eli5: Earthquake Awareness in Animals

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How do animals anticipate earthquakes and tsunamis? How do they feel it coming?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Earthquakes consist of several different waves which travel at different speeds P waves arrive first, but are generally too small for humans to notice, but some animals might sense them. Rayleigh waves, Love waves, Secondary waves or S waves and Primary waves or P waves are the four seismic waves. https://youtu.be/Oum1JnrI0XY

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’ve never seen any evidence to support the claim that animals somehow predict earthquakes before they happen. Some waves do travel faster than others, and humans aren’t great at detecting them unaided, and some animals may be able to, but that would be a minute beforehand, not in anticipation of the quake happening at all.

What’s likely happening is that the dog acts a bit weird (as they often do), and then 20 minutes later the earthquake hits and AHA! He was barking because he saw it coming!

The times when no earthquake hits, we forget he acted weird.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is anecdotal but I was looking at my cat bathing on the front porch when suddenly, he jumps up and gets in that pounce position. 5-10 seconds later, earthquake. This is why I get suspicious when my dog starts staring at the ceiling for no reason. They show shit.