![]() ![]() UK Venice Biennale entry 'avoids Britishness' People view Mike Nelson's installation which turns the British Pavilion into a 'disorienting, dusty, crepuscular world full of labyrinthine passages'. Maybe he was trying to find that " crepuscular" place where left and right brain coexist in a harmonious union. ThinkSPAIN - The leading English Spanish website You might call it a dreamscape, but they say no, it's " crepuscular" - it's the slippery moment just after you wake up, between sleep and wakefulness.īoars are crepuscular, that is they forage from dusk until dawn and they are the only hoofed animals known to dig burrows. Garrett, does the word crepuscular do anything for you? Many moths, beetles, flies, and other insects are crepuscular and vespertine.As I made a mental note of Hitchens' casual use of the word " crepuscular," the Maryland professor grumbled in my direction. Crepuscular birds include the common nighthawk, owlet-nightjar, chimney swift, American woodcock and spotted crake. Other crepuscular mammals include jaguars, ocelots, strepsirrhines, red pandas, bears, deer, moose, chinchillas, the common mouse, skunks, Australian wombats, wallabies, quolls, possums and marsupial gliders, spotted hyenas, bobcats, tenrecidae, capybaras, African wild dogs and sitatunga. Many familiar mammal species are crepuscular, including some bats, hamsters, housecats, stray dogs, rabbits, ferrets, guinea pigs and rats. For example, the subspecies of short-eared owl that lives on the Galápagos Islands is normally active during the day, but on islands like Santa Cruz that are home to the Galapagos hawk, it is crepuscular.Īpart from the relevance to predation, crepuscular activity in hot regions also may be the most effective way of avoiding heat stress while capitalizing on available light. Some predatory species adjust their habits in response to competition from other predators. Such shifting states of balance are often found in ecology. Thus, the crepuscular habit may both reduce predation pressure, thereby increasing the crepuscular populations, and in consequence offer better foraging opportunities to predators that increasingly focus their attention on crepuscular prey until a new balance is struck. Many predators forage most intensively at night, whereas others are active at midday and see best in full sun. The various patterns of activity are thought to be mainly anti-predator adaptations, though some could equally well be predatory adaptations. Those that are active during both morning and evening twilight are said to have a bimodal activity pattern. Special classes of crepuscular behaviour include matutinal (or "matinal") and vespertine, denoting species active only in the dawn or only in the dusk, respectively. Some animals casually described as nocturnal are in fact crepuscular. The distinction is not absolute however, because crepuscular animals may also be active on a bright moonlit night or on a dull day. Its sense accordingly differs from diurnal and nocturnal behavior, which respectively peak during hours of daylight and darkness. The word crepuscular derives from the Latin crepusculum ("twilight"). Some creatures may adjust their activities depending on local competition. The temperature at midday may be too high or at night too low, so for many varied reasons, crepuscular activity may best meet their requirements by compromise. The time of day an animal is active depends on a number of factors. Predators need to link their activities to times of day at which their prey is available, and victims try to avoid the times when their principal predators are at large. The term matutinal is used for animals that are only active before dawn, and vespertine for those only active after sunset. The term is not precise, however, as some crepuscular animals may also be active on a moonlit night or during an overcast day. It is thus to be distinguished from diurnal and nocturnal behavior where an animal is active during the hours of daylight or the hours of darkness respectively. Crepuscular animals are those that are active primarily during twilight (i.e., the period immediately after dawn and that immediately before dusk).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |