. Water brat. Water rat... it's hard to keep this puppy dry. She's in the water dish every chance she gets with both legs and starts to bale it out, hence all the towels on the floor near the low dish. I'm changing the pups to a hanging water bucket but she's still trying to get into that feet first.
The water bowl is her favourite place to nap with a leg or ear leather in the water getting wet or draping herself around it like a cat. None of her brothers abuse the water dish as they're play pool. The desire to splash water is completely daddy Chase's spiel. I may need to buy more towels.
We're in the midst of a deep chill, can hardly wait until I can get Ava and her siblings outside for pictures instead of everything in the house.
Ava stats: 50 days old, 10.65 lbs (almost maxing my accurate baking scale in weight) and she's wet as often as often as she's dry.
Welcome,
this item is gaining an unexpected number of consultations in the last days without any comment.
I am curious to know who is intersted in this topic.
The YouTube channel Buff Dudes have released a very funny parody video detailing the everyday behaviour of gym members.
I’m not a gym guy, but of course I’m thinking about it as the new year dawns…
Despite not being a gym guy I still find this video really funny and relatable. I suppose I’...
viralworld.news/2015/12/majestic-video-details-the-behavi...
Awwwwww, how I remember those afternoons glued to the telly and discovering new music! Real music!
And awesome clips!
So this is Björk and Human Behaviour. ^_^
Bronica S2A - Ilford Delta 3200
Rodinal - 16-22C for 13 mins.
Human life before the conecept of posing is understood, hooray!
Umpiring at a Rowing Regatta at Dorney Lake and one of the officials is feeling naughty. Taken on Fuji X-H1 with Fringer adapter and Canon 100-400 L f/4.6-5.4
Gesture, attitude, behaviour : a workshop with dancers Mauro Paccagnella and Alessandro Bernardeschi on march 6, 2007 at Erg (Ecole de Recherche Graphique, Brussels) for bachelor 1 students. Professors : Sabine Voglaire and Marc Wathieu. Pictures by Yves André.
Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.
The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.
The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.
Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.
There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.
Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.
Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.
Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.
Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.
Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.
All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.
Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.
After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.
Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.
Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).
Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.
Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.
Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.
Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).
Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.
So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).
Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.
The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.
Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.
In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.
Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.
Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.
Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.
The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.
The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.
The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.
The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.
The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.
Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.
Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.
Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.
The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.
The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.
Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.
Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.
Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.
The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.
Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.
Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.
Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.
The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.
The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.
The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.
The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).
The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.
Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.
There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.
Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.
Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.
As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.
The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).
The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.
Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.
Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.
Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.
Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.
A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.
An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.
Ian Hadden, a student in Executive MSc in Behavioural Science, captured this in June 2015, in Northern Ireland.
"The weather was perfect for a panorama shot of this majestic site just off the wonderful Antrim coast road. According to legend, the hexagonal basalt columns are the remains of a causeway built by the giant Finn MacCool to let him fight his Scottish rival."
Wilson's Snipe WISN (Gallinago delicate)
Sluggett Reservoir
Maber West
Central Saanich
BC
DSCN7721
Vid Doc taken on September 6, 2017
Governments around the world are drawing on behavioural insights to improve public policy outcomes: from automatic enrolment for pensions, to better tax compliance, to increasing the supply of organ donation.
But those very same policy makers are also subject to biases that can distort decision making. The Behavioural Insights Team has been studying those biases and what can be done to counter them, in collaboration with Jill Rutter and Julian McCrae of the Institute for Government.
The report was launched with remarks from Alex Chisholm, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.
Dr Michael Hallsworth, Director of the Behavioural Insights Team in North America presented the key findings.
The findings, their relevance to policy making today, and what they mean for the way governments make decisions were discussed by:
Polly Mackenzie, Director of Policy for the Deputy Prime Minister, 2010–15 and now Director of Demos
Dr Tony Curzon Price, Economic Advisor to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
The event was chaired by Jill Rutter, Programme Director at the Institute for Government.
#IfGBIT
Photos by Candice McKenzie
Gesture, attitude, behaviour : a workshop with dancers Mauro Paccagnella and Alessandro Bernardeschi on march 6, 2007 at Erg (Ecole de Recherche Graphique, Brussels) for bachelor 1 students. Professors : Sabine Voglaire and Marc Wathieu. Pictures by Yves André.
"UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR IS OCCURRING in these toilets"
Pic taken @ London Bridge station.
See where the photo was taken at maps.yuan.cc/.
A short video showcasing the unique feeding behaviour of the 20 to 30 mostly male whalesharks that are thought to be resident in cenderawasih bay indonesia. Their feeding behaviour has been modified by their interaction with the local fisherman.Seemingly to the point where these whales appear to be aggressively demanding food. Dunking a small fishing net in the water would attract several of them if there were none around for any period of time.
Some of the plants.
Police in Bolton are investigating a blaze at a house suspected to have been caused by a cannabis farm.
At about 10pm on Monday 5 March 2012, police were called to the Tonge Moor area of Bolton, by firefighters who were dealing with a fire at a mid-terraced house.
The fire was in the loft space and the firefighters managed to stop it spreading to neighbouring homes, although some residents were evacuated from their homes as a precaution while the fire was brought under control.
Initial inquiries have established the fire may have started due to an electrical fault caused when the electricity supply was tampered with in order to power a large cannabis farm. The plants in the loft were found burnt out, as was the roof; however two other bedrooms were discovered full of plants.
It is thought up to 80 plants were found.
Police Sergeant Steve Malone said: "Tampering with the electricity supply is very dangerous and were it not for the firefighters this fire could easily have spread and put people's lives at risk.
"We have launched an investigation to establish who was responsible and I want to stress to our communities that tackling drug dealing and these types of cannabis farms are a priority for GMP because this incident shows just how dangerous they can be.
"I would urge residents in our communities to help us fight drug crime by looking out for tell-tale signs of drug dealing, including properties that have a high number of visitors who stay only for short periods, people approaching parked vehicles for brief conversations, discarded needles and syringes and excessive noise and anti social behaviour around the suspected property.
"Other signs of a property being used as a cannabis farm include windows being constantly covered from the inside, people visiting the property for short periods and at unusual times, no one actually living at the property, vents protruding from the roof or windows and a pungent odour in the vicinity. There may also be gardening equipment and large quantities of compost lying around.
"Cannabis farmers have no respect for the properties that they rent for this illegal activity and will knock down internal walls, tamper with electricity supplies and install industrial fans and irrigation systems to speed up and maximise their crop. They will also store hazardous chemicals and materials. All these activities cause fire, structural and explosion hazards and endanger the lives of people living in neighbouring properties.
For more information about Greater Manchester Police please visit our website.
You should call 101, the new national non-emergency number, to report crime and other concerns that do not require an emergency response.
Always call 999 in an emergency, such as when a crime is in progress, violence is being used or threatened or where there is danger to life.
You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.
These flamboyant orange-pink birds are fed with high omega salmon to keep their vibrant colours. Watch them as they stand perfectly balanced on one leg. This interesting behaviour helps them conserve body heat since they spend long hours in the water.
Greater Manchester Police has praised the behaviour of visitors to Manchester during a weekend of sport in the city.
On Friday 20 May 2016, the Great City Games saw a number of athletes compete in various events on a purpose-built athletics arena in Albert Square and track on Deansgate.
The following day (21 May 2016) saw Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 2-1 to win the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium, with a number of fans watching the match in public venues throughout Greater Manchester.
The weekend extravaganza concluded on Sunday 22 May 2016 with over 30,000 lining up to take part in the Great Manchester Run before England defeated Turkey 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium in a UEFA Euro 2016 warm-up match in the evening.
The events saw tens of thousands of visitors to the city centre, creating a buzzing and carnival-like atmosphere.
Assistant Chief Constable John O’Hare said: “This has been a fantastic weekend for Manchester and the atmosphere in the city has been superb from start to finish.
“It was great to see so many pictures of smiling faces and people having a good time and I hope everyone who has visited the city this weekend will be going away with some great memories.
“I would like to thank everyone who has played a key role in ensuring that the weekend has been successful.”
For more information about Policing in Greater Manchester please visit www.gmp.police.uk
To report crime call police on 101 the national non-emergency number.
You can also call anonymously with information about crime to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Crimestoppers is an independent charity who will not want your name, just your information. Your call will not be traced or recorded and you do not have to go to court or give a statement.
Most of the anti-social behaviour which I witnessed concerned modifiations to late victorian terraces. I except stone cladding generally.
That's her name. Amazing to watch her glide smoothly over the chop. Wish I had time to increase the shutter speed to have captured more of her approach to the harbour.
Adult behaviour... Males are not uncommon but are elusive in behaviour. They tend like other Apaturini to spend most of their time on territorial perches high in the tree tops, and give chase to other males which enter their domain.
It is mostly found in Sikkim, Myanmar, Thailand, West Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Sumatra, Borneo and Java
Nikon D90 + Tamron SP 90mm + Ringflash + Handheld.
Neuroscience is undoubtedly the hottest topic in advertising research at the moment. It generates high hopes for understanding consumer behaviour from a completely new perspective. From reading the brain’s activity, can you find out what really drives choices and consumer preferences beyond what people are able and willing to tell you on a questionnaire and in focus groups? Can brain imaging even reveal hidden desires and covert mechanisms that consumer themselves are not aware of? In sum, can neuroscience give us access to what people really think and feel?
As I said, the hopes for neuromarketing are high and thus no wonder recent years have seen a huge boom not only in academic studies but also in commercial companies popping up all around the world offering neuro-studies to the advertising and marketing world. To get a better understanding of this rapidly evolving area DDB hosted last week the first of its Brainsurgery workshops for clients and staff titled “Neuromarketing – Neuroscience or Neurononsense?” Two renowned neuroscientists from Goldsmiths, University of London, DDB’s academic partner, attacked this question from two complementary perspectives.
Dr Lauren Stewart kicked off the evening with a ‘bluffer’s guide to neuroscience’, briefly explaining the general principles by which the brain works, i.e. how information is transmitted and processed in the brain and what the relevant brain structures are that you often find in colourful images on the science pages of the popular press. Dr Stewart’s own expertise is in structural (MRI) and functional brain imaging (fMRI) and she gave a brief but nevertheless very thorough account of how these state-of-the-art neuro-imaging techniques work and what they can tell us about consumers’ minds. This distinction between brain and mind was quite an interesting point she made which subsequently triggered a few questions from the audience. “The mind is what the brain does”, is the quote that I wrote down by which she was hinting at the fact that, yes, with modern neuroscience we can observe biological activity but we still need to know what this activity means in psychological terms. A red blob on an fMRI image in a particular brain area can indicate that the pleasure centre of the brain is active while seeing a TV ad. But it is no less plausible that the emotional reaction related to this red blob is actually disgust or maybe it just means the brain is ‘on’? Observing brain activity is only part of the message, the other half is finding out what this activity stands for. This is precisely why academic neuroscientists are always very careful to control their results with behavioural data, rigorous statistical analyses, and appropriate experimental control conditions – scientific practice that commercial studies need to adopt as well if they want to be credible.
The second talk of the evening by Prof Joydeep Bhattacharya, head of the EEG lab at Goldsmiths, then went straight into the current battlefield of neuromarketing. Prof Bhattacharya used the metaphor of ‘forced marriage’ to investigate how well modern neuroscience and marketing go together in reality. Both disciplines are interested in understanding and explaining human behaviour and both are very keen to learn about its implicit and underlying mechanisms. Quite a few recent academic studies have aimed at ‘mind reading’, that is analysing brain signals with advanced statistical and machine learning techniques to predict the future behaviour of a consumer. Admittedly, most of these studies were lab studies in a controlled environment but their results are nonetheless impressive; well, you can judge for yourself:
a)From an EEG signal it is possible to predict which of two very similar human faces a participant would like better; and this is before the participant actually makes the explicit decision. (Lindsen et al., 2010, NeuroImage)
b)Testing Coca-Cola vs. a no-name cola brand, the fMRI signal of participants in a brain scanner tells us that the brain’s reward system is involved when products are judged by their attractive packaging and that packaging seems to be more important than price and familiarity with the brand (Reiman et al., 2010, Journal of Consumer Psychology)
c)The medial orbitofrontal cortex is a structure that is associated with the willingness to pay (is the brain’s mythical button that marketers are so desperate to find?). It is the same structure that is active when we experience social reward, when we are looking at beautiful faces or when we anticipate a pleasant taste (Plassmann et al., 2007, Journal of Neuroscience).
No doubt, this all seems to be very relevant to marketing and advertising but Prof Bhattacharya also pointed to a few issues that made him speak of a forced marriage between neuroscience and marketing. The problems seem to start when neuroscientific results - that usually take a long time and require a lot of money - need to be produced under the financial and time pressures of the commercial world. Typically, there is very little time to test sufficient numbers of people and perform the rigorous statistical analyses that are a firm requirement for publishing in top academic journals. And then studies run in the commercial realm are hardly ever published (which, from an academic perspective, is at complete odds with the huge claims that some neuro-companies make). That means no-one can replicate those results, no peer-community can help to detect ambiguities and flaws in the experimental design or analysis, and worst of all, no-one can learn from the many commercial neuromarketing studies that are run around the globe. The danger of this practice is that neuromarketing as a discipline, unlike biomedical applications of neuroimaging techniques, doesn’t advance as much as it could, despite the huge interest and the huge sums of money that are currently invested in it. Of course, you can understand why big brands don’t want to give away the results of expensive neuromarekting studies that are intended to provide them with a market advantage over their competitors. But unless the bulk of commercial neuromarketing studies are published and made fully transparent, at least at some point in time, it is difficult to say what the potential of neuromarketing as a discipline really is; and that is not only an unfortunate situation from an academic perspective but it directly relates to how much you can trust the results of the next neuromarketing study that your own company is about to pay for.
Unfortunately because of anti-social behaviour I decided that it was best to move on so I did not get the opportunity to explore this park which was a pity.
The park has many fine mature trees, beautiful flowers, horticultural displays and grassland areas.
In June 1866, Belfast Corporation (now Belfast City Council) purchased 101 acres of land on Falls Road from the Sinclair family. Some of the land was set aside for the building of Belfast City Cemetery, but the rest was earmarked for a new park.
However, because the land initially fell outside the Belfast city boundary, the area was not considered a public park until the Public Parks (Ireland) Act was passed in 1869.
The area, now known as Falls Park, was eventually established in 1873.
In 1924, an outdoor swimming pool, known locally as ‘the Cooler’, was added to the park. It cost £3,000 to build and was fed by the Ballymurphy Stream, which still flows through the area today. The pool closed in 1979 for public health reasons.