The Iriomote Cat

June 29, 2016 • 10:30 am

by Greg Mayer

The Iriomote cat (Prionailurus benegalensis iriomotensis) is a critically endangered subspecies (sometimes ranked as a full species) of the Leopard cat, a species of small cat distributed widely across Asia from Afghanistan to eastern Siberia and south to the Philippines and Greater Sundas. The Iriomote cat is a dark form, made known to science only in the 1960s, and endemic to the small (112 square miles) island of Iriomote in the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan. It is not known from the larger islands in the Ryukyus.

"Yon", an Iriomote cat that was hit by a car in 1996, and rehabilitated at the Iriomote Wildlife Conservation Center, where he remained till his death in 2011. He was mounted after he died. Photo by Purplepumpkins via Wikipedia.
“Yon”, an Iriomote cat that was hit by a car in 1996, and rehabilitated at the Iriomote Wildlife Conservation Center, where he remained till his death in 2011. He was mounted after he died. Photo by Purplepumpkins via Wikipedia.

One threat to the cats is being hit by cars, as shown by the survivor, Yon, in the photo above. My Okinawa correspondent sends the following sad news concerning this continuing threat to the cats.

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The media attention, extending even to the English language press, shows an admirable public awareness of the cat’s conservation needs.

The Leopard cat and its various subspecies present an interesting biogeographic puzzle, because in addition to occurring on the land bridge islands of the Sunda Shelf (e.g. Borneo), which were connected by dry land to the mainland of Asia during times of glacial sea-level lowering, some also occur on islands that rise from deep water off the continental shelves, such as Iriomote (separated by depths of over 500 m), and some of the Philippines. Except for rats and bats, mammals are generally not very good at over water dispersal (an issue we’ve mentioned here at WEIT before), so the question is, how did they get there? There are at least three possibilities. First, they may have been able to disperse across water by what Darwin called “occasional means of transport”: rafts of floating vegetation (most likely for these cats), ice bridges (not in this case, but suspected for some arctic/antarctic forms), powered swimming (known in elephants), or just floating in the currents (known to occur in tortoises). Second, more substantial geological/geographic changes than glacial sea level drop may have provided a dry shod path to the island in the past; such changes can also narrow water barriers, increasing the chance of successful water crossing. Third, they may have been carried to the islands by man– most or all of the varied West Indian raccoons have turned out to be early introductions. There are various ways of examining these possibilities (fossil/archeological record, paleogeographic reconstructions, genetic divergences among populations, etc.), but I don’t know that the question of dispersal of leopard cats has been directly addressed.

Izawa, M., T. Doi, N. Nakanishi and A. Teranishi. 2009. Ecology and conservation of two endangered subspecies of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) on Japanese islands. Biological Conservation 142:1884-1890.

Tamada, T., B. Siriaroonrat, V. Subramaniam, M. Hamachi, L-K. Lin, T. Oshida, W. Rerkamnuaychoke, and R. Masuda. 2008. Molecular diversity and phylogeography of the Asian leopard cat, Felis bengalensis, inferred from mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA sequences. Zoological Science 25:154-163.

A new catchphrase for the Regressive Left—and other simple thinkers

June 29, 2016 • 9:00 am

There’s a new word being used both for critics of faiths and ideologies (for instance, antitheistic nonbelievers), and terrorists, like those who just blew up themselves and others in Istanbul:

HATERS

Why is this word being used? In both cases it’s to dismiss substantive criticism or analysis. It’s much easier to dismiss critics of Islam or Catholicism, for instance, as “haters” than it is to defend the tenets of those faiths. If you can put your critic beyond the pale with a single word (“racist” will suffice as well), then you don’t have to do any work. As for terrorists, well, there are at least four causes of mass murder. In the case of attacks like that in Istanbul, which is likely connected with ISIS, the most frequently cited causes are religion, colonialism, mental illness, and disenfranchisement: poverty, lack of jobs, etc.  (In the case of the Istanbul airport terrorism, I’m not sure how violence against Turks can be blamed on colonialism—but I’m sure the Apologists will find a way.)

But “hate”? Of all the factors contributing to terrorism, that is the most facile explanation. Why did someone “hate”? It could, for example, be because of religion or indoctrination (Arab youths taught to hate Jews from the time they’re in kindergarten, largely on grounds of religion), or mental illness, as in the case of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. And, of course, the factors above can interact in toxic ways, as perhaps they did in the Orlando killer Omar Mateen.

Another reason “hatred” is so often used is that it seems to offer a simple solution to terrorism or criticism: love.  All you need is love! So if you go out and hug Muslims or gays or members of any demonized group, that will solve the problem. And, indeed, I believed that during the Sixties, when Love seemed the solution to all the world’s problems? Remember the photo of the Vietnam war protestor sticking flowers into the muzzles of National Guard Rifles? That photo, by Bernie Boston, symbolized the whole “all you need is love” mentality.

Flower_Power_by_Bernie_Boston

Unfortunately—and we all know this—love is not enough. Love (or mutual support) can of course be a palliative in times of stress and misery, but it’s no solution to the political problems of the world—at least, not a solution that can be easily implemented. Yes, the world would be better if Sunnis loved Shias, and ISIS loved the West, but that won’t be solved with hugs and flowers. And those who bruit about the “hate versus love” solution know this in their hearts, as expressed in their other mantra: “Haters gonna hate.”

Finally, yes, there are some splenetic souls who really are haters: those who hate women or gays or Muslims or Westerners;—in other words, bigots. When that leads to personal harassment, it really is hate. But to apply the term to criticism of ideologies, or to complex problems like terrorism, well, that’s just evading hard thought and hard work.

Here’s a sample I found in about two minutes (click on the screenshot if you want to see the articles).  They include “gun haters” like me.  I don’t hate guns: a gun is just a piece of metal. I intensely dislike the mind-set that claims we have a right to own guns, including concealed ones and semiautomatic ones.

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Readers’ wildlife video

June 29, 2016 • 7:45 am

Tara Tanaka is back with a wonderful video of a colorful bird, the Vermillion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus). Note the extreme sexual dimorphism!

Be sure to go here to play the video enlarged, and in high definition. Here are Tara’s notes:

I spent a week in Texas in May digiscoping birds, and I spent every minute of the best light with this pair of Vermillion Flycatchers. At first I was just shooting photos and video of the male, and after spending hours with him and watching him interact occasionally with the female, I realized that she was building a nest not far away. It looks like I was right on top of the nest when I was videoing it, but I was using a digiscoping system with an equivalent focal length of 1000mm, and was far enough away to not cause her any stress. First she used twigs, then lichen, and finally I watched in amazement as she brought back spider webs and used them to anchor everything in place. I heard from other birders that this pair had just fledged two juveniles, so this was their second nest of the season.

We left a day early as there were really bad storms headed our way, and we got out ahead of the violent weather and managed to stay just ahead of it all the way home. I emailed the campground host and found out that late on the day we left they were hit with a terrible storm and there were two trees and numerous branches down in the park. The branch she chose for her nest was as protected as it could possibly have been, so I have hope that it survived the storm.

Tara’s Vimeo page is here, and her Flickr page, with both videos and photos, is here.

And here’s the range map from the Cornell bird site:

pyro_rubi_AllAm_map

Captain Many Hands

June 29, 2016 • 7:00 am

Stephen Stills, one of the few people I’d have traded lives with, was known by his bandmates as “Captain Many Hands.” That’s because of his versatility on instruments, for he could play—and play well—virtually any instrument in a rock and roll band. Bass guitar, lead guitar, piano, drums, percussion, piano (plain and electric), banjo—you name it. Now add to that his gritty blues voice, which could also produce a great falsetto, and his talent for writing and arranging, and you have a combination of skills found in very few rock musicians of our time.

Here are two songs in which Stills plays every instrument.

The first, “Blonde in the Bleachers,” was written by Joni Mitchell, appearing on her great 1972 album, “For the Roses“.  She’s accompanied by Stills on piano, and for most of the song it’s just her voice and Stills’ piano. But in the last chorus Stills also plays electric guitar, drums, other percussion, and bass—every instrument. He’s credited on the song for being the “rock and roll band.”

I’m absolutely sure, though I have no information on this, that the song was written about Stills. It is, after all, about a charismatic male rock star with many groupies. As far as I know, Stills and Mitchell never had a relationship—hers was with Graham Nash, who wrote “Our House” about it—but they were friends. (Stills’s great love was Judy Collins.) In fact, Crosby, Stills, and Nash met at a party at Mitchell’s house, and discovered their amazing harmonies when they were asked to sing Stills’ song “You Don’t Have to Cry,” a song CS&N later sang on their first album.

This song, “Do For the Others”, is from Stills’s 1970 album whose title is simply his name. The backing vocals and instrumental contributors to the album read like a panoply of rock greats at the time: Cass Elliott, Rita Coolidge, Jimi Hendrix, John Sebastian, Graham Nash, Ringo Starr, David Crosby, Booker T. Jones, and Eric Clapton. (This is the only known album on which both Clapton and Hendrix play.) But on one song, “Do for the others,” no contributors are listed. That’s because every instrument on that song, and all the vocal tracks, were played or sung by Stills.

When I first heard it, I thought this song was about a guy who became a priest after losing his girlfriend, but the Internet tells me that it might be about David Crosby, whose girlfriend was killed in a car crash before CS&N released their first album in 1969.

Fun fact: Stephen Stills played guitar on Bill Withers’ great rhythm and blues song, “Ain’t No Sunshine” (1970).

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Captain Many Hands, 1969. Photo by Graham Nash

 

Hili Dialogue June 29

June 29, 2016 • 6:30 am

It’s the 180th day of 2016, so we’re nearly halfway through the year. And it’s Engineer’s Day in Ecuador! On this day in 1889, my own area of “Chicagoland”, Hyde Park, was annexed by the city of Chicago proper, making the city the largest in the U.S. by area. (I don’t think that’s true any longer.)  On June 29, 1975, Woz tested the first prototype of the Apple I personal computer, and exactly 32 years later the first iPhone was put on the market. .

Notables born on this day include Australian gangster Squizzy Taylor (1888), Nelson Eddy (1901), and Anne-Sophie Mutter (1963). Those who died on June 29 include Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1861), Paul Klee (1940), Eric Dolphy (1964) and Jayne Mansfield (1967). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is showing Cyrus the art of forensic olfaction:

Hili: I’ve already sniffed that.
Cyrus: And?
Hili: It’s from yesterday.
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In Polish:
Hili: Ja to już obwąchałam.
Cyrus: I co?
Hili: Wczorajsze.

And at Ten Cats, the new d*g bellhop at “Cats’ Inn” (the apostrophe changes position from strip to strip) learns the drill:

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More ill-gotten gains: Templeton gives $1 million to BioLogos

June 28, 2016 • 3:00 pm

The announcement below was apparently sent out by the evanglical Christian group BioLogos in a monthly newsletter, announcing an evolution-education grant to the tune of a cool million. But the money—from the John Templeton Foundation, of course—is going not for straight education in evolution, but to “introduce more people to the evolutionary creation position.” That, of course, is simply evolution guided or produced by God—theistic evolution. And that buttresses religion. Imagine the same thing, but for promoting theistic physics, or theistic chemistry. It’s God behind those chemical bonds!
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So, you scientists supported by Templeton, or whose World Science Festivals are supported by Templeton, do you still want to be part of an organization devoted to homeopathically diluting “science” by mixing it with supserstition? Oh yes, I forgot–of course you are. There’s simply too much money to refuse!

One more item: the “DoSER” (Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was founded with Templeton money and still gets it for various AAAS programs like the execrable “Science for Seminaries” initiative (why not “Science for Secular Southern Schools”?). DoSER’s director, Jennifer Wiseman, is also on BioLogos’s Board of Directors.  The AAAS is America’s largest organization of scientists, publishes the prestigious journal Science, and should not be engaging in theology. But you know how it goes. . .

And if you fall on hard times and need a 1-3 year job, the AAAS has an opening:

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Brian Cox defends free speech, calls no-platforming and censorship “nonsensical”

June 28, 2016 • 12:30 pm

There are many parallels between Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Both are trained physicists, both are extremely popular science popularizers (Cox is probably the most widely recognized science promoter in the UK, and Tyson is the same in the U.S.), and both are charismatic—and handsome as well (I’ve heard women sigh over both of them). Both are atheists. And both were involved in music: Tyson as an accomplished ballroom dancer, Cox as a keyboard player in two popular bands.

But there’s also a difference. Cox, like his wife Gia Milinovich, isn’t afraid to express political opinions that may be unpopular, while Tyson stays away from anything that may distract from his messages about science.  While I’m not going to fault Tyson for that, I can say that I admire Cox more for speaking his mind, even if it may alienate some of his supporters. But judging by his continuing popularity, and the fact that he’s got a new show on the Beeb this fall (“Forces of Nature”), he hasn’t alienated many.

Today’s Guardian reports a Radio Times interview with Cox (I can’t seem to find the original), in which he speaks out about several hot-button issues.  The indented stuff comes from the Guardian:

“No-platforming.”

. . . Prof Brian Cox, has criticised the “growing intolerance” of no-platform speaking bans at universities and colleges, describing them as “nonsensical”.

Cox, who lectures at the University of Manchester, told the new issue of Radio Times: “I suppose they’re trying to build a less aggressive space, which I understand – modern discourse is polarised.

“But university is supposed to be a place where civilised debate takes place. If not in the university, then where do you debate the most difficult questions? So, I disagree very profoundly with the idea that there’s such a thing as a safe space intellectually at a university. It’s nonsensical to me.

“The point of university is to build an intellectual armoury. You should expect that you’re not going be abused by a shouting loudmouth – you wouldn’t want modern political discourse to be brought off Twitter and into the student union. I understand why they don’t want that and they’re right not to want that. [JAC: Well, some students do want that, at least because, as in the Muslim students at Goldsmiths or the leftist students at DePaul, they actually become shouting loudmouths. It is in fact, political discourse ripped from the pages of social media.]

“But it’s not difficult to build a debate. That’s the basis of liberal democracy. We understand that. That’s why there are lines in the House of Commons greater than two swords’ length apart, right? We’ve worked that out.”

The NUS has said the policy, backed by the majority of its students, allowed free speech without intimidation.

Cox said: “I teach first years and I don’t see it in physics. There’s not much room for personal opinion there. But because I’m a professor at Manchester, I do watch the way that this intolerance is growing. Which is a word that they would object to.”

Closed minds about Brexit. Judging from his tw**ts and comments, it’s pretty clear that Cox favored the “stay” option in Brexit, but he did link to articles presenting both sides in some tw**ts. At any rate, he’s appalled that political discourse isn’t like scientific discourse, though of course politics is an ideology, not usually way of finding the truth. Politics is far more akin to religion than to science.

Cox, whose new series, Forces of Nature, begins on BBC1 next month, said he was worried about the current polarisation of debate, not least around Britain’s membership of the EU.

“Changing your mind in the face of evidence is absolutely central to a civilised democratic society,” he said. “I think there is something wrong, because polarisation tells you that people aren’t thinking.

“Science is a collection of things, some of which are more likely, some of which are almost certainly right, some of which are less likely and some of which are wrong – the central point is that you change your mind all the time.

“If you look at the Brexit debate, it’s interesting to note that I can’t see one politician or columnist who’s actually changed their mind [the interview took place before the Brexit vote].

“The amount of new evidence that’s come forward – new positions and new data – is huge, but not one of them has changed their mind. That tells you there’s something deeply flawed about the national conversation.

“I think if you accept that you’re probably wrong, that’s probably the most valuable thing that a curiosity about nature or society can give you. Maybe that’s the goal, really, isn’t it? Then a more civilised, less certain debate will ensue. Although I could be wrong.”

That assumes, of course, that politics is about truth.

While reading Cox’s Twi**er feed, I found out that he retweeted this awesome post from Richard Coles, a musician, journalist, and priest. It’s apparently a student’s essay on Niels Bohr:

h/t: Richard S.