The legend is that a mouse can freak out elephant , but the trueness is that their unsound enemy is much small : emmet . Elephants get frightened of pismire . That ’s what Jacob Goheen and Todd Palmer have discovered in Africa ’s sub - Saharian savanna .
Goheen and Palmer observed that , during a really juiceless year , most trees in were obliterated by athirst elephant herd . Only a single mintage of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree stand up , untouched : The Acacia drepanolobium , also scream the whistling - thorn tree or ant tree diagram .
These acacia are a refuge for pismire . They run them with a odorous substance and , in exchange , the ants will assault the elephant whenever they get near it , obtrude upon their trunks and biting them badly . The scientist try this by start the plant life to the animals with and without ants , as well as other species with and without emmet . The elephants did n’t touch any of flora with emmet in them .
After that , they altered ant universe in the violent tree . The same trees , with no pismire , got badly damage by elephants . Their conclusion is that emmet , the tiniest of animals on the African savanna , trump the largest brute in those fields . [ Current Biology ]
AfricaBiologyScience
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