tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3786570832902206862024-03-12T19:41:58.178-07:00The Platypus and the DodoThe Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-91574965574805047002013-05-08T14:38:00.001-07:002013-05-08T14:38:39.081-07:00Another loss Reunites Traveling BuddiesAt the risk of making this the saddest place on the internet, I have another memorial post for another pet. Five weeks to the day of losing Amelia, we lost our hedgehog Molly. We got her when she was around one year old. The girl that had her had recently gotten a kitten that spent its free time attacked Molly's cage. She was also a smaller hedgehog with a little crooked nose, she was most likely the runt of a litter.<br />
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She lived by herself in a huge cage, but was nice enough to share her space if the need arose--which it did from time to time. She shared her housing with Amelia, the guinea pig that we last a few weeks ago. They shared the hut all the way from Texas to Oklahoma. After that they would hang out a little from time to time.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMEun05p4zdv_5bH4-pxZauSeEcsCEhpB3hzCDlNWudBtTbor-7Ez3YMaNsdWoEj2atPRC44klYM3uHdEXkIWdGdPOY1xxdUzyt4bFD3-vgdysUGSt61OXD9Oda2Dl6SMGLnAU3_65ErB/s1600/30364_756790554060_415462072_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMEun05p4zdv_5bH4-pxZauSeEcsCEhpB3hzCDlNWudBtTbor-7Ez3YMaNsdWoEj2atPRC44klYM3uHdEXkIWdGdPOY1xxdUzyt4bFD3-vgdysUGSt61OXD9Oda2Dl6SMGLnAU3_65ErB/s320/30364_756790554060_415462072_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Molly is sleeping in the back as her and Amelia ride out our move. </td></tr>
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Always a happy little hedgehog unless you work her up during the day, then she would grumble, rumble, and curl up. Our dog would always run to where her cage was before we went to bed to tell her good morning and make sure we fed her. Her reaction to losing her was almost as sad as losing Molly.<br />
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A few days ago, Molly got sick, we tried to get her feeling better and eventually took an emergency trip to the vet. She was losing weight, slightly dehydrated, and not eating. The Vet gave us some quick weight gain stuff, antibiotics, and a baby food hourly feeling.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx85rWCLAyNP6zH7vUxdKvJdd9rF14JO9aAuVxQyZjDQHZKV-l2kXK1JNuP9h7v9MjdM3bN5a3jTRqwfQqvs6-KQYGg9sMpw1u6VEPsscGQO-Em8ws_SWaltx4O3EErSct8_XGyp6mRpn1/s1600/314858_724010026500_804853363_n-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx85rWCLAyNP6zH7vUxdKvJdd9rF14JO9aAuVxQyZjDQHZKV-l2kXK1JNuP9h7v9MjdM3bN5a3jTRqwfQqvs6-KQYGg9sMpw1u6VEPsscGQO-Em8ws_SWaltx4O3EErSct8_XGyp6mRpn1/s320/314858_724010026500_804853363_n-1.jpg" width="320" /></a>Attentively every hour, I gave her a little baby food with a syringe. She was showing some improvement by 4 yesterday morning, which was worth a little hope. Unfortunately, she was not to recover. I fed her at 11 last night, got her cleaned up from the residual baby food and she smacked down and seemed to like. I was on the couch next to where we had her wrapped up and decided to get her up and see how she was doing. She grumbled a little, but relaxed and let me scratch her belly. <br />
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She was on my chest when she stopped breathing. It took awhile to be able to go upstairs and wake up my wife. Our dog had to get on the couch and look into the little box where we had put her. Her reaction delayed us leaving for a few more minutes. So, in the middle of the night, we took her and laid her to rest next to her traveling companion.<br />
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Another tale of a rescued pet living out its life with us in comfort that is not meant to sadden but to reflect on what small pets can mean to people. It is especially difficult when you work so hard to help them get better, only to have them not make it. Being there when life disappears from a body, has been the one thing that I have never hardened myself to. But, I was with her until the end and she was comfortable, which I guess is the best you can hope for in such a situation. She was resting peacefully when she died, and I hope that she will continue to be so.<br />
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Hopefully, Molly's passing will be the last one for a while, another problem we have is that most of our small mammals are the same age, so they will all be getting old and infirm at the same time. Most of them probably wouldn't have lived as long as they have elsewhere, but that is little comfort when they do pass.<br />
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That being said, don't get small pets to teach children responsibility, give them chores or a job, or something. For some they are just pets, expendable, exchangeable. But for us, they are a part of us, a part of life, and when that life is extinguished, by illness or old age, there is an unspeakable loss that logical thinking deems silly, but emotional responses claim otherwise.<br />
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I cannot express how physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted I am. My wife went in to teach her class today and I went in to work for a bit, but this has been taxing on both of us. Knowing she is with Amelia is about as much comfort as we have--and that is better than none. Definitely makes one think about what Hope was doing in Pandora's box with all those other horrible things---to have it and have it shattered--is that worse than not having any at all? At the time, maybe not, but it's still painful--and there are so many cute pictures of happy hedgehogs that go around facebook, it's going to hard to avoid.<br />
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Goodbye Molly, we love and miss you.</div>
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The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-45767051850524187822013-05-05T13:15:00.001-07:002013-05-05T21:59:21.265-07:00Pangolins: The Armored Among Us<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRyG5Y-gmYf-NajQcfn5zpQAuGgxERs85puukFt3RF4-GvS3U6UelSi4JSIKlLHK4_pxnUm_PLVvbreTQOiapydfEtOhjRmXHuLWU-_SWfcIUp4m3BrnjpKxA7KxuHDQvkN5h3vom40G9U/s1600/Tree-Pangolin-Manis-tricuspis-617x462.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRyG5Y-gmYf-NajQcfn5zpQAuGgxERs85puukFt3RF4-GvS3U6UelSi4JSIKlLHK4_pxnUm_PLVvbreTQOiapydfEtOhjRmXHuLWU-_SWfcIUp4m3BrnjpKxA7KxuHDQvkN5h3vom40G9U/s200/Tree-Pangolin-Manis-tricuspis-617x462.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="200" /></a> <br />
Any time a documentary or nature channel wants to show viewers how weird nature can be the pangolin is bound to make an appearance. The only mammal with scales always shows up in an extreme mammal montage complete with requisite cute video of them rolling into a ball to protect itself.<br />
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</a> As usual, there is more to the story than that. The 8 species of "scaly anteaters" are equally distributed across the tropics with 4 species in Africa--The Cape of Temminck"s ground pangoling (<i>Manis temminckii</i>), Tree of African white-bellied pangolin (<i>Phataginus tricuspis), </i>Giant Ground pangolin (<i>Smutsia gigantea), </i>and the Long-tailed or black bellied pangolin (<i>Uromanis tetradactyla)</i><br />
and 4 in Asia--Indian or thick tailed pangolin (<i>Manis crassicaudata), </i>Chinese or Formosan pangolin (<i>Manis pentadactyla), </i>Malayan or Sunda pangolin (<i>Manis javanica), </i>and the Palawan or Phillippine pangolin (<i>Manis culionensis).</i> Some are arboreal, most are nocturnal, and nearly all are endangered. The terrestrial ones live in burrows that reach 11 feet (3.5 meters) in depth.Lacking teeth, the use their powerful claws to rip open termite dan ant mounds to get at the delicate insect morsels inside. The trouble is, people are doing the same thing to the Pangolins.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> Their front claws are huge. Unlike their larger cousins who walk with their front claws curled under, the terrestrial pangolin waddles on its hind legs with its large tail acting as a type of counterweight. The resulting gait looks something like an old stooped woodcutting dwarf roaming around the forest floor.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QlEVlfp2I8gL5LqxYWXXQa9jjytk0jF8v1KFEDxtQ0R3tSz1i_7WN34kSAF_hzsYHLGgAHWohRmKPIM1lGyg6uI8VL8T61IcLKZE1hOxOxQFon4Tw6x1Lf5_Qhed_pxUY1y4ottvfaif/s1600/Philippine-coast-guard-in-009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QlEVlfp2I8gL5LqxYWXXQa9jjytk0jF8v1KFEDxtQ0R3tSz1i_7WN34kSAF_hzsYHLGgAHWohRmKPIM1lGyg6uI8VL8T61IcLKZE1hOxOxQFon4Tw6x1Lf5_Qhed_pxUY1y4ottvfaif/s200/Philippine-coast-guard-in-009.jpg" width="200" /></a> A few weeks ago, a Chinese vessel that had crashed into a reef of the Philippines was discovered to have more than 10,000kg of pangolin meat. The Guardian published the article on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/15/chinese-vessel-philippine-reef-illegal-pangolin-meat" target="_blank">April 15.</a> Subsequent poachers have been caught in Vietnam, Thailand, and India.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRLaspjwiNu1P8iIuOdHABZnQ_ErXkMhwZbK47GSXBT5E1qikiFkk9emWTrg3VDz0dWhh-YLuK4x7N5-NmLVCteNN38PmatfHIYn97lDuhOEqI6g7ii-2fKQn7zjTsR80LWvAsJfgIv-N/s1600/Coat_of_Pangolin_scales.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMRLaspjwiNu1P8iIuOdHABZnQ_ErXkMhwZbK47GSXBT5E1qikiFkk9emWTrg3VDz0dWhh-YLuK4x7N5-NmLVCteNN38PmatfHIYn97lDuhOEqI6g7ii-2fKQn7zjTsR80LWvAsJfgIv-N/s320/Coat_of_Pangolin_scales.JPG" width="240" /></a> The desire for pangolin scales and/or meat is not a new phenomenon. Back in 1820, King George III was presented with this pangolin scale shirt.<br />
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</a>Their scales are made of keratin, the same substance as human hair and rhinoceros horn. Their scales along make up about 20% of their body weight, which depending on species can range from 30-40 pounds (~13.6-18kg)<br />
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Every part of the pangolin is in demand. They are hunted mainly for meat, jewelry, and--you guessed it--traditional chinese medicine. The only hard facts that anyone has about the illegal pangolin trade is that it is happening on an alarming, almost incomprehensible scale.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG839SHcjGRrjP8YsY0z2keBAIISOP5b_XPpHBiBuLgjL_2K-ugwon5Uk1Cbv0_n3lInrIgUhnjZrgnENaRSRnmvqsD5hGlq-GC0OegQ1qIlW72ZOMZdaopVeTzYQ_kV5WdkD_qyw5o6d/s1600/pangolin-baby-ride-300x206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG839SHcjGRrjP8YsY0z2keBAIISOP5b_XPpHBiBuLgjL_2K-ugwon5Uk1Cbv0_n3lInrIgUhnjZrgnENaRSRnmvqsD5hGlq-GC0OegQ1qIlW72ZOMZdaopVeTzYQ_kV5WdkD_qyw5o6d/s1600/pangolin-baby-ride-300x206.jpg" /></a>They are being killed faster than they can reproduce. Their gestation ranges from 60 days in some species to<br />
over twice that long in others (139 days). They usually have one pangopup (yes, that is really what they are called) although some Asian species can have 2 or 3. They are about 6 inches (15 cm) at birth and weigh about 3/4 of a pound. (12 ounces or so). Their scales are soft, but will harden by their second day. They are mammals, so the babies nurse. They can eat termites and ants after a month, but usually nurse for three or four. Just like their larger cousins, these little anteaters carry their pups on their backs, where the coloration can help camouflage the infant. As long as the baby is small enough, the mother will roll up around it if there is danger.<br />
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<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I will end with a peek at an extinct pangolin found in Messel. Eomanis is the earliest known "true-scaled" pangolin from the eocene. The name means "Dawn Ghost" and thanks to the quality of preservation scientist have been able to determine that this early pangolin dined on insects and plants. (maybe it ate the plants because it was sick?) Not sure, but without help the remaining species of this family will all go the way of their Dawn Ghost ancestor. </div><br />
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The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-44219087184405296132013-04-14T20:08:00.002-07:002013-04-14T20:08:26.745-07:00Birds on Fire and the Final Word from Levon HelmI don't know what I ever wanted this collection of thoughts to ever become, but I find myself saying that some things I think about writing on don't fit my "theme." Honestly, until I have that discussion in my head I never really think of even having a theme. In fact I have another blog that is random ramblings that specifically have no theme--and I don't regularly update that one either.<br />
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There is a documentary coming out about a member of one of the most influential bands in the history of music--The Band--and at the end of the trailer is a brief clip of him talking about the platypus. So, I thought there--nonexistent theme be damned I am collecting three trailers of things coming out that are entirely unrelated to any semblance of theme, and sharing them.<br />
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First up is a documentary covering the life of Aldo Leopold. For those who think that name sounds familiar it is either because you have read "Thinking Like a Mountain" written by Leopold, or you are confusing it with the Hugh Jackman movie <i>Kate and Leopold.</i> This is a documentary about the former. One of the most striking things is the explanation regarding how Leopold's work is still relevant because he was so far ahead of his time. Even some modern ideas are behind some of Leopold's writings from the 1930s. You can see the <i>Green Fire </i>trailer <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGIK24N7apQ">here.</a><br />
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Secondly, a friend pointed me in the direction of something called "The Lost Bird Project." Below is the trailer for the men working on memorial pieces to be placed in honor of birds that have gone extinct in historical memory. I have written about the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon here before, and perhaps mentioned Carolina parakeets elsewhere. They have gone beyond the idea of just planting a giant statue where everyone can see it and have meticulously researched where the last documented sighting of each species was. There they plan to place the statuary. Sometimes it is in someone's backyard, sometimes out in the middle of a deserted field. I hope to see it, and I hope others will as well. There are several stages of trailer and previews available on youtube. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHUEI47MFUs">this one</a> sets the tone the best. </div>
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The final installment here is perhaps my biased favorite. <i>Ain't In it for My Health </i>follows The Band's Levon Helm as he continues to play and live through his music through the face of depleting health. The release date for this came a year after his death. I follow his page on facebook and they still update on things Helm related. The greatest thing about that was the last night he was of this earth his wife said she was sitting by his bedside and reading all of our comments on how his music had impacted us in positive ways. I hope that it is true. She said he was happy to hear it, and died peacefully in his sleep. Aware of the huge outreach his life had. So, I leave you with some wise words from Levon about the "baddest little bastards in Australia."</div>
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If you would like to see that final one in higher def than blogspot will manage with any speed, follow <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx_kQlvw_z8">this link.</a> </div>
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I tried for a few hours to upload videos one and two, but sadly I have had to result in simply including the links. No matter the file size, or type the host just could not process the videos, even after an hour or so for each attempt. </div>
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So I will compensate by including one of my favorite songs from The Band. </div>
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The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-52476252817406438862013-04-03T17:07:00.000-07:002013-04-03T17:08:05.173-07:00Requiem for a Friend<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;">“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”--Goethe </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgplLG9Il84cYRO4Kpn_8LQi1whQtIAQ-DP8jFtWMtQ1Ys2ypUkn8Mo2m3RWyYnaoGX94UNicY-imtJkB-twfjR_9ryAI6pWPvr6ImD75nqC-gZcQpFpzeooGJ8cqlronSBkVcsFXSpXX9/s1600/316362_627264694920_1325313131_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgplLG9Il84cYRO4Kpn_8LQi1whQtIAQ-DP8jFtWMtQ1Ys2ypUkn8Mo2m3RWyYnaoGX94UNicY-imtJkB-twfjR_9ryAI6pWPvr6ImD75nqC-gZcQpFpzeooGJ8cqlronSBkVcsFXSpXX9/s320/316362_627264694920_1325313131_n.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Today we buried out pet. With that in mind I would like to spend some time remembering. This generally would seem overly attached or perhaps idiosyncratic, but writing gets it out. That is not to say it empties what is inside, but it distributes in a manner than is easier to handle, at least for me. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">The gamut runs from people who do not have pets, through people who see them as things, objects, watchdogs, etc., all the way through people who leave everything to them in their will. Most, if not all in these latter cases are dogs or cats. Little attention is paid to smaller mammals whose life expectancy fortuitously aligns itself with the age of a child that wants a pet until the age that child has better things to do. This is s story of the latter. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pZtdV4ymh9ncR_BExe3bzbXlGx1iL_OqXZ57CnZCKPez6dxVqTjL76BxyvVabbD4kApi8gx__S1Kn5RP-BbhRwd6MQKQwHP9IJvgPXwBp_mIBhgHVBCRZ_pxnP0PN-QgI6v2lAWwWxcR/s1600/296857_627264485340_850612943_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-pZtdV4ymh9ncR_BExe3bzbXlGx1iL_OqXZ57CnZCKPez6dxVqTjL76BxyvVabbD4kApi8gx__S1Kn5RP-BbhRwd6MQKQwHP9IJvgPXwBp_mIBhgHVBCRZ_pxnP0PN-QgI6v2lAWwWxcR/s320/296857_627264485340_850612943_n.jpg" width="240" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Amelia Earhart was an adoption. A full grown cavy when it arrived at our home. His name was Lilly. We didn't bother to check the sex, but weren't happy with the name Lilly so, since (s)he was red we decided on Amelia Earhart. My wife and I were not yet married and where we were staying did not allow dogs or cats, but small animals in cages were okay. We had been together for 2 years and this was our first pet together. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Alas, cavy's are social creatures by nature so we went looking for at least a </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">friend that Amelia could share the hours we weren't home with. We adopted a neutered male. We did the little introduction days and they fought every time. That is when we double checked and found out Amelia was a male. Now we had two singular pigs that needed friends (you can see where this gets quickly expanded) Eventually Amelia and Fred Noonan had one piglet that we named Baby Lindbergh. (sense the theme?) </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Amelia was the mellowest of all the cavies we had and enjoyed A LOT of out-of-cage time, mostly with me in the chair when not running around the apartment. Throughout long hours of writing and editing my master's thesis the pig was with me sorting papers, finding citations, discarding articles, chewing on articles (him not me) and just being another awake soul in the house. He would sit in my lap as I read, and if I had the time to scratch him he would groom my arm, or my beard if he was perched on my shoulder, which happened as often as he liked. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;">We moved to Oklahoma so I could get a PhD at the University of Oklahoma and brought most of our pets along. Most of the reptiles stayed with the science lab where my wife had taught. Amelia made the 8 hour trip sharing lodging with Molly our hedgehog, and was as content as ever. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Once we were settled in Norman, we decide to go ahead and get Amelia fixed so he could go back in the cafe with Fred and Baby. First trip in they found a hole in his abdomen. Rounds of antibiotics later he was back to his usual leafy green eating self. We finally succeeded in scheduling and having his surgery a few weeks ago. They said he was getting cataracts and was a fairly old pig. We have had him for about 3 and a half years and being full grown (1 and a half or 2) he was getting to the end of an expected lifecycle. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfpvfQnbPkFygrNBfW5hyphenhyphenG8iIJrDnToWQXwEqXvbLyMKgxC2QBvVetaHBDeUU2rwQ-IqF0wuVvFE2PPrZACc-Y4NyaTwTI6IkPu2lNuXmTz0BMSbZ1aDvf3oNu-XzqTAt6bqguuE6sPoZ/s1600/375544_658617623400_721730725_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfpvfQnbPkFygrNBfW5hyphenhyphenG8iIJrDnToWQXwEqXvbLyMKgxC2QBvVetaHBDeUU2rwQ-IqF0wuVvFE2PPrZACc-Y4NyaTwTI6IkPu2lNuXmTz0BMSbZ1aDvf3oNu-XzqTAt6bqguuE6sPoZ/s320/375544_658617623400_721730725_n.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">About a week after his surgery his lower GI became impacted and we had to take him back and get him unclogged. They said he was probably sore from the surgery and that it would get better. It didn't. Turns out he had a hernia that needed fixed. We didn't know this until we got back to our vet after she came back from her vacation. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Turns out the poor guy had a hernia and an abscess as well that had attached to everything. Through all this he had a hole in his intestines. (turns out the abscess saved him for a while since it attached to the intestine at the hole and sealed it, preventing leakage into the abdominal cavity)</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">They worked on Amelia for three hours and got everything out. The vet was sure he wouldn't survive surgery, but we were able to go in an see him when he woke up. She couldn't believe it. We stayed with him until the vet's office closed, holding him in their yellow blanket. He was a little drowsy but otherwise moving and doing guinea pig stuff. She said he was the most resilient pig she had ever seen. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">The fight through recovery was more than the old fellow could manage though, and he passed away this morning (April 3, 2013). To say that it was a blow would be an understatement, but to admit we hadn't figured as much would be untrue. We could have brought him home, but the facilities at the vet's office were warmer and more comfortable to him, and the weather here has been atrocious for three days cold and wind, so we left him in his little warm cage there. Sad that he did not get to die at home, but knowing he was warm and comfortable, and had went to sleep after eating a little and exploring his cage is some consolation. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">I grew up on a farm in a rural community and have been surrounded by death all my life--people and animals. If you see them as living beings you never really get used to such a loss. I study history and paleontology so I work intimately with dead people and dead things. This is nothing new to me, but the loss is, for the lack of a better word, heartbreaking. Many people would just replace a lost pet or not depending on mood, and we have other pigs, Fred ad Baby and a few others, but we wouldn't have stopped at the pet store to get another one if we hadn't. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEktBUhEmPIDLhVFKHBnIP0X4qtdkTw-MX_JoklqBCVc0UUdwFpWAa3VkHrU9lQed9uJcDYTsFdXZdCb7T-YDTT3ujfqQzuQEM-E3k7Pb1ol3JS3UXWZDmMZ6iHhuL0rKOPPSniwNL-I6m/s1600/379908_643621675400_622418550_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEktBUhEmPIDLhVFKHBnIP0X4qtdkTw-MX_JoklqBCVc0UUdwFpWAa3VkHrU9lQed9uJcDYTsFdXZdCb7T-YDTT3ujfqQzuQEM-E3k7Pb1ol3JS3UXWZDmMZ6iHhuL0rKOPPSniwNL-I6m/s400/379908_643621675400_622418550_n.jpg" width="300" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">There seems to be a hierarchy of pets, at least presented by </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">those selling, or by general consensus. Somehow small mammals with short lifespans are less pet to interact with and get attached to than a dog, cat, horse, birds, etc. That is only true if you put them away in a room and only interact with them at feeding time. Otherwise they leave just as wide a hole in your life when they are gone as others. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Today we buried my friend. The finality of that was incredible. I have sobbed uncontrollably a few times today, and teared up more times than I can count. The takedown of his home was just as bad and leaving him under the oak trees. I have dealt with each step with varying degrees of success, and I have written this through tears. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">A grown man has cried all day over the death of a small house pet. And I probably will continue to do so for a few days, probably more. Time will pass, and the weeping will occur less and less, but that doesn't mean I have forgotten. I don't know what the equation is for hurting at death vs. enjoyment in life, but I know that the greater the enjoyment and happier the memories the greater the sense of loss. We did everything we could to help our pig, and more than most probably would. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKW_c-Ya8R8I7f2YpWBu6lzEVlZtBLwUVqv2lG1IhGq73boqahXkI55oEkeC6SlALyXta6mSx0JMJsypOTBgnr3fAhPQpTaMunm2t-p1G2QEta-Vsxde6Gee0DJA2Uk00iilDPHciH_6tp/s1600/734513_807717910230_572805460_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKW_c-Ya8R8I7f2YpWBu6lzEVlZtBLwUVqv2lG1IhGq73boqahXkI55oEkeC6SlALyXta6mSx0JMJsypOTBgnr3fAhPQpTaMunm2t-p1G2QEta-Vsxde6Gee0DJA2Uk00iilDPHciH_6tp/s400/734513_807717910230_572805460_n.jpg" width="300" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">This is not the first rescue pet that we have lost. Taking in other people's unwanted and usually mistreated animals always makes a dicey situation for how long they will remain with us, but each has ended their life in greater comfort and love than they began it, that I hope accounts for something. The vet learned some things from working on Amelia that I hope will help in future situations. Guinea pigs as a the colloquial test subjects have done so much for the human race--more than we could ever repay even if everyone wanted to--which they don't. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">I have no regrets with the life that we gave Amelia, I am not using this as a sounding board that I hope he reads and understands how much we miss him or any anthropomorphic existential thing like that. He knew, or felt, or existed in as much love as a household could manage to give. That is the best way for it to be, I think.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">I am so very sad that he is no longer with us, but I am that much more happy that we shared most of his life with him. For every tear we have shed today there were 10 times he made us laugh and 100 times he made us smile. He had nothing to offer us and somehow gave us more love than we could return. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: cyan; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Goodnight sweet prince: and flights of Angels sing thee to they rest</span></span></div>
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The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-69460652865034305952012-11-04T10:28:00.000-08:002012-11-04T10:28:50.099-08:00Art Imitates Nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Or perhaps it is the other way around. In the case of this frog, which was unknown to scientist as well as Stan Lee, it appears to be a case of convergent evolution. Below is the "Wolverine Frog." A frog that has a boney claw that it can extend to hold its position when mating as well as for using it in battle. </div>
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There are actually two kinds of frogs that do something similar. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Otton Frog from Japan</td></tr>
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This one, hails from Japan, which is appropriate for other reasons, and pushes an existing boney spine through its hand. The other however, actually breaks the bones in its hand and pushes the broekn in through its soft toe pads. The fact that that males grow visceral hair on each side gives this species as much claim to the Wolverine lineage as the Japanese one. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hairy Frog from Central Africa</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SevAk1B7TxntAXjqrE2TK5cGlc33Il0znkWuzxSejSenEaT06dbgaiWCu3FI71HDzE1ariuXM-MPAmWkKLWygytev3AXQWSbijdP3bKy8TO_Uw-u6nQTu5OPd5AsGTRrGJzIPSpwlhvM/s1600/x-frogs_claw_close_up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SevAk1B7TxntAXjqrE2TK5cGlc33Il0znkWuzxSejSenEaT06dbgaiWCu3FI71HDzE1ariuXM-MPAmWkKLWygytev3AXQWSbijdP3bKy8TO_Uw-u6nQTu5OPd5AsGTRrGJzIPSpwlhvM/s320/x-frogs_claw_close_up.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The broken bones protrude through the tips of the finger pads<br /><br /><br /></td></tr>
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If you think breaking your hands for clawing purposes or unsheathing a boney spine through your hand sounds about as painful as anything there is another amphibian who might claim top prize for protection involving self-mutilation. The Spanish or Iberian ribbed newt pushes its ribs through its sides as a means of defense. Not only do the sharp points on the ribs stick through the newts side, but they get coated with a poisonous secretion making this one of the most dynamic protection processes ever to evolve. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> When annoyed the newt moves its ribs forward<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3y5PLoSLjSoL44JAtW62HURaMnLE24rDRmQOj9DY27zPSwn2SB8ASB_SOzEyox45cGUgxfisND1F6ydcEqjNFiyFIlajA7aMGPIPk5TjncBAvk62E4p7VEcUOSNcgvCq6sxIorI4SWm3/s1600/_46237980_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz3y5PLoSLjSoL44JAtW62HURaMnLE24rDRmQOj9DY27zPSwn2SB8ASB_SOzEyox45cGUgxfisND1F6ydcEqjNFiyFIlajA7aMGPIPk5TjncBAvk62E4p7VEcUOSNcgvCq6sxIorI4SWm3/s1600/_46237980_04.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">tomography shows the sharp points on the ribs</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7iFFj4GIzNKW0wxZLys9eHvfyEuBMFefVn0p95EpymWVX869NqdaOlKmGx-hcC8oNOb6QnyGSByLP32wgeva3Dd06duTofY13fUs3GC-IhqUk80W4QEVZztzbc6LxPCebFeQGPeW6JL-/s1600/_46237396_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj7iFFj4GIzNKW0wxZLys9eHvfyEuBMFefVn0p95EpymWVX869NqdaOlKmGx-hcC8oNOb6QnyGSByLP32wgeva3Dd06duTofY13fUs3GC-IhqUk80W4QEVZztzbc6LxPCebFeQGPeW6JL-/s1600/_46237396_02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The poisonous secretion that coat the rib tips</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">poisonous rob barbs sticking through to <br />discourage even the hungriest of predators</td></tr>
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Dear Marvel, </div>
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If history is any indication, you are currently gearing up for a new altered reality of all the characters we have grown familiar with. In this alternate universe, reality, reboot, new timeline, fee free to take a few notes from the above newt and lets have some side-spliting poison barbs show up at some point. If nothing else it will give your writers a great challenge coming up with the sound effects for protruding ribs. </div>
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The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-82508903751428963452012-06-20T20:20:00.000-07:002012-06-24T09:26:05.694-07:00The Original Blue-Bloods<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WGF64qdGE8Zyp0aT9mT4_53XOad367B3AwT1uCOS2mPL54YjnWBk_Ib4pz42iydHbXks03KEbhyphenhyphenvMbJ1BMc9BovYp3xAcso76ezoIsh7Jmlv0jIUuci60b2f5I9uKrQTZAXNPsmtUnhs/s1600/20CASEY-articleLarge-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WGF64qdGE8Zyp0aT9mT4_53XOad367B3AwT1uCOS2mPL54YjnWBk_Ib4pz42iydHbXks03KEbhyphenhyphenvMbJ1BMc9BovYp3xAcso76ezoIsh7Jmlv0jIUuci60b2f5I9uKrQTZAXNPsmtUnhs/s320/20CASEY-articleLarge-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I recently had the great fortune to deal with those kind individuals who help you move all your earthly possessions to another part of the globe. U-HAUL has a neat little program of ignoring how much stress you are under and creating more annoyances for you to deal with. But, they can be forgiven for their extemporaneous (and large) decals they smear on the sides of there water resistant (not water-proof) trucks. These include all kinds of Americana facts, many have great places to visit, sightseeing, famous happenings, etc. We got the one featuring the Hagerman Fossil Site in Idaho. There are others however and one that got me thinking of something to share with the world at large is that of the Horseshoe crab: how it's magical blood is helping the pharmaceutical companies test their products, and how it has been around since at least the second day of creation. (I made that up) But these guys have been around for at least 300 million years generally not giving a damn about human beings for most of that time. <br />
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Generally humans gave little damns about them as well. Fishermen use them as bait when fishing for conch, but other than that, they remained as black and white photos decorating your local Red Lobster. However, once tests were run on the copper based blood (ours, and pretty much everything else's is an iron based red, except that royal family in the movie <i>Stardust, </i>they apparently bleed blue as well), some scientist got the vapors. The extremely primitive immune system of the crab works in an extremely simple manner: if the animal receives an injury or a cut and bacteria or some other toxins attempt to infiltrate the animal, the blood congeals and forms a gelatinous barrier that protects the crab from infection. Think about that the next time you eat grape jell-o. So now scientists, and pharmacuticalists, and other interested ists "harvest" horseshoe crabs (obviously they are related to wheat?) drain about 1/3 of their blood and return them to the wild to be caught by those same conch fishermen before. Studies guess that there is only a 10% mortality rate for the blood donors, but who really knows. I mean, 100% of the ones used as bait expire. So, do they carry donor cards and have fishermen release them until their 30 day replenishing is up? Doubtful. But that is the sacrifice they make, bloodletting to help a species that has only been around a fraction of their species' time on this planet.<br />
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Maybe we should blame the sand piper birds, after all they are the ones that fly in and devour millions of horseshoe crap eggs ever year at the annual horseshoe crab beach orgy. This has even been shown around National Geographic and Planet something narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Interestingly enough, there is a new book out about these guys written by retired paleontologist Richard Fortey. Put it on your summer reading list, read it at the beach and then tell your kids about how awesome that leggy writhing beach rock with a sharp tale actually is, and make sure to bring some blue jell-o.<br />
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<br />The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-22797803728712595722012-05-06T18:03:00.001-07:002012-06-24T09:29:34.299-07:00For the Birds Part Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Another bird made the theatres recently. This one may seem a bit more dark compared to the light hearted Dodo/scientist adventures; it is. So, death by Poe story, I said when it came out that the premise was Saw for smart people. The movie is more than that though. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVXBTTHXkAyikj-HdsiF7cEzwuqeFZBGU-YH_NLKqPp5Hszy5NJ7hGSusTEpi4YOhoye4icaNFLnkb7MPZBREp521_eHMzQ3dPtph2aKYwecK9FErHV9VwdG11RTQl1GCDIrldKLioN6I/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibVXBTTHXkAyikj-HdsiF7cEzwuqeFZBGU-YH_NLKqPp5Hszy5NJ7hGSusTEpi4YOhoye4icaNFLnkb7MPZBREp521_eHMzQ3dPtph2aKYwecK9FErHV9VwdG11RTQl1GCDIrldKLioN6I/s400/Unknown.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Studies reveal that ravens are incredibly intelligent, tool using creatures.</td></tr>
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Again, this movie will be overshadowed by comicdom, but it shouldn't. The literary connections aside, the movie is as well done a whodunit as I have seen in awhile. The plot keeps you guessing, and characters are pretty believable. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's what the bird says, you say all these other parts. </td></tr>
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The characters are pretty well developed, notwithstanding historical inaccuracies, but this is not a documentary. Cusack captures the arrogance, the poverty, the brilliance, and the addiction of Poe as well as anyone probably could have. Although the goatee, not sure. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjfqGus1TFVdxbtufLSEvWSkTkZiwJRnb0X7YnccbqxfOJLJwQnEl9c4b_2SZvQnI_bS1MuOLAUyvPTufMt9p39MRuWvUAr5q_kNHa_wu1ZfUZXamj0cIRC6NEsqp0zglZhlhZpf2qTEq/s1600/john-cusack-in-the-raven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNjfqGus1TFVdxbtufLSEvWSkTkZiwJRnb0X7YnccbqxfOJLJwQnEl9c4b_2SZvQnI_bS1MuOLAUyvPTufMt9p39MRuWvUAr5q_kNHa_wu1ZfUZXamj0cIRC6NEsqp0zglZhlhZpf2qTEq/s320/john-cusack-in-the-raven.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">splashed with mud adds insult to injury</td></tr>
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There are many who know more about Poe than I do. A well respected literary historian airs his disagreements <a href="http://bibliothecary.squarespace.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. But for the most part, the Poe that has made his way into popular culture is more Poe than Poe was. Poor Poe. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WMOA-4YkpcPU3XuH87cJZItYcmfKaKHWmJ7JdznO_YZiKzOi82zs3kUeDDqqdVfLn_xUkqxBdZ-TRdrIL-BIHq30hsO70J978dGWOXdMTGNzSQEknbV4F2oKqeD1TK0kT53ZWUvM_OpC/s1600/sc-mov-0424-the-raven-20120426-001.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WMOA-4YkpcPU3XuH87cJZItYcmfKaKHWmJ7JdznO_YZiKzOi82zs3kUeDDqqdVfLn_xUkqxBdZ-TRdrIL-BIHq30hsO70J978dGWOXdMTGNzSQEknbV4F2oKqeD1TK0kT53ZWUvM_OpC/s400/sc-mov-0424-the-raven-20120426-001.jpeg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How many times did I use Poe in one sentence? </td></tr>
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Couldn't find a photo of my favorite scenes. Poe with his pet raccoon. I particularly enjoyed this piece of the film, as in addition to Poe being one of my muses, I grew up with a pet raccoon on two separate occasions, and felt a nice warm connection between myself and one of my favorite authors. The fact that he might not have had a pet raccoon does not diminish that feeling. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back when newspapers mattered</td></tr>
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All in all it is a period piece and they are generally always fun. The music was good, the costumes were great, the dialogue was very good. Anytime someone calls out a mouth breather is a good time. Professional historians aside, (as they tend to take themselves entirely too seriously to enjoy a film with) I think The Raven is worth a see. Probably twice. The second time you will be trying to see if the director or actors give away anything to reveal the killer(s). If you have read Poe, go see it for the joy(?) of his stories coming alive, plus the added bonus of getting several asides that the general public will miss. If not, go see if for the mystery. Don't take your history from hollywood though. Maybe this will drive you to research the father of horror writing, and stem more than a little pride for an American author trying desperately to make a name for himself when very little of anything coming out go the United States was respected. You may also find out why copyright laws are such a big issue these days.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMW4VFnqrT4KLa8mA61u1wXR3kU1VaeNSpkrPWK0dqNQSml0foC6h0AjsYIMB0rhezyFenR9YE62AbG223niBvl_8znyRTdSj941tbSIHwHk5VihSfGufA2lvYdDOjWmXNJP_JtLTvYe-/s1600/raven_ver5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhMW4VFnqrT4KLa8mA61u1wXR3kU1VaeNSpkrPWK0dqNQSml0foC6h0AjsYIMB0rhezyFenR9YE62AbG223niBvl_8znyRTdSj941tbSIHwHk5VihSfGufA2lvYdDOjWmXNJP_JtLTvYe-/s400/raven_ver5.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Of all the ones I have seen, this is the best movie poster</td></tr>
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There are a couple other reasons to go see this thriller. </div>
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1.) Luke Evans' portrayal of the inspector is quite good.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnvzQRw91bn-zfhxSAGYECB9itIzDkYGP1TZgu2DpGm2lHKPz8L3jupIIyDUHgQRNOCipqAguq_-VcICkuZQXNkPIpaEiTfDAlr7Ob9ZKCPmGUk3ms9b22CBsTPrsQZLATTZldJdJbe0P/s1600/john-cusack-luke-evans-the-raven-2012-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnvzQRw91bn-zfhxSAGYECB9itIzDkYGP1TZgu2DpGm2lHKPz8L3jupIIyDUHgQRNOCipqAguq_-VcICkuZQXNkPIpaEiTfDAlr7Ob9ZKCPmGUk3ms9b22CBsTPrsQZLATTZldJdJbe0P/s640/john-cusack-luke-evans-the-raven-2012-02.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brillaint performance actually. Though still damnably difficult to run in a top hat.</td></tr>
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...and B.) Alice Eve is quite nice to look at.<br />
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If you like a fresh look at old cliches and never take historical fiction too seriously, you should enjoy this film. However, if you see it your duty to go through life correcting everything then you will be an annoyance to anyone that takes you to see this film, and perhaps you should be stuffed into a chimney. You probably read Longfellow too. </div>
<br /></div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-90932257598245634692012-05-06T16:56:00.004-07:002012-06-24T09:30:40.163-07:00For the Birds: Part OneAfter a dreadfully long absence from the blogging scene, I return with something a bit out of character for the presets of this blog. At least on the surface. As I have been writing and rewriting my Master's Thesis, things have been a bit back burner lately. However in todays riveting episode I will be talking about two movies that ARE NOT the Avengers. Not that I am knocking the Avengers, I just never got up to the fever (okay, any) pitch to go see it. These two, however, did pique my interest some time ago. Shall we begin? Part I.<br />
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Firstly we went to see the latest in stop motion animation by the incomparable Peter Lord Aardman and co. Pirates! In an Adventure With Scientists (or "Band of misfits" as they dumbed it down for the states.*eye-roll*) The adventure is based loosely on the absolutely hilarious book by Gideon Defoe:</div>
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There are more as more or less a serial. They are all literally laugh out loud funny. They are a bit more adult than the "family" movie portrays. Not in a bad way, just more of the literature jokes are geared toward a high capacity of thought. The take for the movie is quite good. Without revealing any of the secret nuances of the film I will stick with how it related to this blog: Polly.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She's the one on the right.<br />
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Polly is a Dodo. The last one it seems. Hilarity ensues. To see the Victorian fascination with the extinct is part of the joy that is the movie. It's just a fun movie will all the wit and humour that make Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run so enjoyable.<br />
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There is also a bit of victorian fun poking going on as well. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here we see a young Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle. Baboon Kidneys and all.<br />
He shares a great interest in Polly, but does not love her the way the crew does.</td></tr>
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The Pirate Captain commonly refers to his new friend as Chuck. For some reason this is funnier than when Peppermint Patty does it to Charlie Brown. As I chose the UK title more because I like scientists more than misfits, I will say as a historian of science I found the scientific references and underhandedness quite funny. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rampant monocle dropping ensued.</td></tr>
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Another Americanism that made its way in differed from the trailer. Don't go to American theatres looking for the "complete pants" remark. Instead, we get (and I quote:) "a load of crap." Still funny when you find out what the reference is to, but I suppose people in the U.S. don't get underwear jokes.<br />
Either way, there is a great and gallant crew (in the street sense, yo) always supporting the Pirate Captain. As well as an overly zealous Queen Victoria. The movie is worth going to see and the books are worth more to read. Just use care when reading on the bus or train as boisterous laughter may get you some stares.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty sure they raided Keith Richards closet for the zebra print captain's jacket.</td></tr>
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If nothing I have said will help you fence sitters decide whether or not to go and see Aardman's latest barrel of fun I will leave you with this small token from the Pirate King. </div>
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</div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-12894473477507043992012-02-04T19:23:00.000-08:002012-06-24T09:31:48.384-07:00The day of the whistlepig<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had fully intended a post on woodchucks on the second as is customary for Groundhog day, however a death in my wife's family has put me a few days behind. With all the services ending today, it is nice to be able to sit and talk of nothing by pointless nature facts and look up pictures of groundhogs on the internet. <br />
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So here is goes. I will spare you the redundant mythos about shadows and sly references to Bill Murray and just go with a short, sweet introduction to marmots.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Personally, I think he looks as trustworthy as any meteorologist.<br />
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Groundhogs, whistlepigs, woodchucks, or the land-beaver, the latter of which sounds like some villain from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series, are all the same animal. Their relatives all prefer the highlands and rocky heights, whereas these guys are the lowland plains and fringe forest dwellers. Being lowland means they have slightly different ties to their Clans and an almost understandable accent. (--scottish jokes, groundhogs are not racists, and kilt jokes are hard to make on animals with such short legs. Also google could not find a single image of a woodchuck in a kilt, therefore one must not exist.) <br />
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Groundhogs are nicely sealed against their habitat. They are painted with two coats. They have a grey undercoat with a nice arrangement of "guard hairs"that give them the "frosted" appearance, i.e. natural highlights. They are also proficient burrowers moving roughly a cubic meter of soil (about 710 lbs (320 kg)) when getting down to business. There are several active members in the groundhog local that are pushing for the 500 lbs work week, but the rallies have yet to draw up much support. Burrows, in which extended family can all dwell, separately of course, groundhogs are keen on their own space. Be it ever so humble, small burrows usually have a front and back door. Larger estates may have up to five means of entrance and egress. Most whistlepig flats contain about 14 meters (46ft) of hallways, and can reach as far as 1.5 meters (5ft) underground. In unfortunate situations these homes may undermine building foundations. Burrows are not the only confusions with prairie dogs. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Allen..Allen...Allen"</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Steve!"</td></tr>
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When out and about, they remain ever on alert. If the sentries see any suspicious characters they will let out a high-pitched whistle as a warning. Hence, whistlepig. They may emit low barks, or chatter there teeth. Squeals usually indicate fighting, serious injury, or capture. When frightened the hair on their tails will stand straight up giving it a brush like appearance. Evidently all major predatory animals have an innate fear of hairbrushes, this is second only to the natural fear of fire. Although an animal that when frightened could set its tail on fire would be incredible.<br />
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The last few seconds you can hear the whistle.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shadow, schmadow, I can see my house from here.</td></tr>
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So these large hole dwelling fiends are not much good outside a burrow you say? They are actually quite good swimmers and can climb trees when escaping danger. They do prefer to retreat to a burrow for the home field advantage and will defend themselves with they extremely sharp claws and "big, pointy teeth" (technical term, +10 for you if you know the source.) Groundhogs are territorial and tend to be agonistic, that is they tend to search for their own truths in the word, no, no, no, wait they are agonistic, NOT agnostic. That just means they tend to fight amongst themselves to determine dominance and the true path, so maybe they are Baptist. In that case they usually disagree about minutiae interpretation of Groundhogdom and take half of their congregation and start a new burrow.<br />
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A few more random points of interest: They are used in medical research on Hepatitus B-induced liver cancer. Once infected they are at 100% risk of developing liver cancer. They are using them as models for testing Hepatitis B and liver cancer therapies. Some woodchucks decided to not take the medical school rout and instead became Archaeologist. Groundhogs are known to have revealed at least one archaeological site in the U.S. The Ufferman Site in Ohio has never been excavated by humans, instead, numerous artifacts have been found in the midden piles of the local groundhogs. Their diggings have surfaced significant numbers of human and animal bones, pottery, and bits of stone. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhz3V55K6HSR9CSC-ShTNWIuFUyazP-QCHNFAMykeZD_DYKLO8GK32h1TGxNhew3vET8rVTN3y3s7luKzqPHvjmiK5kvmueIAaKhY93FOL1sk6fwG1-UidRjeh50QEeojgls0ITtODL2et/s1600/groundhog.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhz3V55K6HSR9CSC-ShTNWIuFUyazP-QCHNFAMykeZD_DYKLO8GK32h1TGxNhew3vET8rVTN3y3s7luKzqPHvjmiK5kvmueIAaKhY93FOL1sk6fwG1-UidRjeh50QEeojgls0ITtODL2et/s200/groundhog.jpeg" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNRaROhVJdPTd3HZafFl2s_6KTJt3fef-7yy39bdKMDvkrRaM_Gk6Ho43JRLIxvK7e-Zcw77EOvXrbJbgih8Xn-tZLtx9ryuGHu9rvzAjGSZA2E5xmHko7ia6SlcUC-mCpKntcMoWRb1v5/s1600/71indianajones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNRaROhVJdPTd3HZafFl2s_6KTJt3fef-7yy39bdKMDvkrRaM_Gk6Ho43JRLIxvK7e-Zcw77EOvXrbJbgih8Xn-tZLtx9ryuGHu9rvzAjGSZA2E5xmHko7ia6SlcUC-mCpKntcMoWRb1v5/s200/71indianajones.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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How much wood could a woodchuck chuck? Aside from Geico commercials they don't actually chuck wood. They play jai-lai. The etymology of woodchucking might relate to the Algonquian (some argue Narragansett, and by "some" I mean "wikipedia") name of the animal: <i>wuchak.</i> Given the explorers penchant for bastardizing native languages (and people, ahem, different post) it should be little wonder that we don't wonder how much wu could a wuchak chak, if indeed a wuchak could chak wu.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPfMe7doB32spV7F2vIKa1mZMrcbvZnnPlPOe5nHtSpmE4AFCNvXtcSfzpoVW92Rayg-pAe_Lvhp5mUhijXB84Att8YfKMH-tgPEqpSj-MmMKRO_fL-NIId5hAAo6ElB7X9R3hrcKnyG2j/s1600/groundhog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPfMe7doB32spV7F2vIKa1mZMrcbvZnnPlPOe5nHtSpmE4AFCNvXtcSfzpoVW92Rayg-pAe_Lvhp5mUhijXB84Att8YfKMH-tgPEqpSj-MmMKRO_fL-NIId5hAAo6ElB7X9R3hrcKnyG2j/s400/groundhog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some wuchaks don't bother chaking wu, some are gentle <br />
poets who take the time for the small things in life. <br />
Although given their aggressive behavior, they are little old contrarians. <br />
This photo says everything: "Stop and smell the flowers, dammit."</td></tr>
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I hope that this short reading will give shed a new light on an overexposed and under-appreciated little mammal. I also sincerely hope that if you will never be able to hear that tongue-twister again without at least <i>thinking </i>of the phrasr "chaking wu."</div>
</div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-76357580921221907162012-01-28T20:35:00.000-08:002012-06-24T09:33:50.852-07:00Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Mole.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My wife and I chanced to have dinner and a movie with some dear friends of ours. Briefly, the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is far from the edge of your seat thriller. My friend's wife slept through it all, my wife tried to, and my friend said that he had seen many independent movies and that this was particularly hard to follow. I enjoyed it for what it was. That being said, the movie was dreadfully slow and painfully precise. Since I am neck deep in thesis material I haven't had time to read the book so I called my grandfather. <br />
He said he had figured it out by the second or third chapter, and that it was incredibly slooowwww (the drawn out emphasis is his). I had hoped the book would have been better but, alas, perhaps no. Now, I told you all that to tell you this: The premise of this story began my gears whirring anew. Why are spies within organizations called "moles" anyway? (I haven't found out yet) For that matter why isn't there more attention paid to moles in the natural world? And, why, oh why do I end up thinking about these things after watching movies? (I haven't found that out yet either.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggRzQ8t9RlC9mgQU9c_kDLy4F-9Jp_LwOqx8ETmPSD1UPXYSH_sAiAefdtpxY076NXilh-fAHQENCVCmZ-YCNYN0k4ccprt6O3jw3TtcLBMX-7oPoLQekkYjynoINdSu4e2yK8H2HpJ9SB/s1600/eastern+mole_h.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggRzQ8t9RlC9mgQU9c_kDLy4F-9Jp_LwOqx8ETmPSD1UPXYSH_sAiAefdtpxY076NXilh-fAHQENCVCmZ-YCNYN0k4ccprt6O3jw3TtcLBMX-7oPoLQekkYjynoINdSu4e2yK8H2HpJ9SB/s400/eastern+mole_h.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Eastern Mole. Look at those hands.<br />
Think how dramatic a molian facepalm would be.<br />
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My first positive relationship with a mole was the fictional Moley in Kenneth Graham's <i>Wind in the Willows</i>, which is and forever will be my favorite book. Of all the animated/action renditions my hat has always been off to the folks at Rankin/Bass for their portrayal. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZpxK0XYgz_vhxlPnoCQCFd9VrG28p6cglqEZRv4bI0i_YQ_1glUpPRu73-3Wg0EO6edHHpJ6Az6F07ZCVRdEaxnbgC3QtFUrEEAJ_27wBoyI1LzBzYjMaOXtDmoXYON71yO8V5zvDSK0/s1600/wind-in-willows1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZpxK0XYgz_vhxlPnoCQCFd9VrG28p6cglqEZRv4bI0i_YQ_1glUpPRu73-3Wg0EO6edHHpJ6Az6F07ZCVRdEaxnbgC3QtFUrEEAJ_27wBoyI1LzBzYjMaOXtDmoXYON71yO8V5zvDSK0/s320/wind-in-willows1.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div>
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Always have to appreciate it when he tells Ratty he</div>
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"Can't say I really love duck poems"</div>
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A side note: Roddy McDowell's Ratty is the reason that I have always pronounced the world ad-VERT-isment and not ad-ver-TISE-ment. But, back to Moles. I also tried Pate de foie gras once just to see. I wouldn't sing about it, but I tried it thanks to this song. I guess animation works on impressionable children. I tried pate, I never bought anything from Acme.<br />
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But, back to moles. My first relationship with moles were as pest in the yards of my grandparents. They would burrow everywhere and destroy their garden. They would set mole traps and if I was visiting I would go with them to check the traps. Mole fur is incredibly soft, if you have never felt one. I also remember being confused at my great grandparents calling moles "salamanders" but I never questioned them, I just quietly kept my knowing better to myself. (that was once the m.o. for all children)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqwdg-7FEBBW83L63pe7el2qO-fJlH-tNU600yETg1FjFxfCQsBeh6_KX5eDN4y6h1YFGbufOCk5D1uiMuQvlNfi1tWt7bK-iTV13hxiFshJa4f0vGgx3JwQCx5vfTZeZ2_giYVSb-qLE/s1600/Tiger-Salamander-Images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqwdg-7FEBBW83L63pe7el2qO-fJlH-tNU600yETg1FjFxfCQsBeh6_KX5eDN4y6h1YFGbufOCk5D1uiMuQvlNfi1tWt7bK-iTV13hxiFshJa4f0vGgx3JwQCx5vfTZeZ2_giYVSb-qLE/s200/Tiger-Salamander-Images.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salamander</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aHZ1wK25kJaYeDylCaooROFBBV44QULfWdV0FZjBzAViwOxAXDph3VlFyXuTAIOhLjAKALfCoKzJgxynnGutWSAlyeSEPP9YGmJI4y64sJJyztwC0K_WtQXn6xBeuel_S-edNpD7mnj3/s1600/EasternMoleLAT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6aHZ1wK25kJaYeDylCaooROFBBV44QULfWdV0FZjBzAViwOxAXDph3VlFyXuTAIOhLjAKALfCoKzJgxynnGutWSAlyeSEPP9YGmJI4y64sJJyztwC0K_WtQXn6xBeuel_S-edNpD7mnj3/s200/EasternMoleLAT.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mole</td></tr>
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I don't know much about the fossil record of moles. Given the little research I plinked through for this update, that may be due to the lack of an extensive fossil record. You would think that a burrowing animal would be more likely to become a fossil since it was buried in its burrow upon death. Apparently there is a burrow patrol among moledom that facilitates the removal of any deceased parties and rendering any extra chance at fossilization null and void. <br />
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There is a late Miocene (somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 m.y.a) mole fossil from Idaho that shows characteristics similar to the modern coast mole. They are so similar in fact that they are lumped into the same genus: <i>Scapanus.</i> <i>Scapanus hagermanensis </i>hails from the Hagerman Fossil beds in Idaho.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjMSUKyijrthLf7Rh660Kst18cPcEYeL8g8PWUTuC0eP5yCMQW_DTuNQvxINzp-10YNayUzYtFj-F2B8-ly5u_Ikjdga4LLh328vjsy1zYh_84PfUgAXlUkLdciFwIhJpACOTj1_ZwnJd/s1600/mole.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjMSUKyijrthLf7Rh660Kst18cPcEYeL8g8PWUTuC0eP5yCMQW_DTuNQvxINzp-10YNayUzYtFj-F2B8-ly5u_Ikjdga4LLh328vjsy1zYh_84PfUgAXlUkLdciFwIhJpACOTj1_ZwnJd/s400/mole.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Scapanus hagermanensis</span></i></td></tr>
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There are also phylogenic complications within the realm of the mole. Oh, are there some interesting connections here. </div>
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The Golden Mole:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnMWvHx0f8ZegYPVwnJUHouL9R2KPsEni4Rt77iVortFfwtW5pef7D48MAmvimE44MTzXbnbYnJwJ7OZTZIofaQm6_SwTrWNT4_7tyMTVuvvHSfQD2kXPfh1IN7KZThc0FSCbc0edLurgb/s1600/Taupe_doree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnMWvHx0f8ZegYPVwnJUHouL9R2KPsEni4Rt77iVortFfwtW5pef7D48MAmvimE44MTzXbnbYnJwJ7OZTZIofaQm6_SwTrWNT4_7tyMTVuvvHSfQD2kXPfh1IN7KZThc0FSCbc0edLurgb/s400/Taupe_doree.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A Golden Mole</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The golden moles belong to the same branch on the tree of life as the tenrecs, called Tenrecomorpha<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"> </span>or Afrosoricida which in turn stems from a main branch of placental mammals called the Afrosoricida. Not so scientifically interesting, but in the words of Hamlet, "Aye, there lies the rub." This means that they share a closer common ancestor with such existing Afrosoricids as Elephants, Manatees and Aardvarks than they do with other placental mammals. Genetics. Wow. The Mole apparently falls a long way from the tree. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">The Marsupial Mole:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU4PMZqjuf0I25edCytO6NRkXXz9gmzwNeBBD_jRVgGSJnk0cOrNfgf3HONdM5osqhUHkXRz6n1gW1DhbIqncT8A5da02AbC7HGivvZd5c1GN9So0UILDIsfRzN8nYjRMZ_-pSqsQLeDwS/s1600/Marsupia-+mole-eating-lizard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU4PMZqjuf0I25edCytO6NRkXXz9gmzwNeBBD_jRVgGSJnk0cOrNfgf3HONdM5osqhUHkXRz6n1gW1DhbIqncT8A5da02AbC7HGivvZd5c1GN9So0UILDIsfRzN8nYjRMZ_-pSqsQLeDwS/s400/Marsupia-+mole-eating-lizard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This has got to be one of the most awesome nature photographs ever. </span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The marsupial mole's awesomeness is two-fold. First and far most, this little critter looks more eccentric than anything that ever haunted George Lucas or Peter Jackson's nightmares. Secondly there is some genetic marsupial connection that make it interesting to other people. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">As marsupials, these moles are even more distantly related to true talpidae moles than golden moles, (think rich-great-granduncle twice removed) both of which are placental mammals. So what does this mean? This means that Marsupial Moles are more closely related to such existing Australian marsupials, kangaroos or koalas, and even to a lesser extent to American marsupials such as opossums than they are to placental mammals such as Golden Moles or Talpidae moles.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeKzJlpXd9MYoQRsoGrVe3EZMRFXBLpjy3odnMAIJhdRxTUiWB0U3-PqLikNol0Ivend039CKuOkAOLlxbHEhnxY3H3upGjJzigoLPGqQICO624oc7Ocm7omWXAKgFBdpIR5an6uQx0LC/s1600/Notoryctes_typhlops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeKzJlpXd9MYoQRsoGrVe3EZMRFXBLpjy3odnMAIJhdRxTUiWB0U3-PqLikNol0Ivend039CKuOkAOLlxbHEhnxY3H3upGjJzigoLPGqQICO624oc7Ocm7omWXAKgFBdpIR5an6uQx0LC/s400/Notoryctes_typhlops.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They may also be the Studebakers if their genus,<br />
as it is difficult to tell the direction of travel based on their shape</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> In 2010 the Marsupial Mole again stood some folks on their ears. A fossil find indicated that they likely evolved in rainforests than in the deserts they call home today. That fascinating article can be be found in <a href="http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/fossil-find-challenges-marsupial-mole-evolution.htm" target="_blank">Australian Geographic.</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Moles ran amok in Scotland for a time and would have been just another plague on the isle had Queen Alexandra not ordered a mole fur garment and set off a craze. (Not unlike Kate's wedding dress phenomenon.) I am tempted to draw a parallel with my young life and that of the queen. Did the queen, on visits to her grandparents wander with them to check the mole traps? Did she inspect the perished vermin intently, gently rubbing its soft fur? Did she in the back of her mind think, "when I am queen I shall have a garment of this?" Probably not. I guess there is no parallel, I never thought I would be Queen. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> So, we leave the stately mole, with a passing mention of the Star-nose mole that can smell underwater by blowing air bubbles and snorting them back in. Great little creature there too. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAfN6EPoVRNl5-s0PnDQQ2WFn15tO98I9mAM3dUzhXI-qKvd_ikSEW1UOMG19jUnH7Z5F6l-FGMJo5ZyxI3YseL0Zk8YU3qiVwvTI3rDWf6DBVPAnATyIvkjF1-O3J1Kdwbu7lpT_DWJ6/s1600/Star-Nosed-Mole-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAfN6EPoVRNl5-s0PnDQQ2WFn15tO98I9mAM3dUzhXI-qKvd_ikSEW1UOMG19jUnH7Z5F6l-FGMJo5ZyxI3YseL0Zk8YU3qiVwvTI3rDWf6DBVPAnATyIvkjF1-O3J1Kdwbu7lpT_DWJ6/s400/Star-Nosed-Mole-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Star-nosed Mole. For obvious reasons. </td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I doubt there will ever be a save the mole foundation, but I hope people will take it a bit farther to ponder on these creatures a bit. As more than mere infiltrating spies, nasty dangling growths on your aunt's neck, or the namesake for the journals that so many of us use. There are greatly adapted for their environments and go unnoticed by some, cursed by many, and understood by few. </span></div>
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General knowledge of the mole. From nps.gov</div>
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</div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-77090729867297198112012-01-09T10:35:00.000-08:002012-06-24T09:34:29.601-07:00The Considerate Mongoose.<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word; zoom: 1;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Apologies to my follower(s) Graduate School, applications for PhD programs and other diversions have led me astray of my blogging duties, but I take a break from writing thesis to share with the interverse this little gem. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Following is an article from the New York Times dated June 5, 1906. Anyone with an interest in wordplay, or the english language should take a moment and read this. I came across it working on my thesis. Enjoy... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">The Considerate Mongoose</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> "This Republic was until Saturday, the embarrassed possessor of two mong--, that is, it had one mongoose at the Bronx Zoological Park, and another mongoose at the Rock Creek Zoo. The Rock Creek specimen considerately died on Saturday, thus relegating to the academic shades the infuriating and perfectly insoluble question of the plural. With one mongoose we can get along; two consitued a linguistic anomaly, and were certain source of profitless dispute and harrowing doubt.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">"Send me a tailor's goose, and eleven others just like it," was the form finally adopted by the retail hardware dealer after successive rejections of tailor's geese and tailor's gooses. What is the plural of moose? It is not meese, of course, and nobody would say mooses. The statement of a tenderfoot who should declare that he saw seventeen moose in teh forest would be instantly questioned by the experienced hunter, but not on grammatical grounds. Moose goes as plural. But mongoose?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">And with the mongeese stand.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> A proper and laudable aspiration, but the unlamented little beast of the Rock Creek Zoo kne he mustn't do it. You can't stop there. The anserine anaology bears you irresistably on to the mongoose and her mate, the mongander. The tribe of mongoose would never "stand for" that. The Rock Creek animal was driven back upon the metaphysical device of the ego and the non-ego. I, this mongoose, who sit here vainly barking up the grammar tree, and the other mong-- there it goes again. In the intervals of pursuing his favorite preym the boot-haunting ophidia, the mongoose of Rock Creek, thought much and deeply on yjis subject. Condemned to a life of loneliness for in English-speaking countries must never be seen in company with another mongoose, he was unspeakably miserable, and he saw no way out. His accomplishments went for nothing. He could rob a henroost with a silent deftness that left the feathered ones spared quite unaware of their bereavement. He possessed consummate skill in the art of depleting an eggshell of its contents by that method in which the common law of repartee assumes ever man's grandmother to be an expert. But what of that, if, so long as there was another one, he had no place in the structure of English speech? It made mongoose-flesh come out all over him. Let his martyred bones, whereve they mayy lie, be a warnin to those who henceforth may enrich our fauna by this addition of alien vertebrates, that they must import an animal from the language of his nativity a practicable plural."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;">Stand with the Mongeese!</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white;"> This article is 105 years old. Just something to think about.</span></div>
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</div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-40329904784186455512011-07-30T14:55:00.000-07:002012-06-24T09:35:49.368-07:00The Thing about Bats<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMS-04yvIyFNL7HlV8qbAYpfc6EA8-88GMWsZzF50jpOZXCSYvbOhOVfsfBat1n6EasD6IYnMI3dpnIXtMVH8y-pRjETCC0vSkQA6U-athPjwkMzV5hATkezTxTCiRTF5JF4GBdg-ESEAc/s1600/a4181566623009d1664137b0fe47be39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMS-04yvIyFNL7HlV8qbAYpfc6EA8-88GMWsZzF50jpOZXCSYvbOhOVfsfBat1n6EasD6IYnMI3dpnIXtMVH8y-pRjETCC0vSkQA6U-athPjwkMzV5hATkezTxTCiRTF5JF4GBdg-ESEAc/s320/a4181566623009d1664137b0fe47be39.jpg" width="301" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Batty Koda from Ferngully.</td></tr>
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I suppose if I hurry this weekend with a short entry I can get a one in for July. This will at least mean I have done one post a month in the last two months. We have finished moving and finally settled in enough to have the internet and a path to the computer. This is one topic that deserves way more time and intellect than I have for it, but hopefully you will come away with a better understanding of bats and the peril they face in the US today.<br />
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Bats today play a much more important role than just helping with the open scenes of Scooby Doo. Though greatly misunderstood and demonized they actually work hard as pollinators for a great many number of plants. Some species are only pollinated by bats, I do not recall which ones but I remember hearing it from Sir David Attenborough, so I stake it a reliable source. <br />
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There are over 1200 species in the order <i>Chiroptera </i>("hand wing"-luckily these things sound better in Greek). As a matter of mathematics that represents about 1/5th of the world's classified mammals. They range in size from the one inch (2.5 cm) Kitti's Hog-nosed bat to the 13 inch (32.5 cm) or so Giant Golden-crowned Flying fox. Their wingspans range from nearly 6 inches (15 cm) to almost 5 feet. (1.5 meters). All the other fellows fall into line somewhere in between. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQI2GNKDwU5bx5aeYctNF0v0X0hFQvXnVyzDn_r5qRfiywa5to48cgSGJaccx2hAQeK7ZQaY61TnMzIkSgKDCfHIkIcMomnsEIOYmKRHVrPsgmf9qX8FobneLXm144J-Rbk1jfBS9qmfI/s1600/Kittis-hog-nosed-bat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivQI2GNKDwU5bx5aeYctNF0v0X0hFQvXnVyzDn_r5qRfiywa5to48cgSGJaccx2hAQeK7ZQaY61TnMzIkSgKDCfHIkIcMomnsEIOYmKRHVrPsgmf9qX8FobneLXm144J-Rbk1jfBS9qmfI/s320/Kittis-hog-nosed-bat.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kitti's hog-nosed bat. Couresy of Arkive.org great site or wildlife images</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUHqkxP8CJKbnykZ35sbtxVO_RmdPn5FWLY156g5Scm4naY7Sk9H9EGiiA8iYa0DxLWSwyXovBriJ7WqDNWB6PKiZMae91EhVWt7IWlVoD4w0l9LVZzE9O9i75y289sgLbDlz0i9giYYs/s1600/murcielago+zorro+filipino+animales+extincion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUHqkxP8CJKbnykZ35sbtxVO_RmdPn5FWLY156g5Scm4naY7Sk9H9EGiiA8iYa0DxLWSwyXovBriJ7WqDNWB6PKiZMae91EhVWt7IWlVoD4w0l9LVZzE9O9i75y289sgLbDlz0i9giYYs/s1600/murcielago+zorro+filipino+animales+extincion.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant Golden-crowned Flying-fox. Luckily he is only a frugivore.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwnYrQgGd19BS51e5h7__z0UWey-Apq7URXSYP97AIiHo9dopJJbi4fgxO6ZNDJp9zfGzGNjb6xJAdyClXNj8PR-NA5nPTBOXtHCdG48-Az1DAB6kQPWR5fvpGKkpqGKvA4aGdPlfOApM/s1600/Giant_Golden_Crowned_Flying_Fox_And_Human1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwnYrQgGd19BS51e5h7__z0UWey-Apq7URXSYP97AIiHo9dopJJbi4fgxO6ZNDJp9zfGzGNjb6xJAdyClXNj8PR-NA5nPTBOXtHCdG48-Az1DAB6kQPWR5fvpGKkpqGKvA4aGdPlfOApM/s320/Giant_Golden_Crowned_Flying_Fox_And_Human1.png" width="188" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bit o' scale for the flying fox. </td></tr>
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Nearly 70% of bats are insectivores. Zipping along erratically using their echolocation to follow some bug or another. Most of the remaining 30% are frugivores, dining on fruits which very seldom have erratic flight-paths. Still the remaining like the fish eating bat, eat, well, fish. Again, the people in charge of bat naming are a creative lot. These bats also eat crustaceans such as the "squat lobster" (not making that up), so let us be glad that they are not called the fish and crustacean eating bat. The remaining bat is classified as the only mammalian parasite.-the Vampire bat. <br />
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Vilified by Bram Stroker, this small bad makes its living feeding on the blood of larger animals, usually cows and other livestock. The bat will slice a small slit in the animals skin and lick the trickling blood. The whole process is aided by a type of coagulant that is part of the the chemical composition of the vampire bat's saliva. Luckily however with this new version of sparkling vampires, maybe the small vampire bat can go back to its life of obscurity. <br />
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The most important thing that bats are facing these days are a lot more serious than bad literature. In America there has been a recent outbreak of a fungus. "White-nose syndrome" as it is known, gets its name from the white fungus growing around the nose and ears of infected bats. The mortality rate has hit 90-100% in certain caves in the American Northeast. The disease is troubling the endangered Indiana bat but studies and preliminary accounts believe that it might even drive some of the most numerous bat species in America to extinction. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvULUyqBlEpc4npFZ_ZI_mXfV60aW0SGn_Ir4IokHXMZ_9ncWMaF8X184rOLgqPfIEOQdF0Lj__LsZSPN-6f-s2P-keqO6-d0FVZfDNo5CNiCSIGZ5jQMejwEtkrz23BoAq3NgkUChqtUl/s1600/whitenose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvULUyqBlEpc4npFZ_ZI_mXfV60aW0SGn_Ir4IokHXMZ_9ncWMaF8X184rOLgqPfIEOQdF0Lj__LsZSPN-6f-s2P-keqO6-d0FVZfDNo5CNiCSIGZ5jQMejwEtkrz23BoAq3NgkUChqtUl/s320/whitenose.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Small bats infected with White-nose syndrome. Source cavingnovascotia.org</td></tr>
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To save time and space, as I am told repeatedly that aides the popularity of a blog I will include the link to a Smithsonian magazine article on the disease. <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/What-is-Killing-the-Bats.html">What's killing the bats?</a> is out in the August 2011 issue of the magazine and follows the work of scientist trying to outpace, outwit, and overtake the fungus. The interesting thing that you should get from the article if you don't read it or the link dies in the future is that according to genetic studies, something similar happened in Europe many, many years before. Think of it as a Black Death of bats. Thousands perished but the ones that survived have an immunity to the new fungus. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYGb1pyHAOtg6O7QbZ2TYKeRTdTZYFQS9uwLxUOkW3dbk0EZyeoN7i9olzaAQ5CfDhYxL09Bo6FwcFDSuUwxz7Q5ZIHKCF3Cr8ao9eeaiQNNFzQp7lzX4MEvfZWcweqKzch-E3vvqfLLL/s1600/whnbats02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHYGb1pyHAOtg6O7QbZ2TYKeRTdTZYFQS9uwLxUOkW3dbk0EZyeoN7i9olzaAQ5CfDhYxL09Bo6FwcFDSuUwxz7Q5ZIHKCF3Cr8ao9eeaiQNNFzQp7lzX4MEvfZWcweqKzch-E3vvqfLLL/s320/whnbats02.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #555555; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">February 2006 at Howes Cave, west of Albany, New York. Source: christinatongues.com<br />
Her entry in Jan. 2011 indicate that "they" whoever "they" are believe the fungus is just a symptom<br />
but not the cause of the deaths. There was one comment on here entry: </span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #777777; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px;"><img alt="" class="avatar avatar-32 photo" height="32" src="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/bcd579d98fe7c174512b0eb4dfe297b1?s=32&d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D32&r=G" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 231, 208); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(232, 231, 208); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(232, 231, 208); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(232, 231, 208); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: -2px; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 2px; padding-top: 2px;" width="32" /><cite class="fn"><a class="url" href="http://www.caves.org/WNS" rel="external nofollow" style="color: #557799; text-decoration: none;">Peter Youngbaer</a></cite> <span class="says">said</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #777777; font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px;"><small class="comment-meta commentmetadata"><a href="http://www.christinatonges.com/blog/?p=79#comment-18" style="color: #557799; text-decoration: none;">January 14, 2011 at 5:11 am</a></small>“Researchers increasingly suspect the fungus is not the primary cause of the die-offs, but a symptom of a larger, unidentified problem.”<br />
Upon what do you base this statement? As someone involved since the beginning in this investigation, exactly the opposite is true: that despite Koch’s Postulates not being proven yet, the fungus is clearly believed to be the cause. The most recently published research documents the wing damage to bats by the tissue-eating fungus, which the scientists believe affects the bats’ ability to fly, forage, nurse, and cool their bodies; the latter temperature regulation being a key to fending off the fungus.<br />
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The fungus still exists in Europe but the extant bats are not as bothered as the ones in the States. So maybe some future cross Atlantic breeding will help the immune systems of an iconic flying mammal. Another interesting theory is that the fungus was brought stateside by spelunking tourists. Cavers who explored American caves with tainted european equipment. I am sure it was not done on purpose but the bats are dead just the same. The bats are seen flying out in full daylight, and during winter when they should be hibernating. This is a full blown outbreak, but luckily very well trained scientist have been battling it from its onset. To paraphrase the researcher in the Smithsonian interview: hopefully they will be able to actively fight off the disease and not just be documenting an extinction. Good luck to all those involved, and good luck to the bats.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fOBAGqoy82cdbX06Swly_ls5-4TNBdDL8nAs9IiYSBynWxxQOAqs2QmxqdQfjE3-UatCBHZcSxPX5sPsVpXDpKwutYpvISWZgzc_LD-Oy9m-Gyi-L8cmq5eVhMVFAIWmdxZt1n_YMEmW/s1600/bat_map_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fOBAGqoy82cdbX06Swly_ls5-4TNBdDL8nAs9IiYSBynWxxQOAqs2QmxqdQfjE3-UatCBHZcSxPX5sPsVpXDpKwutYpvISWZgzc_LD-Oy9m-Gyi-L8cmq5eVhMVFAIWmdxZt1n_YMEmW/s320/bat_map_1.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'09 Map of confirmed and likely breakouts of the fungus. Source: Northernwoodlands.org</td></tr>
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In conclusion, ladies and jellyspoons, the bat may be going extinct under our very eyes. Many don't know, and I am sure many more do not care. The few that are fighting the whole outbreak are repeatedly coming up against brick walls. But, think for a moment, whether you like bats or hate them, what the world would be like if there were none, or even decidedly fewer. Ecosystems depend on them, they are a keystone species in some areas, and important culturally around the world.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBNULTL-zAa1kfVTgv2K1CBqdN2Zm5QMwxNx3V6kJzK_hIubNngyy2OV0-ouITEerYB1RvslS8g3kucS5PVPIkhoYtpmYamrni8a_V6RCdcAm809KESJv1805j2-tSIBa-39X22wKAVf2/s1600/Bartok_the_bat2_thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBNULTL-zAa1kfVTgv2K1CBqdN2Zm5QMwxNx3V6kJzK_hIubNngyy2OV0-ouITEerYB1RvslS8g3kucS5PVPIkhoYtpmYamrni8a_V6RCdcAm809KESJv1805j2-tSIBa-39X22wKAVf2/s1600/Bartok_the_bat2_thumb.jpg" /></a> We should at least care. If you cannot find any other reason than to feel compassion for these creatures, I can only offer you two things. They were the inspiration for one of the most popular crime fighters in all of comicdom, and they give us the perfect way to explain how someone has lost all their faculties and might possibly be on the verge of some kind of mental, critical and existential breakdown. I mean imagine a world without Batman. Also imagine what you could call someone besides "batshit crazy" in order to get your point across immediately. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC419qZ0xRXRxaQ4nv3xomfROgw71X-QexEK7FlaWMC1Av2C3-SjWTir6gqMLpfAqGvJZRWpI5BP3Bih0UvfoiFs8XyDkAdF5lhLvBXNOvzwIrPHYb9jzdtuP55G_koZkMkH5RhPLDDEMG/s1600/Bartok.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC419qZ0xRXRxaQ4nv3xomfROgw71X-QexEK7FlaWMC1Av2C3-SjWTir6gqMLpfAqGvJZRWpI5BP3Bih0UvfoiFs8XyDkAdF5lhLvBXNOvzwIrPHYb9jzdtuP55G_koZkMkH5RhPLDDEMG/s320/Bartok.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bartok the Magnificent from <i>Anastasia</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-46209604278631735682011-06-18T13:14:00.000-07:002012-06-24T09:37:39.709-07:00The Ant and the Aardvark, er, um Anteater My apologies to my reader(s) about the long drought of blog material. Many people I know would say this was just a time to gather information with which to wow my readers with; this however, is not the case. Moving, class, and money have all gotten in the way of actually sharing points to ponder with the world at large. Hopefully, when I get my laptops repaired, or my desktop close enough to a wifi station to access the internet, the posts will take on some sort of rhythm and actually combine to make some kind of tangible, coherent thought phase. I wouldn't hold my breath. <br />
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I have taken some constructive criticism from one semi-loyal reader who possesses the attention span of a gerbil. With that in mind, I will try and make these nature musings more curt and to the point with brevity. Again, I wouldn't hold my breath. <br />
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Edentates have always fascinated me, and anyone interested in life should look into their habits and lifestyles. They are one of the larger enigmas in the fossil record due to their lack of teeth. The great thing about studying mammalian fossils is that the teeth are the hardest part of the organism, and therefore more likely to become fossilized. The beauty of that luck is that mammalian teeth are extremely diagnostic. Whole species and some genera have been classed based on teeth alone. Anteaters have no teeth. Their skull ends with a long bony tube that holds their tongue. So the anteater fossil record is pretty sparse. That is not what I want to tell you today. I want to clear up a little misunderstanding that toy companies, among many others have about anteaters and aardvarks. <br />
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I like odd things, and this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. So I went looking for a plush anteater. I found two, one is huge, for stuffed animal proportions. He is about two feet long, grey with the signature black stripe across his side. The tag in his ear is filled with information regarding "The Anteater." This information includes habitat, diet, etc. This larger anteater follows the normal studies of the Anteater: South and Central America, ants, grubs, etc., one pup that rides on its mothers back for nearly a year, and all that other cute cuddly information that one needs to know when purchasing a plus 22" anteater. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3bUvNOKEEvZI422F8arqZ2LWr_9VS9-vTZBG6ticXzUef1hcQC7xfpwyZi9NogbMmuq95pdeRI7YpOzl_mReRkotI2oMe0hSy8m3iNM4eQ7MJADVFn1yE3CLK5zRaHZnddP_oT_Mcv8i/s1600/Anteater+22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3bUvNOKEEvZI422F8arqZ2LWr_9VS9-vTZBG6ticXzUef1hcQC7xfpwyZi9NogbMmuq95pdeRI7YpOzl_mReRkotI2oMe0hSy8m3iNM4eQ7MJADVFn1yE3CLK5zRaHZnddP_oT_Mcv8i/s1600/Anteater+22.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Large anteater Plush Toy</td></tr>
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I bought a smaller one as well, to put on my desk at work. Same body style, about half the size, this one is brown instead of grey. The tag conveniently contains information on "The Aardvark." African savanna habitat, nearly the same diet though, young, etc. So now everyone that buys this particular plush toy will receive the wrong idea of the Anteater, or Aardvark. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIfK4C8M3q5s23NHknGQxLNtdiIs0_u8Zi73SVYivEA3fYrRLpoGlY27yf-e2N9xLNBiEVfkAHTn5CHTDrHPJh7AiOHxekK3oUuMnFy9f9O1TyxHt_vcVuhpxPrDsF4DKJMMgAK58u3Hs4/s1600/41qKxakbwPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIfK4C8M3q5s23NHknGQxLNtdiIs0_u8Zi73SVYivEA3fYrRLpoGlY27yf-e2N9xLNBiEVfkAHTn5CHTDrHPJh7AiOHxekK3oUuMnFy9f9O1TyxHt_vcVuhpxPrDsF4DKJMMgAK58u3Hs4/s1600/41qKxakbwPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">small "aardvark" plush toy </td></tr>
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This confusion stems back to the 60s when the DePatie-Freleng team added <i>The Ant and the Aardvark </i> to their <i>Pink Panther </i>lineup. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqt866aC2lPGK178Tb5D96ojzInn7LoJiKTGflf2WpgPQxlCU3s35tzTFHVVLkAzwITgspdpeS6NlbroU67Fq6RFQXfOTP9oQ22Xoo9bKx6gAWYjWFpdtBVJFDlXbZrbin3KVSgaYk6SB/s1600/ant-menu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqt866aC2lPGK178Tb5D96ojzInn7LoJiKTGflf2WpgPQxlCU3s35tzTFHVVLkAzwITgspdpeS6NlbroU67Fq6RFQXfOTP9oQ22Xoo9bKx6gAWYjWFpdtBVJFDlXbZrbin3KVSgaYk6SB/s320/ant-menu.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screen Capture from the DVD </td></tr>
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Innocently enough, all the write-ups reveal that this show follows the life of an "aardvark" chasing an ant. No harm, no foul, right? In this case, and I am not expecting great biology from cartoon maker, there is a bit to be confused about. Do not get me wrong I absolutely love this cartoon and Depatie-Freleng works in general, but this has got some people screwed up in the general knowledge sector. I present to you the following:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhNq_xZxmsWpi8MZf6HQUTNAtb1Byk_55KZOUn75l3_5BhYl2HbLKq8zKIDiEOYKK38Eq_JeGRQ0nfI2qMFBItPmrFEOG4AM_o3hUiYI4kP0i2Oag5RC1uiCR8FidzQQcBwVHkl-FM9F3/s1600/Giant-anteater-4059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhNq_xZxmsWpi8MZf6HQUTNAtb1Byk_55KZOUn75l3_5BhYl2HbLKq8zKIDiEOYKK38Eq_JeGRQ0nfI2qMFBItPmrFEOG4AM_o3hUiYI4kP0i2Oag5RC1uiCR8FidzQQcBwVHkl-FM9F3/s200/Giant-anteater-4059.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Giant Anteater</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_pK42g0I7SZjUXTVF_28c14R6-7nBMKUbI7kiq12q4bRTlAIc8ZojoIQNXuJv-jr1DRaANA2FOolh9uIXN5Mrbu-AcqOhkOwjEIAXILBiWxv-InVpcODEJRLozf-fL82623YUAjteHttE/s1600/aardvark1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_pK42g0I7SZjUXTVF_28c14R6-7nBMKUbI7kiq12q4bRTlAIc8ZojoIQNXuJv-jr1DRaANA2FOolh9uIXN5Mrbu-AcqOhkOwjEIAXILBiWxv-InVpcODEJRLozf-fL82623YUAjteHttE/s200/aardvark1.jpg" width="178" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Aardvark<br />
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Which of these guys does Aardvark most resemble? Exactly. Arguments may be made that he is an amalgam of both species. He has the anteater's long snout, but is not as furry, perhaps he is covered in (blue?) coarse fur. Most of the cartoons take place in Africa, or a savannah like setting. He is drawn with teeth, but he can also talk so that might be irrelevant. The list goes on and on of differences between the two, aardvarks are nocturnal, anteaters are not. Aardvarks have teeth, anteaters do not. Except that one from Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bGHZ1c_KLCgzXXxuA2pmnxT4glZYobB2-CqW1S8BNH_hn7zjQZ72kZZ6Vt7bhxrNFfe9SsbHRmwGuiSmSFjRqJF5uw3764W-kSLiIdw1pOyWZLre8A6VMWiikYNGzOyz2zMuCJBKCO1z/s1600/anteater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4bGHZ1c_KLCgzXXxuA2pmnxT4glZYobB2-CqW1S8BNH_hn7zjQZ72kZZ6Vt7bhxrNFfe9SsbHRmwGuiSmSFjRqJF5uw3764W-kSLiIdw1pOyWZLre8A6VMWiikYNGzOyz2zMuCJBKCO1z/s320/anteater.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot from <i>Kingdom Hospital<br />
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The toothed God-like anteater of Stephen King's psyche is not that made up. Horror film enthusiast will remember the human form of this anteater was a pale individual with an Ankh necklace. This is pretty interesting because there is a group of individuals who propose that the Egyptian God Set was depicted as, at least, part aardvark. <br />
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There are so many other things to consider when studying both species here, but I hope this short primer will reveal that the confusion over anteaters and aardvarks goes way back and is prominent in even successful ventures. The confusion expounds exponentially when arboreal anteaters are introduced to the discussion as well as "common" names given to species around the world, "antbear" is one that falls on the aardvark as well as the anteater. Even the binomial nomenclature can sometimes be a misnomer. The giant anteater is known as the <i>Myrmecophaga tridactyla, </i>Greek for "three-fingered ant-eater" drawing on its prominent "three toes." The anteaters have five digits on each foot. <br />
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All this being said, I hope that it does not take the magic out of cartoons, or a movie, or anything else. What I hope it does is that it might draw your attention to things as they are not really being what they are, and that if something seems strange to look into it farther. I have found that most times, the truth that I find is many times more fascinating than any of the mistakes that are represented. <br />
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I would like to leave you with what started me on this strange, pointless quest: here is the pilot episode of <i>The Ant and the Aardvark: </i>(The Ant and the Anteater, just doesn't roll off the tongue with the same ring, so kudos to Depatie and Freleng.)<br />
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<br /></div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-54455785021790991462011-03-02T19:46:00.000-08:002012-06-24T09:41:46.203-07:00The Great Northern Penguin and other bird brains There are no penguins in the arctic, at least not anymore. In the 1960s Robert Silverberg wrote a hat trick of books about natural history and science. Funny thing, when I ordered them from Amazon they came discarded from Jr. High libraries. After reading two of them I realized that Jr. High students must have been capable of much higher degrees of thinking than the standard secondary children are forced to endure today. They are written in a plain spoken and easy to understand manner, that in no way detracts from their scholarly contribution to knowledge. But enough about the state of education in the 21st century, back to the northern penguins.<br />
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The penguins of the north are more commonly known as the Great Auk. This flightless bird was nearly 3 feet tall and weighted in a bit over ten pounds. Early European explorers found them a very convenient food source. See where this is going?<br />
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Nomenclature has always been terribly interesting to me, and these are no exceptions. According to one story recounted by Silverberg says the fishermen of Brittany gave the bird a Celtic name, <i>pen-gwyn, </i>which translates to "white-head." Others argue that it comes from the Latin <i>pinguis </i>which means fat. A third school of thought has something to do with pinioning which basically means making a bird unable to fly. Either way they name took hold and was reason enough, according to Silverberg, for Sir Frances Drake and other voyagers in the late sixteenth century, to call the different black and white flightless seabirds "southern penguins"<br />
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They eventually became rare on the rocky Islands of the Northern Atlantic where they would breed. Silverberg says that between 1833 and 1844 they were systematically removed from the Island of Eldey off Iceland. One by one brought back and sold to some eager Museum representative. <br />
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One paragraph from the book I will repeat here in full. (I take some interest in whether this is the first time Silverberg's work has been uploaded in a blog but that is neither here nor there:<br />
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On June 4, 1844, three fishermen named Jon Brandesson, Sigurdr Islefesson, and Ketil Ketilsson made a trip to Eldey. They had been hired by an Icelandicbird collector named Carl Siemsen, who wanted auk specimens. Jon Brandssonfound an auk and killed it. Sigurdr Islefesson found another and did the same. KetilKetilsson had to return empty-handed, because his two companions had just </div>
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completed the extinction of the Great Auk. </div>
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(p. 94, <i>The Auk, the Dodo, and the Oryx. </i>Robert Silverberg, 1967) </div>
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As short as that was I feel that I should offer you a twofer here. For some readers this means you can stop here and come back later, for the rest of the story. (only without Paul Harvey)</div>
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Per request I dug back through some posted articles to find something interesting on crows, magpies, ravens, etc. Not hard, these guys are more than meets the eye. That does not mean they turn into monster trucks or tanks and attack one another. But, that they are pretty good problem solvers. </div>
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I am going to this the lazy way and post the links for the studies. I have other things, which are more pressing for my education, even if they are extremely less interesting than this blog. Hopefully that changes soon, but whatever. </div>
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Back in May of 2009 Rebecca Marelle reported for the BBC about Rooks making tools. There are a couple of videos in the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8059688.stm">article</a>. Basically it shows rooks using tools, not unlike the chimps using grass to catch termites, and you know how we all swoon over chimp termite catching. </div>
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Rooks are part of the corvids, the same group as new caledonian crows. Both of which are known for their tool use prowess. This <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090805144114.htm">Sciencedaily article</a> reveals just how well the crows can use tools, and how many they can use at a time. Apparently they can use up to three tools in proper sequence without being trained. This is similar to another article I read in BBC knowledge where they could choose. There was one straw, too short to reach the food in a wooden cage, and another straw long enough, but behind another cage like barricade. The birds used the short straw to get the long one, and then use the long one to get the food. </div>
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Another article about rooks show them actually making tools. Again back in 2009 <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090525173540.htm">this study</a> shows rooks making a hook to get food from a graduated cylinder looking device. </div>
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Maybe Aesop was right, maybe they even use rocks to raise the water level to drink. Food for thought. I leave you with another tidbit I read in BBC knowledge but cannot find a link to. Magpies have a self awareness at least on par with some mammals. Most bird will attack a reflection of themselves. Exceptions in this case would be parakeets who love the company of their reflection and play with it affectionately. Magpies in the study were given the "dot test." I am unsure the technical name for this test but they place a small colored (usually red) disc sticker on the bird and then present the subject with it's reflection. The magpies to a man (bird) all attempted to remove the colored discs from themselves. They recognize that they were the bird in the looking glass. Cognitive abilities. Amazing to watch, too. </div>
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I will leave this mostly scientific and scholarly post with two of the best examples of how intelligent magpies can be: </div>
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Finally one on the teamwork prowess and brotherhood that unites crows everywhere: </div>
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<br /></div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-33221030862137723682011-02-07T09:39:00.000-08:002012-06-24T09:58:46.053-07:00And now a word from our sponsor. I do not like football. That is no secret among those that know me. So whenever the most important game comes around, I usually sit it out quietly with a good book. Before the days of instant knowledge and the internet I would occasionally sit through part of a game just to see how well the beer commercials were getting along. Now, thanks to youtube and other related internet phenomena, I no longer have to do that. <br />
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Talk around the water cooler today will no doubt turn to that game, but more importantly, it will turn to the commercials. So I might as well jump on this band wagon, since I do not care in the least that the Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the Indiana Pacers. (for the record I know it was the steelers and the packers from Green Bay that played, but I markedly do not care enough to mix sports affiliations and cities. I did not capitalize them on purpose, I do not think they are work it. </div>
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I will start with a couple of fun, yet completely unrelated to the rest of this blog commercial. I will say that the beer commercial writes were a little off this year. Hold me closer tiny dancer was more of a shock than funny. I will say I watched it to the end. So, too, was coke's offering. The world of warcraft-esque one was very nicely done, but not on the favorite list. Coke's border one had to look good on paper, I bet it even sounded good out loud, but something was lost in the editing. </div>
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Doritos was okay, but not their A-game. The dead granpa one was best, the pug attack, slightly funny, the cheese freak guy in the office was just creepy. I do not mean creepy-funny either, I mean flat out did-he-just-really-do-that creepy. The guys at E-trade need to get more creative, at least Geico new when it was time to retire the cavemen. That way their cameos are still funny. The baby has fulfilled his use, please move on. </div>
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The Carfax I'm as happy as a... ad was good, but not worth putting up here. Really it was good to show that even nerds at conventions have similes. How great was it to see Ozzy functioning. How much greater was it to have Ozzy make fun of what's his name? Great, and Ozzy may be out of touch, but he is still Ozzy, and not that little rat fink, I would have written an new Ozzy meets Old Ozzy gig. In fact take the space-time vortex that Kia has, shove that girly-kid through and have Ozzy bite off his head at the concert, and it even saves the life of a bat. If that is not a win-win situation, then I do not know what is. </div>
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I will give kudos out to Chrysler for the Detroit commercial, it was very well done. I went in thinking M&M really? what could this possibly have going for it. But it was very tasteful, and you do hope Detroit gets back on track. </div>
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First up, my not related to nature or dodos fan pick goes to snickers, last year they brought Betty White back and years ago they brought us the KC "Chefs" (great googley-moogley) and this year they gave Richard Lewis an industrial chain saw and employ him with lumberjacks. AND if that was not enough, they bring out Roseanne, and then, the best part--pummel her with a huge portion of tree. Maybe this is nature related. </div>
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What could super bowl ads possibly have to do with a nature/history blog? The most common answer to this would have to be nothing. However, something this year stepped away from the growing trend that sex sells (all but the Skechers commercials, whom I am sure are reveling in growing stock this morning.) to a more natural approach. </div>
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Collected here are 6 of the 50 odd commercials that came through for your enjoyment that I thought had some think tank value. Some are directly related to history and nature, some more obscure and just good ole fashioned fun. </div>
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First up, has little to do with football, less to do with history and science. What it has going for it is posh, and a not unimportant role for that of a Dodo. Albeit, it is only a stuffed specimen, but that brings something up of interest: Why is a stuffed Dodo a sign of luxury, old or otherwise? Are they a luxurious item due to their rarity, or is it because of their association with learned men of science that frequent the old stuffy museums? Who knows. Fact is, the writers could have chosen any numerous, random thing to hold a gate open for an escape from Club Fed, but it was, very poignantly, a Dodo. Almost a tearing up sensation for any self-respecting Dodo. So here is the top of the list and probably greatest stretch the Audi Commercial: </div>
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Moving on from that little gem, I find that apparently out of work anthropologist are writing commercial material for Kia. There 3 million clam ad spot contains a bit of James Bondery, the sea god Posiedon, an Alien abduction and subsequent joy ride, (thus rendering Kia the only model that can maintain proper air/fuel mixture in a non oxygenated atmosphere--go Kia.) A space-time vortex from another planet to I am assuming an ancient Aztec ritual back on Earth. If you want to get anal then one could say the motorcycle cop was from Terminator 2, and the giant Yacht belonged to Marcellus Wallace. This one I took less seriously than the Audi, but it was a fun ride.</div>
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From strictly a historical perspective, the 125 years of Mercedes Benz was fantastic. The only drawback was that it showed how much more awesome MB vehicles were in the past. I welcome the new Benz on the block, but my money is on some of the older generation models for shows of class, cool, and style. This following is the extended clip, with more footage of the awesome Mercedes of yesteryear. Not a bad touch to have the beginning of the ad startup with Joplin either, it almost balanced out having that other guy in there. I can only think of two questions for the execs over at MB: 1) Why don't they offer older body styles and release them as Redux editions?, and B) Why did they feel the need to put any humans in that commercial at all? ( I will grant safe conduct for the Museum guard and the toll attendant.) </div>
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A little closer to home in the land of History of Science, comes the aspiring Chevy Volt commercial. Looks like Chevy and BMW were in a race to see who could spend the most on advertising during super bowl 2011. That being said, the volt commercial had a lot to love for anyone who did not sleep completely through their history courses in school, There was Franklin, and Edison, the television, Apollo (the rocket missions, not the theatre) and even computing nerds short circuiting the garage. Not sure on how well electric cars are going to be accepted in rural-commute-to-work areas, but they tried. Every time I see one of these commercials I think about the car charging "hydrants" that were a large part of <i>The Watchmen </i>graphic novel. </div>
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Filling out the final two entries in my short list, are another car commercial, and a company who oversees, quite literally, where the rubber meets the road. I had not seen the teaser trailer for this commercial (which a teaser for a 30 second spot seems a tad overzealous, but that is what drives the public these days, apparently) before, but was still delighted with the outcome. Post commercial I went back and discovered that is was all about "carma." I have heard a few people claim this as their favorite, and why not, Human beings as a whole would like to believe what goes around comes around, it makes us feel better about ourselves, and it offers hope that one day that guy in the jacked up truck who swerved to hit a turtle, will burn in hell. </div>
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Finally, last but not least, I will submit my favorite commercial from the super bowl of 2011. As a nature writer I am biased, but I know my biases so that makes it okay. The battle for the best by general consensus and popular vote really only comes down to two, and both are Volkswagen commercials. I will admit, the young Darth Vader's intense focus, and equally intense surprise at the end was very nice. However, one must remain true to the "force" that is within, and quite frankly, my "force" does not choke baby dolls, or move peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, It hauls ass. </div>
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<br /></div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-50866268354627242582011-02-04T15:25:00.000-08:002012-06-24T10:01:28.685-07:00Stripes aren't all bad or all stripes aren't bad Last post we looked into two prominent species that have went extinct after the introduction of Europeans to their habitat. Both animals displayed a striped pattern on one end of their body or the other. If that was a singular example, one wonders why stripes do not indicate points on the dart board. However, there is one animal that is not totally striped (as for now the zebra seems safe, although Tigers are having a rough go) that seems to be rather stable. In fact, it is not as rare as you may think: The Okapi.<br />
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The IUCN Red book lists these guys are "near threatened." Last account I heard on a nature show indicated that there are estimated around 10,000 to 20,000 in the wild. Zoo Basel (zoobasel.ch) shows about 160 in captivity, making them "reasonably common" in zoos. <br />
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The discovery of this animal by Europeans is somewhat of an adventure story. The entire write up in the American review of reviews can be read <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=hpR_hPSqYa0C&pg=PA544&dq=Harry+Johnston+okapi&hl=en&ei=hHiOTN33L8SHnQeg0Y2rDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Harry%20Johnston%20okapi&f=false">here</a>, but I will give a brief high point synopsis. <br />
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The animal was rumored to exist in popular press accounts of Stanley's adventures in Africa in 1887. Okapi remains found their way to london in 1901 creating a sensation. The remains were sent by the British Governor of Uganda Sir Henry Johnston. Johnston's connection to the Okapi is even more strange. Apparently the Governor was alerted, or in some other manner made known, of a pygmy smuggling operation within his jurisdiction. <br />
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Apparently a German showman was in the Congo capturing pygmies for exhibition in a traveling show. (circus, perhaps?) I have done quite a bit of research on zoos and specimen collecting, the most prominent German showman was Carl Hagenbeck, but I have not seen any references that it was eitehr he or his associates that were doing the "collecting." That is not to say they did not, but Hagenbeck is a topic for another post.<br />
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Sir Henry daringly rescued the captive pygmies. (I have no idea whether he daringly or bravely did anything, for all I know it was a Scooby-Doo trap that went awry and somehow managed to work out in the end.) Anyway the grateful, now rescued, pygmies told Johnston more about this mythical creature mentioned in Stanley's accounts. I am unsure whether it is pygmy custom to tell stories when you have been rescued or if the Okapi just came up in polite conversation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These are NOT the grateful rescued pygmies, neither is this Sir Henry. They are full grown adults and he is your typical run-of-the-mill British explorer to the Congo. (Photo: wikipedia, and that is why I do not know more about it.)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;">Now let us assume the grateful rescued pygmies were slightly happier than he ones in the above photograph. They continued to tell Johnson about the Okapi. Some tribes and people even began to refer to it as the "African unicorn." This is more for its cleverness at remaining hidden and less from the fact that it had one horn. Fact is, most, if not all, eyewitness accounts involved fleeting glimpses of an Okapi backside racing into the rainforest. Any explorer would be remiss in guessing that it had a head, no matter the number of horns upon it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13pt;"> Sir Henry Johnston never saw the okapi for himself, but managed to obtain some striped skin, and eventually a skull. I imagine that these both came from the local tribe of pygmies that Johnson remained close too. The skull arrived in London in 1901. After thorough examination the Okapi was placed within the same family as the giraffe. Thanks to a bungling German pygmy catcher, an aware British colonial governor, and grateful rescued pygmies the world was at last aware of a large mammal living in the Congo. A rare feat, even in the very earliest part of the 20th century. The Okapi now bears the name of its "founder" : <i>Okapi johnstoni.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;">Some argued at first that the okapi must be related to the zebra, given that it has stripes. Not the soundest science I have ever heard, but I have heard stranger reasonings for more simple things. But later genetic analysis confirmed the skull placement in the giraffe family. The okapi has a much shorter neck, but the same sizes tongue. The tongue is long enough to wash its own eyelids and clean its ears, inside and out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13pt;"> Based on the striped-so-related-to-zebra reports, many trackers went into the congo looking for the Okapi. Most were complete dumbfounded when they found no horse like tracks in the rainforest. Instead, if they were lucky enough to come across a track is was the track of a cloven-hoof individual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13pt;"> Given that such a large mammal remained hidden form man (at this point I mean white european man) for so long gave the Okapi an honored place as the International Society of Cryptozoology's emblem. The society is now largely defunct. Some reports believe that the okapi is depicted on 2,500 year old Egyptian hieroglyphs as a gift from the Ethiopians to the Achaemenid Kingdom. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;">The name Okapi comes from two words in the Lese language. These are the pygmy people that we have become so familiar with. first <i>oka </i>which means "to cut" and <i>kpi</i> which is the name of a design. When an arrow is wrapped in bark and scorched with fire it leaves a striped patter on the arrow, this is called <i>kpi. </i>Lese legend says that the Okapi decorate their legs with this pattern adding to their great camouflage. I hope that either a Lese, or a Lese historian/ethnographer wrote that in the article I read, otherwise this whole last paragraph is complete bunk. I cannot substantiate it as I know no Leses (Lesi), or any pygmies, grateful, rescued or otherwise. But, it is a nice story. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"> I will say this, the okapi is mention in a book. In fact the first time I had ever heard of this thing was in Douglas Adams' <i>Restaurant at the End of the Universe. </i>Apparently Arthur Dent's brother was "nibbled to death by an Okapi."</span></span>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-12118028175015542442011-02-02T19:34:00.000-08:002012-06-24T10:03:57.049-07:00The Tiger's Pouch and Equid DNA: the Danger of Wearing Stripes.<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><b>There is no survivor, there is no future, there is no life to be recreated in this form again. We are looking upon the uttermost finality which can be written, glimpsing the darkness which will not know another ray of light. We are in touch with the reality of extinction.</b></i></div>
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-- Henry B. Hough, <i> Domesday Book</i> </div>
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The largest part of being a graduate student is writing. Many times you take the same class as 15 undergraduates. What sets you apart from them is usually an extra paper. If you are lucky you get to do a research paper. If you are me you get to write a historiography. I will go on a tangent here briefly about why I hate these things and find them a complete waste of time. As a finished product, historiographies are hyped up literature reviews. They are a collection of summaries of works done on a topic. You (or me in this case) have to try and go beyond the original authors interpretations, and form your own. <br />
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Maybe it is because I have really only written historiographies on topics that I know relatively little about that I cannot seem to make that leap into forming my own. I could have formed many more interpretations had I been given clearance to research a topic thoroughly and not just look at how other people looked at it before. I think they are bunk, and unless I have to write one I will not. But, I have to.<br />
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The trick to graduate school is to use all these extra papers to build towards your thesis. I am working on wild animal collecting for the Nation Zoo in D.C. in the early 20th century, so I theoretically, I would try and pick topics that would allow me to run towards that. I sort of have one for the circus paper, but I will talk about that one later. <br />
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The reality is most of the time you cannot. I took a seminar course over the holocaust course last semester and wrote (a lot) over something that has nothing to do with animals, zoos, museums, or any of the other scores of interests that I have. I learned about source material and memoirs versus history approaches to things, so I do not chalk it a total loss. <br />
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So getting to take a course over the British Empire should offer loads of things to study. Oh, how it would if I did not have to write another stupid historiography. Sources, and hopefully contradicting or argumentative sources are the key. So trudging through the library that I live in I came up with things that happened during the reign of the Crown. <br />
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I could write on the Piltdown Man, the Cardiff Giant hoax, Alfred Wallace and Darwin's co-discovery, or any other number of things. Great topics for research seldom make great topics of historiography. So I chose something sort of related to animals, and now I have to, in some form or fashion, collect it into a coherent work in a manner that I disdain. <br />
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Enough whining about that though, the thing that has piqued my interest is extinction. For the purposes of this paper I will look at extinctions within the empire. Specifically I will look at two. One from South Africa, another from Australia. The passenger pigeon does not count for this. I will also add one that was 'discovered' relatively recently for a large mammal.<br />
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First, the Quagga, this is the sand colored horse with the zebra striped head. The last one died in an Amsterdam zoo in 1883.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All accounts I can find say her name was Jane.<br />
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The short story for the Quagga is that there was always a contention among scientist as to whether or not they were a distinct species of zebra or a subspecies. Most likely the last wild Quagga was killed in the 1870s. The creature had disappeared before they could determine if it was a separate species or not. However, the Quagga was the first extinct organism to have its DNA studied and researchers at the Smithsonian Institution discovered that it was not a new species but simple a special variant of the regular plains zebra.<br />
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The Quagga Project began selectively breeding plains zebra in 1987. As of 2004, through fits, starts, and relocation there are over 80 zebra in nearly a dozen localities around Cape Town. This whole study brings up another argument over the difference in subspecies and what we would call "breeds". Below is a VofA news report of the Quagga Project.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzlcDVP7G_skhjAhFHFTg687j0HoRujH1uuCUWM-LIA7fd4ZYP5D6xO1KbS_T0x8umBiWclQ5AvW7NfnQX1YA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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The problem that I foresee with this is not one of science, but of perception. As mentioned in the video, this must not give people that feeling that it is okay if something goes extinct now, we can just recreate it in a lab somewhere. While that is amazing that we can do that, it is ecologically a moot point. That way of thinking is prevalent in today's youth and public. We live with a "fix-it later" mentality. For some species there is no later. </div>
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Once these animals are gone, there can be attempts made by brilliant people to restore what they can, but they are extinct. That word, like so many others, has been thrown around and attributed to so many things that the depth and reality of what is means to be extinct is sadly gone. </div>
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There are two people I always think about when I study the Quagga, one is the hunter in South Africa that killed the last remaining one in the wild. What did he think, how did he feel? Don't get me wrong, I am a hunter. I am not trying to ban hunting, but did he know there were fewer and fewer or did he not care? Maybe it was business as usual and he thought he could kill one today and then go out and kill another tomorrow or next week. </div>
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The other fellow I feel for is the zookeeper in Amsterdam who came into work on August 12, 1883 and found Jane. The last of her kind, the last of her species. (actually a subspecies, but our zookeeper wound not have known that) She would have either been dead that morning, or not been put on display and died while they were tending to her. What kind of finality would that be to feel? This is the end of the Quagga, there never will be another one. </div>
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Another incident occurred in another realm of the British Empire, Australia. Specifically Tasmania. The Thylacine held on a bit longer than the Quagga. That may be said this way: Europeans arrived later in Tasmania. While the Quagga was hunted for food, skins, and to lessen competition for grazing land, the Tasmanian Tiger was hunted due to its bad reputation with farmers. The famous, or infamous, photo below was widely circulated to help encourage the removal of this 'problem' species. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU9fYWM7LcN4ooPJqqIsQyUah-tMqkU-6qRfMchR_Wm1ya8pn45wDUoOfbBVl0_vFYuGl8SBXTUuce9u2lzlPToQ-75eTdIjYTcRmNsJ4kpTXnb1MRZw8xEuGobBy95yqWcYFTFQbBmJOa/s1600/Thylacine-chicken.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU9fYWM7LcN4ooPJqqIsQyUah-tMqkU-6qRfMchR_Wm1ya8pn45wDUoOfbBVl0_vFYuGl8SBXTUuce9u2lzlPToQ-75eTdIjYTcRmNsJ4kpTXnb1MRZw8xEuGobBy95yqWcYFTFQbBmJOa/s320/Thylacine-chicken.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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So the farmers and settlers did their level best to protect their livestock from the dog-headed-pouched-one. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxdJhbwFSeIQtwi7N8UZ5UEf7-s-rCgeNuIUXqHAraeu3YZEedgCEhyphenhyphenut-IZl2jpeVm9uul-S0ELYXzRIO8Tw80yf2JhHLGjXcOwPAJ3XM9P3xLuYlRv7OceDCWMDjOPA5HkF0NZGdfmo/s1600/Bagged_thylacine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxdJhbwFSeIQtwi7N8UZ5UEf7-s-rCgeNuIUXqHAraeu3YZEedgCEhyphenhyphenut-IZl2jpeVm9uul-S0ELYXzRIO8Tw80yf2JhHLGjXcOwPAJ3XM9P3xLuYlRv7OceDCWMDjOPA5HkF0NZGdfmo/s320/Bagged_thylacine.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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Problem was, man is a very good hunter, and eventually all the hunts, and trophies, and collections came down to this: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZr52DkIJ6DABxrP0bv_JP1ZWsuWpYU2UeBBaVBCL18iuolHbappq59ku2EQfvmbAgPccNKdz7j-hxXhmA6hSq8uWom8bTEbMHJ7tzkNc1jNVpADFHpfkS5CeudLWn4w_zw-Izw8s9sgJc/s1600/Wilf_Batty_last_wild_Thylacine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZr52DkIJ6DABxrP0bv_JP1ZWsuWpYU2UeBBaVBCL18iuolHbappq59ku2EQfvmbAgPccNKdz7j-hxXhmA6hSq8uWom8bTEbMHJ7tzkNc1jNVpADFHpfkS5CeudLWn4w_zw-Izw8s9sgJc/s320/Wilf_Batty_last_wild_Thylacine.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This here is one, Wilf Batty, who gallantly bagged the very last known wild Thylacine in existence. </div>
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There is no Thylacine Project akin to the one for Quaggas. The Tasmanian Tiger's claim to fame has been recent "sightings" around southern Tasmania. The south is still sparsely populated and some are hopeful that the Thylacine has escaped there and remained hidden. If one is discovered that would be great, we would get to see it one more time. Finding a breeding population would be a miracle, and many are highly doubtful that it will ever happen. For now the Tasmanian Tiger has fallen not even to a realm of hope that genetics and DNA offers, but is inhabits the world of the cryptids. </div>
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Something else that is different between the two is that politics had time to get involved. Too little, too late seems to sum it up nicely. Robert Paddle's book <i>The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px;"> </span></span>explains in great detail and with more clarity that I can. One point that I do want to make from this book is this: There had been a conservation movement pressing for thylacine protection since 1901. This cause was lead mostly due to it becoming increasingly difficult to obtain specimens for overseas collections. Political difficulties prevented any protection from coming into force until 1936. </div>
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<b> Official protection of the species by the Tasmanian government was introduced on July 10, 1936, 59 days before the last known specimen died in captivity. </b> </div>
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In fact, the Thylacine unfairly bridges the gap within the cryptozoology world between true cryptids that are not known to have ever existed, (or with some existed into modern times coexisting with mankind) and those that humans have seen (helped) off the planet. Maybe that is the draw. </div>
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Fun coincidence if you noticed in the photographs, the Quagga's head is striped while the rear of the Tiger is. Maybe human being hate strips. Morphologically the Thylacine is interesting too, both sexes have a pouch. The only other marsupial that does is the water opossum. The tiger's pouch is also reversed compared to other marsupials. Their pouch faces the rear and not the head as it does on a kangaroo. </div>
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Back to the stripes thing, there is a species that still exists and it might not be as endangered as you might think. I will talk more about the Okapi in the next post, how it was discovered and how that even links into my circus studies. Pygmies are involved. </div>
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Photos were ripped lovingly from wikipedia.org.</div>
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<br /></div>The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-69895755279968372422011-01-30T09:43:00.000-08:002012-06-24T10:05:52.349-07:00Pigeons and Goldfish or Taxonomic Rebate Last Thursday BBC news, and other sources I am sure, reported on a scientific finding about pigeons and their sense of smell. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9377000/9377318.stm">Pigeons sniff their way home</a> reveals a study on how pigeons use scent to navigate. The study also involved stopping up one pigeon nostril. Sources do not reveal if this was done with small corks or if some graduate assistant had the arduous task of rolling up toilet paper to stick in the bird's nose.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Study photo from the BBC, note the GPS pack,<br />
or is that the sardine can the Bernand and Bianca<br />
flew in in <i>The Rescuers?</i><br />
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What they discovered was birds that could not breath through their right nostril took a "more tortuous route" home and stopped more frequently than the other tested birds. They at least made the 40km trek and none were severely injured or killed due to their non working nasal passage. None, at least, were reported, and in today's psyche well, that is just as good.<br />
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I have always had a fascination with pigeons. Most people I know call them rats with wings. Having wings, and more importantly <i>not </i>having a long then hairless tail, makes these creature a bit more endearing to the public as a whole. I did a paper on pigeons in the third grade. Here is where english is important, I did the report when I was in the third grade, not the pigeons. <br />
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What I found out was that they were all descended from the common rock dove. Scientific discoveries of this magnitude must be shared, sometimes forcefully, with relatives that raise doves. So, for some time I was embattled with my aunt referring to all her doves as pigeons and giving the common street pigeons a nicer moniker of dove.<br />
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We, and by we I mean my family while I was growing up, had all manner of feathered beings about our place. We raised chickens, guineas, quail, turkeys, peacocks, chukar partridges, emus, and a cockatiel. One of our suppliers had fan-tail pigeons. I was enamored with them. To this day I am not sure if my dad got them because I was interested in them, or if because he wanted them. Either way we came home with ten pair.<br />
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20 strutting, cooing, displaying fan tail pigeons are quite a site. The variety of color and markings was amazing. As they reared young, something interesting began to happen. Each successive generation feathered out with less color and more white. Phenotypic results for genetics. A lesser controlled study than Mendel's peas, but more fun to watch. <br />
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Years later I discovered that Charles Darwin was a pigeon fancier himself. His interest in the specific breeding techniques that lead from the rock dove to the elegant and sometimes gaudy displays of modern pigeons led him in part to think about things differently. In fact, animal husbandry of all types, full well known by Darwin, in no small part contributed to his theory. <br />
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Now how fun it is for me to know that by my dad getting pigeons for me, at least that is how I think of it, and that is what counts, I got to see the same generational changes that Charles Darwin did. But, you say, those are fancy pigeons, with their fan tail and not-pigeon-colored plumage. What about the common street pigeon?<br />
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My dad worked at a refinery, the same one my grandfather worked in the lab for, and the same one that he was determined that I would not work in. They have reboilers, towers, and units all around that are conducive to street pigeon fare. On two separate occasion they found a young bird who had fallen, or was pushed, out of his nest. We never ascertained which happened, either they were klutzes and semi ashamed or their siblings were of the worst sort. In either case their mothers had not hatched any stool-pigeons. <br />
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They were fed a modest diet of slightly whisked eggs and smashed grapes, (the pigeons not the refinery workers) until they were old and strong enough to make the trip to our house. They rode in the car, with neither nostril plugged. They both took up residence within the realm of the fan-tails. They made the same noises, their strut was a bit the same, but they lacked the Carnivale plumage and over developed sense of self that came with their over-developed-absolutely-horrible-for-flying fan-tails of their companions. <br />
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Taxonomically they are the same species, but are different breeds. Similar to how all modern dogs are <i>Canus domesticus </i>whether they are a Graat Dane or a chihuahua. The dodo is taxonomically related to modern pigeons, although farther back than the Genus, I believe. A large flightless pigeon growing some three feet tall, that is essentially the dodo. Where it fits into my life and way of thinking comes later.<br />
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We also had horses, registered American Quarterhorse horses, papered, documented, bloodlined horses. Basically same as the pigeons just controlled breeding for regisration sake. Much less cooing and slightly less strutting involved as well. I am not here to talk about the horses. The horses had to drink, and being of an industrious people we had a huge vat to water them from. <br />
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In life, this vat was used for creosoting telephone polls, or at least that is was I remember being told. Large enough to hold enough water for the horses in the pasture, and large enough that we routed a water spicket out to it rather than move it again. You would think that registered pure-bred horses would have bettter manners, but they do not, they still drink with their mouths full. A horse trough equivalent of bread crumbs in the water pitcher presents its own challenges. <br />
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Enter the small beings that could eat some of the deposited horse food that was deposited at the trough.<br />
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I said the small beings. Ours never got that big, although some did get nearly 10 inches long, none weighed 30 lbs, as this one supposedly did. If you want to read more about this monster from a lake in southern France, and all the argumentative comments on its authenticity and photoshop one link is <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1309880/Fisherman-Raphael-Biagini-catches-massive-30lbs-goldfish.html">here</a>. <br />
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Interestingly enough, and how they fit into this stream of consciousness, the koi started showing the same phenotypic changes as the pigeons: more of the new generation's feathers were white than the previous. All were well on their way to plain vanilla koi. The interim generations were marked with a gold and white holstein cow or paint horse pattern. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiOmGN7jiSD0yvyEZ_J_MzNQ1_kiEbuIU2ugklvSTBrxLRpP5KK6O_TCqzM-Ud3ZjGLgN8qF5P_3r915n_XEASZ3jEf_RvSsBP9uIgOz_uJl0lSkXBrRkqRiRU5PNb3alNsCQkz9aMbHU/s1600/white+and+gold+goldfish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdiOmGN7jiSD0yvyEZ_J_MzNQ1_kiEbuIU2ugklvSTBrxLRpP5KK6O_TCqzM-Ud3ZjGLgN8qF5P_3r915n_XEASZ3jEf_RvSsBP9uIgOz_uJl0lSkXBrRkqRiRU5PNb3alNsCQkz9aMbHU/s320/white+and+gold+goldfish.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is not our horse trough the water was never that clear<br />
Just an example of the interim patterning I was talking about</td></tr>
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My point is, if there is even a point, that all the evidence is there, one just has to look at it and put the pieces together. One first glance what do fan-tail pigeons have to do with goldfish that live in a horse trough? The answer is apparently more than you think. I was lucky enough to see things like that and become part of that natural changing world. The most profound answers can be found in the most humble of places. I miss being a part of that.<br />
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What I do not miss is having to feed that menagerie between getting home from school and doing my homework. Actually, that is probably not as true as I would like it to be. Animals to be are the most wondrous of things to watch. I mean animals besides ball fetching pooches and @&#^ eating kitties. Animals that interact without you. You feed them and they are happy with that and go about their required animal tasks dutifully.<br />
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The only place that can come close to that experience in the human realm is International airports. Thousands of people buzzing around, all you have to do is feed them and they go about their tasks as if you are unimportant or do not exist. Interesting, yes, but not the same almost "divine" experience you get from living among troops, flocks, crashes, and pods of animals. The International airports smell worse than farms too.<br />
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Now that you have waded, trudged, and sloshed through that muck I will explain my title choice of this blog. In fact, this is something I have had in the planning stages of artwork for awhile now. A large family coat of arms featuring prominately the platypus and the dodo. The shield would contain images of exploration and education, maps, compass roses, books, and quill pins. While the shield itself is made of fossil bones and tusks. <br />
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What makes these two animals perfect for my way of thinking and looking at nature is that on the one hand, here is an animal that, at the very least taxonomically should not exist, and does. On the other is an animal that should exist and does not. <br />
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One is the marvel that is great change, a venomous mammal that lays eggs. Once those eggs hatch the young nurse on milk from a mother with no nipples. The milk, like yours is produced in specialized sweat glands and secreted just like sweat. The platypus just has not given itself a nipple yet. So the next time you see someone eating cereal of having a great big glass of cold milk, or you see those ads in magazines, thing to yourself, nay, offer up your hopes to the drinker that they enjoy that refreshing glass of cow sweat.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0LviZjM7zKXVXUZXMK2RVPaELnequLGo0xvxfmDjWMryusRKntBWCv95X2ZDaMEASnduKrgFcQit07dN7OVn32K7uHfyzVwJnKARe9u6WKaNmAWyW6bCo5vbHmMfr9tDxH7iuj1DuiC0/s1600/platypus+chart.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0LviZjM7zKXVXUZXMK2RVPaELnequLGo0xvxfmDjWMryusRKntBWCv95X2ZDaMEASnduKrgFcQit07dN7OVn32K7uHfyzVwJnKARe9u6WKaNmAWyW6bCo5vbHmMfr9tDxH7iuj1DuiC0/s1600/platypus+chart.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From a NSF press release about the decoded genome of<br />
the Platypus. Read it <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=111521&org=BCS">here</a></td></tr>
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The other, the portly feathered inhabitant of Mauritius who sings about a Jolly caucus race to Alice, the world symbol of extinction. Why is that, do you think? Dinosaurs should certainly be that poster child, after all they have been extinct for much much longer. No, it is the fact that humans, learned, traveling, reading, civilized(?), non-pooh-slinging (again?) humans, new of this animal, saw it, captured it (it was held, alive for a time, in King Rudolf II's great sceintarium in Prague.) introduced it to rats, dogs, and weasels, and for the first time we watched a species disappear form the planet. We also knew irrevocably that it was our fault.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTZ_jj3cbLtQDndf3LOCOAlNpH21kE1XNWUouH5lCnE7xtdgsVG5ic6RVZ5d2mqWmFHYnPLB6Im3yAit_N3c04llHtmMGoIi8a6ENucDOQmBkLCqFqKJRzvdvtI8PKTSDGMuy87KC9f8bP/s1600/dodo-1626-savery-portrait-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTZ_jj3cbLtQDndf3LOCOAlNpH21kE1XNWUouH5lCnE7xtdgsVG5ic6RVZ5d2mqWmFHYnPLB6Im3yAit_N3c04llHtmMGoIi8a6ENucDOQmBkLCqFqKJRzvdvtI8PKTSDGMuy87KC9f8bP/s320/dodo-1626-savery-portrait-001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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For me, life is this dichotomy of what nature is capable of producing, and what mankind are capable of destroying. We are completely out of harmony with our world. I am not advocating paleo-diets or a return to hunting and gathering. We did after all slaughter our own swine, and beef on the same farm.<br />
We are outcompeting nature to the detriment of our future. Yes the world did not cease to spin when the last dodo died, nor did the sky blacken and fall with the demise of the carolina parakeet, the passenger pigeon, or the tasmanian lion. But we did lose something, a bit of wonder, we are becoming a world that is replacing natural magic with cgi. While cgi is great for reconstructions, they are not alive, they will always be a far second best.The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-378657083290220686.post-65915454263063669232011-01-29T17:53:00.000-08:002012-06-24T10:07:03.193-07:00Standard More about Me or And now here's your Host<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5f4rpNLl_cbTbf740Kmk5l26KDV6fEJSwhjPZ95LmqbnNQ7qywthlWRx4LhuXdIkHouf6K_8kTbDreAWaJi3QsnNGEceucbR98OltD9Wz46qqdEHpWtlYvyO41D6z5gI3ltihkxsG_Cr/s1600/David+Attenborough+recording+a+frog+chorus+with+an+L2+EMI+recorder+%25281954%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5f4rpNLl_cbTbf740Kmk5l26KDV6fEJSwhjPZ95LmqbnNQ7qywthlWRx4LhuXdIkHouf6K_8kTbDreAWaJi3QsnNGEceucbR98OltD9Wz46qqdEHpWtlYvyO41D6z5gI3ltihkxsG_Cr/s320/David+Attenborough+recording+a+frog+chorus+with+an+L2+EMI+recorder+%25281954%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir David Attenborough recording a chorus of frogs in 1954.<br />
Photo courtesy of wildfilmhistory.org, a fantastic site</td></tr>
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Given that we are all living in the 21st century together and through the good advice of trusted associates of mine I have started a blog. I shall retro-act a New Year's resolution of creating one and then cross it from my list. I am not at all entirely sure what this will always consist of or where it will go in the future. My guess is that it will just provide more filler for me to work on instead of actually doing work for my classes.<br />
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I am working towards a Master's degree in history. My main research focuses on live animal collecting for zoos. There is also some tangential work being done on specimen collecting for museums. I have three minor's in Anthropology, Geology, and Earth Sciences. I am a Natural Historian of the 19th Century vein. Not unlike Porthos who claimed a beheading axe a gift from the Tsarina of America, I self proclaim my college hours and experience to be a Bachelor of Science in History. I can do that, its my blog.<br />
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What I hope my followers (all both of you) will get out of this is a concise inclusion of things that are going on in the science world presently. I confess many issues will include links to BBC news. I also hope to enlighten some about what went on in the world of science in the past. We all grow up with iconic images of famous people, I shall use Darwin as an example. In our mind's eye we see him old and white-bearded, about 23. <br />
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However this is not the Darwin that sailed on the <i>Beagle</i>. It was a younger man (Darwin really wasn't 23 with the white beard) that lost his cookies over the <i>Beagle's </i>railing explored Argentina, and ate large flightless bird over a campfire. A specimen which turned out to be a new species, upon that realization Charles went around gathering up everyone's table scraps to make another scientific contribution via Richard Owen's descriptions. <br />
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Those are the stories I want to share. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I, but if you do not I will also fill updates with reviews of books I have had to read for class and the ones I have chosen to read for pleasure, they are seldom the same. Some movies we go to, but that is infrequent, as well as reviews for a few theatre performances, and local symphony happenings. <br />
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I will also try and highlight anything I do along the way to a PhD somewhere over time's horizon. I am notorious for visiting a city and really only going to two places: the zoo and their Natural History Museum. I will try and keep these things brief enough to read between laps your boss makes in your office, but some will require a bit more page time. <br />
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Updates will be infrequent, and sometimes more than once a day. I look forward to constructive comments from my captivated and attentive audiences as well as any questions that you guys have. I will try to cite sources that I use, even though the one for the above Darwin anecdote escapes me at the moment. <br />
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So, for a brief semi introduction, this will have to suffice. Once I get my blogging sea legs under me, I will go into more detail about why I call this blog The Platypus and the Dodo and maybe some back history on me that could be found in the about me section, if you are inclined to give a fig about who I am. Most of you do, and the only reason you will check the "About Me" section is to see if I have lied.The Historian of Sciencehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01257349986482738809noreply@blogger.com1