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Pikas know at high altitude in Asia use up Bos grunniens shit to help them survive wintertime , a new study has found .
The small , rabbit - comparable creature , often compared to Pokémon ’s Pikachu character , ca n’t hibernate throughwinterwhen intellectual nourishment is scarce , so they slow down their metabolic process and eat yak quarter to get by on the Qinghai - Tibetan Plateau , wheretemperaturesfall to minus 22 degree Fahrenheit ( minus 30 degrees Celsius ) .
A plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae ) outside of a nest hole, in Sichuan Province, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China.
Animals adopt all sorts of unexpected strategy to come through , hit the books first author John Speakman , a biology professor at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and the Chinese Academy of Sciences inChina , tell apart Live Science in an electronic mail .
" Lots of animals including rabbits and pika eat their own faecal matter , " Speakman say . Such poop feeding , or coprophagy , can assist animals absorb nutrients they could n’t digest ab initio from their food , Live Science antecedently report . " But deplete the faecal matter of other species is comparatively rare , " he added .
Related : Photos of the cony , North America ’s cutest mammalian
Pikas are a group of lowly mammalian found in North America and Asia . They are often link with Pikachu the Pokémon which has a similar name — although Pikachu ’s original design was actually inspired by a squirrel , concord to the video biz websiteKotaku .
tableland pikas ( Ochotona curzoniae ) live in high - ALT hayfield up to about 16,400 feet ( 5,000 metre ) above sea level . They do n’t hole up or migrate to warmer climate during wintertime , so exactly how they survive the cold months had remained a enigma .
To answer this question , Speakman and his colleague monitored tableland pikas for 13 years using various techniques such as take the adorable puppet and implanting temperature - log devices into the animate being . Their findings were published Monday ( July 19 ) in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
To save vigour , the pikas reduce their torso temperature and circumscribed physical activity such as scrounge . At some of the written report sites , pikas also rust the feces of domestic yak ( Bos grunniens ) , a phenomenon the team catch on film .
Yaks are abundant on some part of the plateau and their BM are in all probability easily digestible for pikas , having already passed through the yak’sdigestive system . Munching on chatter stern may avail pikas pass less energy than they would forage for other food sources , according to the work . The dung may also contain otherwise scarce nutrients and pee , which pikas also benefit from .
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Pikas ' predilection for yak feces may also explain why they are find out in high densities where yaks are more abundant , even though scientists think the two metal money compete with one another for food for thought .
" We are presently analyse what other benefits might accrue , " Speakman said . " There are obvious likely cost as well , like photograph to gut parasites , so that ’s credibly why it is n’t a very common deportment . "
Originally published on Live Science .
