Dr John Burchard on “Oriental sighthounds” (and breeds in general): “I think we have to remember that the breed subdivisions within the “oriental sighthound” group are to some considerable extent a Western artifact which does not accurately reflect the reality on the ground. On the ground there are several regional populations, each with a considerable …
Tag: Evolution
Nomenclature
Annie Davidson sent our tiny aging, nostalgic, and usually goofy Zoo group (we have known each other since, what, 1970?) a provocative essay contra the Linnaean binomial system. I think she was poking a stick in an anthill, but I am afraid it pushed a few buttons! I was provoked to editorialize… “The author’s criticisms …
Art, Science, Insect Hunting, and Nabokov
John Wilson’s butterfly photos remind me of one of the great neglected stories of 20th century intellectual life; that Vladimir Nabokov was not just a writer and teacher but a great taxonomist, this despite being denigrated as a dilettante in his time. Joseph Conrad is legitimately revered for becoming a great English novelist in his …
Birds of Paradise
Some marketers seemed to think that a fitting description of my last book’s subject, eagles, was “the most beautiful bird in the world”. To use a more polite word than I usually would, nonsense! There are many contenders; this pheasant has always been a favorite: Even more so when displaying But there are even better …
Lest you think it was an alien…
In the photo for Annie below, a gelada in repose, looking a little less terrifying…
For Annie D
Are Geladas different from true baboons? UPDATE: She replies “Too different. That’s why I broke up with him.” (The Kapcha wouldn’t let her in). She also made a point about aposematic coloration, convergent evolution, geladas, and black widow spiders–! Later, maybe…
More Visitors
Who but Arthur Wilderson would visit and bring obscure, beautifully- made Czech battle rifles, other military goodies, a bottle of cherry dessert wine from a Colorado winery, and friends, Nate and (female) Evan, with interests in everything from fossil cat cladistics and Darren Naish’s blog to Asian falconry and cartridges I had never heard of? …
Rude scary poster
From Annie Davidson. My preferred caption is: “So Feduccia: explain to me again how birds aren’t dinosaurs…” More on the “controversy” (not very, actually) here.
Cool Bug
A South American treehopper sent to Q by Jonathan Hanson, who writes: “… It was posted by a herpetologist (and virtuoso violinist) friend of ours, Robert Villa, on Facebook. The description offered by a friend of his who has collected them was: ‘It is a treehopper, Cyphonia trifidia ; cicadas lack the pronotal expansions along …
Cladistics
From the always reliable XKCD, via Jonathan who just emailed that he was in Nairobi impatiently waiting to go out in the bush. We should all be so lucky as to have THAT cause for impatience!