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African wild dogs are social pack animals. (Reuters)

Poachers use wire snares in many parts of Africa to trap wild antelope, but collateral damage occurs too. African wild dogs, one of the world’s most endangered mammals, are often caught by these snares. Due in large part to this poaching practice, the population of African wild dogs has dropped by 90 percent -- to 6,660 -- in the last century.  

So, zoologist Brandon Davis and his team formed the Painted Dog Protection Initiative and designed specialized collars to protect the animals from these deadly entanglements.

The African wild dogs’ susceptibility to snares arises largely from their social nature. They are pack animals that move in groups and look after one another.

African wild dogs are social pack animals. (Reuters)

“They will lick the wounds of the injured,” Davis said, explaining that these animals are “one of the few species that actually care for their injured.”

When one wild dog is snagged by a wire snare, others will return to care for the packmate, and then get trapped or injured as well. If enough traps are present in a snare line, an entire pack can be caught.

Wire snares are lightweight and low cost traps, so they are easy to obtain and use. It takes only a light touch to trigger the wire loop to tighten down on the animal’s neck.

Davis’ team tested the specialised collars on domestic dogs. (Brandon Davis)

Davis’ team noticed tracking collars -- used in research to keep tabs on a wild dog’s location -- helped animals caught in snares to avoid suffocation. So, the team built custom collars with rivets and clips that allow a trapped animal to breathe and break free.

For years, insect lovers have known that some swallowtail butterfly species — such as Pachliopta aristolochiae — make toxins to dissuade predators. Other swallowtails, such as Papilio polytes females, are masqueraders — they lack toxins, but mimic coloration and patterns of their poisonous kin to avoid getting munched on by birds, spiders or lizards.

But how?

A study published Tuesday traces this trait — called supergene mimicry — to a single ancestor who lived two million years ago. The gene experienced a chance mutation, whereby a section of the chromosome housing the doublesex gene had randomly flipped.

The scientists traced the lineage of this mutation in five species and several variations of female swallowtails. As with many mutations, one would think that the butterflies with the out-of-order genes would soon die off. But the team said natural selection maintained the flipped gene because it gave rise to the butterflies ability to mimic toxic butterflies.

Since butterflies go through about eight generations a year, that’s millions and millions of generations to hone this trait, or in some cases, lose it if another mutation comes along. Today, the distribution of these mimics spans butterflies from central Asia to eastern Australia.