Last week, challenged us to make webcomics explaining how a piece of scientific information has evolved over time. I decided to talk about animals "predicting earthquakes!" I'm pretty proud of how this turned out and it seemed appropriate to share here 😊
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Have they ever done experiments on dogs by simulating the ground tremors remotely to see how the dogs respond to vibrations below the threshold of what would alarm humans?
Dogs don't seem to be bothered by a large truck in the distance going by -- but then again the waves may be very different. I wonder if there is some evolutionary mechanism at play that helped certain animals survive by detecting the initial vibrations of an earthquake.
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I’m no expert (never owned a dog) but the dog my brother in law owns on his farm goes crazy when a car comes in the distance - long before we see it. Very much animal dependent and on the environment (how quiet usually).
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I'm not familiar with any studies that look at that, but this isn't really my field either haha! I just know enough to make a cartoon. You might find the review article I cited interesting though - it does discuss some of the laboratory studies that exist. pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/bssa/artic
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PS: I loved your cartoon! A lot of people don't know about the different waves that occur during an earthquake so this helps get people more interested in the subject so kudos!
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