Laelaps

Sivatherium: A giraffe with a trunk?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:50:23 -0500

A giraffe, photographed at the Bronx zoo.

For me, no visit to the zoo is complete without stopping by to see the giraffes. They are among the most common of zoo animals, certainly, but I still find them fascinating. If giraffes did not actually exist and someone drew an illustration of one as a speculative zoology project the picture would likely be written off as absurd, yet the living animal is more charming than preposterous.

As with many extant large mammals, though, the giraffe is only a vestige of a once more diverse group. Its closest living relative is the okapi, a short-necked and forest-dwelling giraffe of the Congo, but many other types of giraffe lived in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps the most famous of these extinct forms is Sivatherium, a giraffe that might have survived until about 8,000 years ago and was once believed to have possessed a trunk.

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Photo of the Day #769: Nyala

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:22:06 -0500

A young nyala (Tragelaphus angasii) nursing from its mother, photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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The Witness of the Deluge

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:02:18 -0500

At last long there was solid proof that humans had died in a real Noachian Deluge. That such an event had occurred was widely taken on faith by Christians, and the belief that world's geology had been formed by the Flood was assented to by many naturalists, but in 1725 the Swiss naturalist Jacob Johann Scheuchzer believed that he had discovered a symbol so instantly recognizable that no one could doubt that the biblical catastrophe was real. It was what appeared to be a human skeleton, cleaved nearly in half but nonetheless preserved by the very floodwaters that had killed the sinner.

The skeleton had come from a limestone quarry in Oeningen, Germany. To Scheuchzer it has a distinctively human appearance. The remains primarily consisted of a backbone and a semicircular skull with two eyes in it, and the fact that the remains of an antediluvian human had been discovered was so astounding that Scheuchzer described it the following year and again in his 1731 work Physica Sacra. He called it Homo diluvii testis, commonly translated as "Man, a witness of the Deluge", and he described it thus;

It is certain that this [rock] contains the half, or nearly so, of the skeleton of a man; that the substance even of the bones, and, what is more, of the flesh and of parts still softer than the flesh, are there incorporated in the stone ; in a word it is one of the rarest relics which we have of that accursed race which was buried under the waters. The figure shows us the contour of the frontal bone, the orbits with the openings which give passage to the great nerves of the fifth pair. We see there the remains of the brain, of the sphenoidal bone, of the roots of the nose, a notable fragment of the maxillary bone, and some vestiges of the liver.

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Photo of the Day #768: Okapi

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:16:27 -0500

An okapi (Okapia johnstoni), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.

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Capuchin monkeys, now with refreshing citrus scent

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:49:07 -0500

Via NatureBreak.org, a capuchin monkey bathes using a stolen orange;

I think she is correct. Capuchin monkeys regularly rub citrus fruits on their fur and this activity appears to keep them free of parasites and keep some of the biting insects away.

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Photo of the Day #767: Geladas in pursuit

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:22:10 -0500

A group of geladas (Theropithecus gelada) in pursuit of a troop member (off camera) that had made the faux pas of grooming the wrong female . Photographed at the Bronx Zoo.

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TV Review: Becoming Human, Part 3

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:17:58 -0500

During the past six million years or so several species of humans have simultaneously inhabited Earth at any one time, but today only one species, ours, remains. How did this come to be? This is the question behind part 3 of the NOVA documentary series "Becoming Human" (see my reviews for parts 1 and 2), and the show does not get off to a strong start.

Though I might be a little more merciful on the producers of this documentary than Greg, he was right to point out that the opening segment of the show is worn old tripe about how our species has fulfilled a kind of evolutionary destiny set in place millions of years ago. The entire hominin family tree can be split, the preface suggests, into our proud ancestors and the unimportant evolutionary "dead ends" that lived alongside them. The narrator references discoveries that are "shining light" on the "final stages of our evolution" as if our species is fulfilling some pre-ordained plan that has reached a stop. This is unfortunate, I would have thought better of an award-winning science program like NOVA, but when it comes to human our evolution our own hubris still obscures our view.

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Photo of the Day #766: Young Western gorilla

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:35:46 -0500

A young Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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Portraying the fact, but losing the theory

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:31:08 -0500

The display of horse evolution at the AMNH as created by W.D. Matthew. Price reproduced this illustration without permission in his creationist textbook The New Geology.

The 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" put scientists on the defensive. It did not matter that the defendant in the famous case, John Scopes, probably never taught evolution in a Tennessee school (he was only a substitute teacher and football coach who agreed to take the fall so that the ACLU could test a law that barred evolution from schools); the issue that everyone was concerned about was the conflict between science and religion. Evolution was a threat to the fervent beliefs of fundamentalist Christians, and in the wake of Scopes' conviction scientists had to contend with a growing tide of antievolution sentiment.

One of the most prominent creationist characters was George McCready Price, a Seventh Day Adventist who wrote several books that now read like prototypes of the "Creation science" tracts of the late 20th century. The most comprehensive of his works was a textbook he published in 1923 called The New Geology. It included a number of creationist arguments against science still in use today, including the idea that fossils are the scattered remains of animals that died in the great Deluge of Genesis. To make this point Price borrowed a figure of the evolution of horses, from the little Eohippus of the Eocene to the modern genus Equus, and stated that the fossils had been arranged in an arbitrary fashion by evolutionary scientists.

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Photo of the Day #765: Ring-tailed lemur

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:15:23 -0500

A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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Photo of the Day #764: Snow leopard

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:41:53 -0500

A snow leopard (Panthera uncia), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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Photo of the Day #763: Silvered leaf monkeys

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:33:41 -0500

A group of silvered leaf monkeys (Trachypithecus cristatus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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Gideon Mantell's Unintentional Contribution to Science

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:39:06 -0500

If anything, the 19th century English paleontologist Gideon Mantell is known for his contributions to our understanding of dinosaurs. His most famous accomplishment was the description of Iguanodon, but Mantell has another legacy that is not as well-known. It was his last contribution to science, though it was not made willingly.

Like many other early paleontologists Mantell had to carve out his own career, and he studied fossils when not busy with his duties as a surgeon in the Lewes countryside. As Mantell began to gain recognition for his work on fossils, though, his passion for paleontology became so consuming that it nearly bankrupted the family. His wife Mary could not take it anymore, and she ultimately left her husband in 1839, just one year before their daughter died.

This marked the more difficult portion of Mantell's life, made all the worse by increasingly severe health problems. As Mantell went about his work he often felt acute leg and back pain which he attributed to various causes. Maybe it was the long hours spent hunched over patients, his weight, or some other factor, but in the fall of 1841 things got a lot worse.

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Photo of the Day #762: Black-and-white colobus monkey

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:24:41 -0500

A black-and-white colobus monkey (Colobus guereza), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.

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Photo of the Day #761: Polar bear

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:24:38 -0500

A polar bear (Ursus maritimus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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