What is the feeling of being killed alive?Scorpion: Fortunately, I also talked about love before death ｜ Funny Nobel Prize

The 32nd first funny Nobel Prize, today's grand lottery! The fruit shell brought the award review and interpretation for the first time.

This article you are reading is an introduction to the study of this biological award.

If you want to see the summary of all the awards this year, please poke here: 2022 Funny Nobel Awards.

It ’s the three lucky things in life, but it’ s not so lucky to have a scorpion of the broken tail.

It is constipated!

At the award ceremony, the researcher "broken" scorpion tail murder scene ｜ IMPROBABLE.com

Similar to the gecko, today's protagonist scorpion will also abandon the tail when the tail is restrained, but the price they pay is more than the gecko.

The "tail" of the scorpion is the last paragraph of the abdomen, including the digestive tract and the anus. After the tail is broken, the scar tissue will seal the scorpion of excretion, leaving more stools that cannot be discharged.

In the end, the scorpion of the broken tail will die in constipation a few months later.

Broken tail scorpion to be killed ｜ IMPROBABLE.com

In this period of constipation, can the broken tail scorpion complete the "lifelong event" well? Will there be no scorpion to fall in love with constipation scorpion? Is there so much poop in my stomach, can I still run fast?

Scientists from Brazil focused on this, and studied scorpion running for several months. The paper was published in the Integrative Zoology in November 2021.

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Easily without self -cutting, female young descendants

Active abandonment of some limbs (AutoTomy) behavior is not uncommon in the animal world. When it is threatened, some lizards will break their tails, and sea cucumbers will spit out their internal organs. For other animals, such as certain octopus or spiders, the male will break the genitals and leave the female in the female body during mating.

Whether it is self -protection or reproduction, self -cutting has paid a considerable cost, affecting the future survivability and social status, so scientists are very concerned about the evolution of this "self -harm" behavior.

Scorpion breaks are only observed in recent years. Some adult scorpions from the ANANTERIS (Ananteris) will choose to break away when the tail is clamped, and the possibility of the male cuttail is higher than that of the female.

Broken tail is the charm of non -damaged male scorpion ｜ IMPROBABLE.com

The scorpion tail has an important position in the mating of no scorpion. The male scorpion will shake the tail to dance and get the female heart. However, previous studies have shown that the broken tail has no negative impact on male scorpion in a short period of time. The male scorpion without a tail can still attract female scorpions to mate with it, and successfully transfer the seminal vesicles to female scorpion.

It is not so good for female scorpion. After the female scorpion breaks the tail, severe constipation will compress the baby in the belly and weaken the spawning ability.

While considering the damage to physiological function, scientists are also thinking: Will the scorpion run faster?

Maybe after losing 25%of the tail, the scorpion will be blessed for the time being. Is there a little exercise advantage? In the long run, what impact will the broken tail affect the scorpion mating?

The broken tail is not fast, and the male runs slower

The author collected a total of 154 Ananteris Balzani, which examined the changes in the speed and long -term exercise speed of the male and female scorpion.

The researchers clamped the scorpion tail with a mule to induce themselves. Thank you Scorpion for paying so much for scientific research ... | improbable.com

In order to test the optimal exercise speed of the scorpion, the researchers designed a special trolleyway. The length of the runway was 1 meter and the bottom was paved with sand. The scorpion was placed on the end of the runway. It was necessary to run all the way under the pressure on the back of the mule, and finally reached the end of the runway with a cardboard.

At first, scientists made some assumptions based on the broken tail that could reduce their weight: for example, the scorpion was lighter and should run faster after the broken tail; and, the tail accounted for a larger male scorpion than the female after the broken tail fracture. Scorpion has more obvious exercise improvement. In addition, eating more severe constipation scorpions should be heavier than normal feeding scorpion and worse exercise ability.

The experiment found that the above assumptions about light weight and fast running are basically ... not established.

Experiments show that the broken tail will not have any impact on the speed of the scorpion in the short term. Regardless of the male and female, and the proportion of the tail accounts for the body does not affect the running speed after the broken tail.

From the long -term experiments from 10th to 50th after the broken tail, the broken tail will indeed affect the speed of movement, but it is not actively changed -the speed of male scorpions has slowed down, and females have no effect.

10 to 50 days after the broken tail, the scorpion of the broken tail runs slower ｜ IMPROBABLE.com

In addition, the degree of constipation has no effect on running speed.

In long -term experiments, the scorpion was divided into normal feeding group and over -feeding group. The results showed that the severe constipation of the over -feeding scorpion was stable, and it would not run slower than normal scorpion.

Constipation: Don't throw me the pot if you don't run away.

The male scorpion without a tail, for a long time, affects the object

Although mentioned earlier, in a short period of time, the love life of the broken tail male scorpion looks normal, but in the long run, it will affect the male scorpion to find an object. Researchers believe that there are three main reasons.

First of all, the male scorpion of the broken tail runs slower, and the slow running affects the target. In the breeding season, the male scorpion is generally crazy to find female scorpions. It is not fast to run, making the possibility of finding females also decrease.

Run slowly, where to find the object ... | improbable.com

Secondly, the scorpion's tail (posterior body) contains poison needles, so the scorpion after cutting tails will lose the ability to paralyze the prey with poison needles. The male -free scorpion is much smaller than the female. Losing the poison needle may make the male scorpion more difficult to capture large prey. Male scorpions that have been full for a long time will also perform poorly when they are seeking puppets.

The last point is that the feces accumulate in the scorpion because they cannot defecate. The researchers believe that this may cause the seminal vesicles to deform and damage its function.

However, at least, the male scorpion who lost the anus still has reproduction ability. Before these negative effects have not arrived, you can also hurry up and leave your own offspring ...

references

[1]Short- and long-term effects of an extreme case of autotomy: does "tail" loss and subsequent constipation decrease the locomotor performance of male and female scorpions?Integr Zool. 2021 Nov 6. doi: 10.1111/1749-4877.12604

[2] The ecology and Evolution of AutoTomy

https://onlineelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12539

Author: Vicko238

Edit: Little towel, You Zhixuan

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