Day 3 symbiotic relationships

       

As Jayda and i were walking through the African Savanna, we saw a large giraffe that appeared before our eyes and we were scared at first. So, we just stood still and did not move but, we saw something very intriguing that was located on the giraffes back which was a tick bird. We decided to take minutes of observation of these two organisms and we were able to come up with this. The relation ship between these two organisms, is a mutualistic relationship. For example the tick bird gets to hitch a ride on the giraffes back, while the  bird is taking out pesky blood sucking ticks from the giraffe's back that harms this organism. This way both organisms are able to benefit from each other.

As we traveled through the savanna, we approached a massive animal that had  large horns on its head that we thought it used as a weapon to defend itself and saw a very small bird next to it. Right away we thought "these organisms have a type of symbiotic relationship", and we thought this because of how gentle this large animal was towards the very small bird. We then observed these two organisms and we thought this is a commensalism relationship between these two animals. For example, the egret is collecting nearby insects  that are disturbed among the African buffalo. Since the Buffalo is just finding the egret's food, the buffalo is not affected, but the egret is benefited, so this is a commensalism relationship.

As we were finishing up our travel Jayda grabbed her binoculars and looked out in the distance and told me to look. I grabbed the binoculars and saw an elephant and heard him making a sound almost as if he was in distress. I saw it flapping its trunk and it looked like he was scratching his skin, then Jayda came up with the conclusion that those were ticks on the elephants back. This is known as a parasitic relationship, where the elephant is the host and is getting harmed.While the tick which is the parasite is getting the nutrients it needs from the elephants back. Jayda said "I wish we could help it", but i said "it would probably attack us", and we left.