• Title/Summary/Keyword: body undulation

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Reproductive Function of the Body and Tail Undulations of Hynobius leechii (Amphibia: Hynobiidae): A Quantitative Approach

  • Kim, Ja-Kyeong;Lee, Jung-Hyun;Ra, Nam-Yong;Lee, Heon-Ju;Eom, Jun-Ho;Park, Dae-Sik
    • Animal cells and systems
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.71-78
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    • 2009
  • To clarify the reproductive function of vibration signals in Hynobius, which has externally fertilized eggs, we quantitatively analyzed the body and tail undulations of male Korean salamanders (Hynobius leechii) in sixteen mating events. One large and one small male, and one female were used in each mating event. We analyzed behaviors recorded over a total of 3 hrs for each mating event; 2 hrs before and 1 hr after female's oviposition. Males touched females using their snouts or body trunk throughout the entire mating periods, but females touched males increasingly more after approximately 1 hr before oviposition. Males conducted body undulations more than 50 times per 10 minutes at a mean frequency of 0.64 Hz. Large males conducted more body undulations than small males, particularly on the tree twig where females attached their egg sacs. Males responded to other males' body undulation throughout the mating period by orienting their head towards, approaching, and touching the undulating male. Females only responded for about 10-20 min before ovipositing, and most responses were directed to the large male's body undulation. Males conducted tail undulations 3.0 times per 10 min at a mean frequency of 1.7 Hz and most tail undulations occurred after one male bit the other male. These results suggest that body undulations function in both male-female and male-male interactions, while tail undulations mainly functions in male-male competition. Also, male H. leechii appear to actively attract females, while females respond to the males only at times close to oviposition.

Courtship, Fighting Behaviors and Sexual Dimorphism of the Salamander, Hynobius leechii (한국산 도롱뇽의 구애 행동, 싸움행동 및 신체적 특징)

  • 박시룡;박대식;양서영
    • The Korean Journal of Zoology
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    • v.39 no.4
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    • pp.437-446
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    • 1996
  • The courtship and fighting behaviors and the sexual dimorphism of the salamander Hynohius leechil were studied. The parameters, snout vent length, body length (from snout to tail tip), and proportion of snout vent length to body size were larger in the female than the male. Five physical parameter in males were significantly correlated with one another, body length, snout vent length, head width, tail vent length, and tall depth, while all, except tail depth, were significantly correlated in females. Sexual behavior of H. leechIl involved external fertilization and consisted of three stages, identifying the female, aifrading the female, and insemination. The identification stage consisted of a positive advance by the male toward the female and display of snout contact. The male attracted the female with chin rubbing, tail undulation, smelling, and digging displays. The insemination process consisted of four phases, amplex, separating egg sacs from the female's cloacal, fertilizing eggs, and post fertilization. liighting behaviors were quite simple. The attacking male would generally bite the opposite male's upper chin or hind limbs and then shakes his head two or three times. The bitten male, which in most cases was of a dissimilar body size, quicidy escaped from the attacking male. After fighting, winning male usually displayed rapid tail undulation.

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Are Large Gori Salamander (Hynobius yangi) Males Dominant in Mating Competition than Small Males? (고리도롱뇽(Hynobius yangi) 큰수컷이 작은 수컷보다 짝짓기 경쟁에서 우세한가?)

  • Park, Hee-Won;Kim, Ja-Kyeong;Lee, Heon-Joo;Koo, Kyo-Soung;Park, Daesik
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.29 no.6
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    • pp.865-872
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    • 2015
  • Body size is one of the important factors that determine mating success in various animal taxa. Nevertheless, only few related studies have been conducted on Korean salamanders. In this study, we have investigated whether large male Gori salamander (Hynobius yangi), which is a Korean endemic species and is unknown for its mating behaviors, is dominant in the mating competition than small males. Thirteen sets of mating trials composed of one large male, one small male, and one female per each group were analyzed in the categories of courtship display towards females, male competition and egg fertilizing behavior. The results show that the mating behaviors between large and small males towards females or with each other did not significantly differ. These results may have been caused by a small size variation among males and the presence of plenty of oviposition locations in breeding sites. This is the first report on Gori salamander's mating behaviors.

Ovulated female salamander (Hynobius leechii) respond to water currents

  • Kim, Seok-Bum;Lee, Jung-Hyun;Ra, Nam-Yong;Park, Dae-Sik
    • Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.33 no.3
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    • pp.217-222
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    • 2010
  • To determine whether or not the female Korean salamander, Hynobius leechii, responds to water currents and, if so, whether those responses depend on their reproductive conditions, we evaluated the responses of ovulated and oviposited females to 1-Hz water currents generated by a model salamander with and without the placement of a transparent water current blocker between the model and the test females. The ovulated females responded to water currents by turning their heads toward, approaching, and/or making physical contact with the model. When the water current blocker was in place, the number of salamanders that approached the model was reduced significantly. The approaching and touching responses of ovulated females were greater than those of oviposited females, whereas the other measurements evidenced no differences. None of the responses of the oviposited females to water currents was affected by the presence of the blocker. Our results indicate that female H. leechii responds to water currents via a mechanosensory system.

The Lure of the Racial Other: Race and Sexuality in D. H. Lawrence's Quetzalcoatl (인종적 타자의 매혹 -로런스의 『께짤코아틀』에 그려진 인종과 성)

  • Kim, Sungho
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.55 no.4
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    • pp.693-718
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    • 2009
  • Kate Burns, a disillusioned Irish woman in Quetzalcoatl, has alternating feelings of fear, repulsion, oppression, compassion, and fascination vis-à-vis Mexican people. Together, these feelings are constitutive of a psychic process in which an imaginary appropriation of the other takes place. In this process white subjectivity represents or reconstructs the dark race precisely as its other. At the same time, Kate's feelings register her anxious recognition of the resistant, unappropriated being of the dark people: their true 'otherness,' or what Žižek calls "the excess of existence over representation." The otherness, frequently racial and sexual, evokes mixed feelings in the white subject. Kate's at once amorous and aggressive response to Ramón's body provides a case in point. Kate's emotional undulation is considerably mitigated in The Plumed Serpent, the revised version of the novel in which the theme of 'blood-mixing' is pushed to the ultimate point. Yet the interracial marriage resolves neither the racial nor the ontologico-sexual issues raised in the first version. Kate is still attracted to Ramón in his sagacious sensuality but goes on to get married to Cipriano, a pure Indian, only to find his mechanical masculinity ever unpalatable. This shows, not just Lawrence's wilful commitment to the 'blood-mixing' theme, but perhaps his lingering taboo against miscegenation as well. Changes in the plot entail those in the narrative voice. In Quetzalcoatl, Owen, a spectatorial and gossipy character, frequently competes for narration with the fully participant third-person narrator. In The Plumed Serpent, the third-person narrator becomes predominant, now attempting with greater confidence to present the reality of the racial other immediately to European readership. While such immediacy is illusional, narrative insistence on it implies a struggle to displace racial stereotypes and offer an experiential understanding of the other.