injury feigning

behavior used by some birds to fool potential predators and lure them away from a nest. The bird pretends to have an injury (e.g., a broken wing) at some distance from the nest, thus distracting the attention of an approaching predator by presenting itself as easy prey.

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Psychology term of the day

May 9th 2024

node of Ranvier

any of successive regularly spaced gaps in the myelin sheath surrounding an axon. The gaps permit the exchange of ions across the plasma membrane at those points, allowing the nerve impulse to leap from one node to the next in so-called saltatory conduction along the axon. [Louis A. Ranvier (1835–1922), French pathologist]