• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.41-43
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• 2008

The ruddy turnstone, Arenaria interpres interpres, a migratory Korean bird, was proved to be a natural definitive host for Gynaecotyla squatarolae (Digenea: Microphallidae). The ruddy turnstone was found dead at the seashore of Okgu-eup, Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do. The intestinal tract was examined, and 98 unknown flukes were recovered. The worms were $600{\times}284{\mu}m$ in size, and had 2 ventral suckers. The seminal vesicle was large, the genital atrium was prominent, and the average egg size was $20{\times}12.5{\mu}m$. Based on these results, the worms were identified as G. squatarolae. This is the first report on the ruddy turnstone as a natural definitive host of G. squatarolae in the Republic of Korea.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2020

Recent studies revealed that many animals identify individual humans. In this account, we review previous literatures on individual human recognition by wild or domestic animals and discuss the three hypotheses: "high cognitive abilities" hypothesis, "close human contact" and "pre-exposure to stimuli" hypothesis. The three hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. Close human contact hypothesis is an ultimate explanation for adaptive benefits whereas high cognitive abilities and pre-exposure to stimuli hypothesis are proximate explanations for mechanisms to perform such discriminatory behaviour. We report a case study of two bird species in a human-free habitat. Long-tailed skuas, which are known for having high cognitive abilities, exhibited the human discriminatory abilities whereas ruddy turnstones did not display such abilities toward approaching humans. This suggests that highly intelligent species may have this type of discriminatory ability so that they could learn to identify individual humans quickly by pre-exposure to stimuli, even in a human-free habitat. Here, we discuss that human recognition is more common in species with rapid learning ability and it could develop for a short period of time between an intelligent species and human.