Condsidering how many fanatic birders can be found in EGRU, I guess you will be interested in some (for me) surprising observations on bloodthirsty great tits (Parus major).Hungarian researchers have been observing now over 10 years that great tits attack, kill, and actually eat hibernating (and thus unable to escape/defend) pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus; [my favourite bat species]) during food shortage . Now, they also showed that (i) by providing extra food, tits decreased bat-hunting and (ii) tits could hear and identify the ultrasound calls of awakening bats.
The phenomenon had some extra publicity in different magazines, and now the scientific story is also available:
Estók P, Zsebők S, Siemers BM: Great tits search for, capture, kill and eat hibernating bats. Biol. Lett. available online, DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0611
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Unfortunately the full text is not accessible through our university. However, the killer tits made the headlines in Finland also:
http://yle.fi/uutiset/luonto_ja_ymparisto/2009/09/unkarissa_elaa_petotalitintteja_992802.html?origin=rss
Man, between the attacking catfish and killer tits, I’m starting to wonder if Hungary is really a safe place to raise a family…
Yeah, and it is not only fish and tits which are dangerous in Hungary:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/hungary-murder-on-the-danube-517007.html
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