Word of the Week - 5/20/2013

SCINTILLA

Pronunciation
sihn-’tih-luh

Function
noun

Definition
1: spark, trace

First Known Use
1661

Origin
Latin

Examples
§  there is not a scintilla of evidence for your outrageous claims


Interesting Fact

The snow-covered ground masks the sight of its prey but the red fox the red fox can still hear the telltale rustle of a mouse. It creeps forward slowly, listening intently with erect ears. Once it pinpoints the mouse’s location, it leaps into the air to surprise its prey with a strike from above. This pounce, known as ‘mousing’, is a common sight but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Jaroslav Cerveny has found that when red foxes pounce, they mostly jump in a north-easterly direction. He thinks that they’re using the Earth’s magnetic field to hunt.Cerveny spent over two years studying wild red foxes in the Czech Republic, with the help of a 23-strong team of wildlife biologists and experienced hunters. The team recorded almost 600 mousing jumps, performed by 84 foxes at a wide variety of locations and times.They found that foxes strongly prefer to jump in a north-easterly direction, around 20 degrees off from magnetic north. This fixed heading was important for their success as hunters. They were more likely to make a kill if they jumped along their preferred axis, particularly if their prey was hidden by high cover or snow. If they pounced to the north-east, they killed on 73% of their attacks; if they jumped in the opposite direction, they success rate stayed at 60%. In all other directions, only 18% of their pounces were successful. He found that the animals leapt in the same direction regardless of the time of day, season of year, cloud cover, or wind direction. Cerveny thinks that the only remaining explanation is that foxes align their pounces to the Earth’s magnetic field. If Cerveny is correct, then the red fox is unique in many ways. It would be the first animal known to use a magnetic sense to hunt, and the first to use magnetic fields to estimate distance rather than direction or position.