Sunday, April 27, 2014

A Northern Quoll Analogy

There is a small animal called the Northern Quoll in Australia.  There is also a frog called the Cane Frog.  The Cane Frog isn't native to the area.  The Northern Quoll has started to eat the frog,  the frog is type of poison,  and it is killing off the species.

The Australian conservation has started to try to save the species by putting the Northern Quoll into captivity and feeding them a type of sausage that has the cane frog smell but makes them sick a few hours later.  After about 4-5 servings, they have learned to associate the cane frog with being sick.  It is slowly starting to save the Quoll.

The interesting thing is that the mother Quoll is passing this information down to their young.  It is a behavior that is being passed either genetically or through teaching.

Pretty cool.  Makes we wonder what us as humans are passing down to our kids.  Powerful, for good or for bad.

As a side note the male Quoll dies after mating.  No analogy there.

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