Author: Mike Denison / Source: Science News for Students
A desert in the southwestern United States may be the lair of secret ninja masters. You know them as desert kangaroo rats. But a pair of new studies finds that these rodents can bust out complex moves to avoid deadly rattlesnake bites.
Clashes between these rodents and rattlers happen at lightning speed. Researchers weren’t sure how the rats dodged death. Now, high-speed cameras offer the first detailed look at their tricks. The findings were published online March 27 in the journals Functional Ecology and the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Scientists knew that keen hearing and foot tapping help desert kangaroo rats keep predators away. But those tactics don’t always…
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