Friday, April 19, 2024

These birds extinguished the fire

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Maria Gill
Maria Gill
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The “House of Knowledge” is like a collection of stories. Beautiful stories that tell the living in all its freshness. But also, in all its complexities. Arch to marvel at the world’s treasures. In this new episode, let’s take the direction of Australia and fly to meet those who, from the sky, have blazes of light: the black kite, the whistle kite and the brown hawk.

Find out why the Australian raptors learned to tame fire in this latest episode of Monsters of Science.

The Children. We admire them – and we fear them at times – because of their extreme eyesight, liveliness, and agility. In the collective imagination, the Children Diurnal, in particular, are a symbol MildClairvoyance, even eternity. Remember the phoenix bird, known to live for centuries and then eventually rise from its ashes.

In Australia, the indigenous people of the north have been recounting what “falcons” said more than 40,000 years ago. shootingI even learned to tame fire. Another one of those skills we used to think was just for men.

Since then, “fire falcons” have been more accurately identified as black kites, hyacinth kites, and peregura hawks, which are sometimes called brown hawks. And according to the oral stories, they usually grasp smoking branches The spread of fires. Did evolution make them evil men of fire or mournful arson?

never. If these “fire falcons” set fire to the Australian bush, who would … smoke their prey! Because kites and hawks note that the little lizards are the little ones MammalsOr even small birds and Insects It tends to flee from the flames. Consequently, they expose themselves almost easily to them in their quest to escape a bushfire.

Shoot to hunt prey

So of course, this technique doesn’t always work. Place the branches Incandescent In areas of unburned grass it does not always lead to a fire. But our raptors have actually been observed on numerous occasions trying to do soIgnite the fires. Alone or even in a group.

And when the flames catch fire – more often than not – the other kites and hawks have to wait. Patiently. Then, to pounce on their unfortunate fleeing prey. The more “fire hawks” know well where the areas with a high concentration of prey are located where it will be more interesting to deposit their glowing branches.

about Document this behavior Scientifically speaking, the researchers plan to start controlled fires to catch “fire hawks” in action. many of CashShe learned to play with fire, run to escape, or to hunt the player. But these birds of prey would be the first non-human animals to exercise some kind of fire control. According to some experts fromAnimal use of toolsThis skill can be periodically rediscovered in various locations. So, is not that stupid “Fire Hawks” ?!

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