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heather's picture

oooh

Submitted by heather on Tue, 03/18/2008 - 8:40pm.

the songbird example certainly is a good one, and the crab article really is fascinating...

so, essentially (at least in these examples), conspecifics of different genders can be manipulated to respond to each others' 'parts'. but this is not the case with heterospecifics - at least as far as i can tell.

extending the songbird example, for instance, heterospecifics do not (cannot?) learn each others' songs, even if they are exposed to them during the critical learning period in their development.

also, take this article from 2002 as an example. apparently, "If an unmodified pig heart were given to a human, the reaction would be so violent that the heart would turn black in 15 minutes and be virtually destroyed in 30."

so, why can't heterospecifics (in general) share quite so intimately? Obviously the answer is genetics, but i'm curious about the mechanisms...

is there also a neurobiological answer to this question?

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