Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Good morning: in the U.S. it’s Saturday, September 23, 2017, and it’s going to be hot again in Chicago, with a high of 88° F (31° C). And we’re predicted to be sweltering until Tuesday. It’s the hottest early fall I remember, and every day we’re setting records. I hate to think about global warming. . . .
It’s National Pancake Day, but I’ve already had my breakfast: a buttered baguette and a large latte: a French-style petitdéjuner. Today is the day the world is supposed to end as the “hidden planet” Nibiru crashes into Earth and then the trumpets blown and weird beasts occur. I’m betting a thousand dollars it won’t happen (any takers?), but you’d be foolish to bet against me because you couldn’t collect if you won. It’s also the Feast Day of Padre Pio, the man with the fake stigmata. I doubt seriously whether you can have Stigmata by Munchausen’s, and strongly suspect he made the wounds himself. Anyway, here’s a picture of the Padre with his “stigmata”:
Today’s Google Doodle (click on link to see) celebrates the 100th birthday of Asima Chatterjee, an Indian organic chemist. Working most of her life out of the University of Calcutta (she died in 2006), her major work was on the organic chemistry of alkaloids and the isolation of useful compounds from plants.
On this day in 1642, Harvard University had its first commencement—a weird time of the year for graduation (the University was founded in 1636). On September 23, 1806, Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis after their famous expedition to the American Northwest. In 1962, the Lincoln Center for the performing arts opened in New York City, and in 1980 Bob Marley played his last concert, in Pittsburgh. Already ill from metastasized melanoma (he had collapsed two days before), he lived for another few months before dying on May 11, 1981. His life might have been saved had he let the doctors amputate his toe, where the lesion occurred, but he feared it would hamper his movement. Instead, it ended his life. Finally, exactly 15 years ago, the first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox (“Phoenix 0.1”) was released.
Notables born on this day include the Roman Emperor Augustis (63 BC), Kublai Khan (1215), Walter Lippmann (1889), Louise Nevelson (1899), Mickey Rooney (1920), Ray Charles (1930), George Jackson (1941), Bruce Springsteen (1949; same year as me!), Jim Morrison (1952), and Sean Spicer (1971). Those who died on this day include Wilkie Collins (1889), Sigmund Fraud Freud (1939), Padre Pio (1968), Pablo Neruda (1973), Bob Fosse (1987), and Irv DeVore (2014).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus have a sleepy debate about free will. In fact, Hili’s being crushed was determined in advance; there was no alternative:
Hili: I’m crushed.
Cyrus: But you have freedom of movement and choice.
Butt to butt!
In Polish:
Hili: Jestem przygnieciona.
Cyrus: Ale masz nadal swobodę ruchu i wolność wyboru.
Via The Rainforest Site we get some rare footage of my absolute favorite wild cat, the Pallas’s cat, or “manul” (Otocolobus manul) hunting in nature. It’s a denizen of the Asian steppes, and, with its luxuriant fur and small ears, well adapted to deal with cold. The cubs appear 20 seconds into the video.
The skinny:
On August 31, the Pallas cat International Conservation Alliance announced that they had captured footage of the elusive animal in Mongolia’s Zoolon Mountains. Using remote sensor research cameras, the footage shows a full-grown Pallas cat hunting in the daylight. The cameras also recorded cubs exploring the strange cameras during the night.
Well that wasn’t long enough to satisfy our desire to see this wonderful beast, so have a two-minute video from PBS. Look at that fur!
And note the eyestripes, something present in Felis silvestris, and ancestor of the house cat. I’m sure there’s ample speculation about possible adaptive functions of this pattern, but I don’t know what it is. Any guesses?
Felis silvestris, the European wildcatDomestic tabby (Hili)
An article by Jillian Kay Meolchior in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “Inside the madness at Evergreen State” (behind a paywall, but I thank a kind reader for sending me the text), reveals that, contrary to the college’s claims, The Evergreen State College (TESC) had a toxic atmosphere of authoritarianism, so that accusations of racism were leveled on the thinnest of evidence—or no evidence at all.
The problems at TESC came to light when biology professor Bret Weinstein refused to leave campus last spring during the “Day of Departure”, as he was white and considered a demand to leave as an oppressive act. As you’ll know if you read this site, Weinstein had a history of anti-racist activism, so he was hardly someone to demonize. Yet demonized he was, to the point that he and Heather Heying, another biology professor and Weinstein’s spouse, were called racists, hounded, threatened, and eventually forced to leave the town of Olympia, Washington, for their own safety. Weinstein and Heather just settled with TESC for $500,000—only two years’ salary for the pair—and resigned from the college yesterday.
Meolchior managed to get hundreds of pages of internal TESC correspondence through the state’s public records act, and says this:
The emails show that some students and faculty were quick to levy accusations of racism with neither evidence nor consideration of the reputational harm they could cause. The emails also reveal Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Heying were not the only ones concerned about a hostile and dangerous campus.
I’ve already commented about how dysfunctional and regressive TESC is, so I’ll put some of Ms. Meolchior’s findings in bullet points for the record—to make them available to those misguided souls who think that everything’s hunky dory at TESC. The bullet points are direct quotes from the WSJ piece. The bolding, though, is mine:
Consider a February exchange, in which Mr. Weinstein — a progressive who is skeptical of identity politics — faulted what he called Evergreen administrators’ “reckless, top-down reorganization around new structures and principles.” Within minutes, a student named Mike Penhallegon fired back an email denouncing Mr. Weinstein and his “racist colleagues.”
Another student, Steve Coffman, responded by asking for proof of racism within the science faculty. Mr. Coffman cited Christopher Hitchens’s variation of Occam’s razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Jacqueline McClenny, an office assistant for the First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services — a campus office that helped organize the Day of Absence — observed that because Hitchens’s razor is an “Englishman’s popularization of a Latin proverb,” it “would seem to itself be the product of at least two traditionally hierarchical, imperialist societies with an interest in disposing of inconvenient questions.”
That’s how insane people are acting there.
Media professor Naima Lowe [JAC: one of the big instigators of student unrest] urged one of Mr. Weinstein’s defenders to read about how calls for civility are “often used to silence and/or dismiss concerns about racism.” She also said that the “white people making changes in their white supremacist attitudes and behaviors” were those “who do not immediately balk and become defensive,” instead acknowledging that “white supremacy is literally ingrained in everything.” In other words, merely defending oneself against the accusation of “white supremacy” is evidence of guilt.
After a mob occupied the library, the college’s facilities engineer, Richard Davis, wrote in an email that he believed “the students are testing how much lawlessness will be tolerated,” and “they have not found a boundary yet.” He described how two students stalked him and screamed at him, adding that he was disturbed by the lack of police. “Many of us are stating that as long as the students are not violent, their behavior is acceptable,” Mr. Davis continued. “Apparently, violence in this context is bloodshed.” (Mr. Davis retired in June.)
The protests were “loud and at times intimidating,” wrote John Hurley, Evergreen’s vice president for finance and administration. “Unfortunately some members of our community were stopped as they tried to leave campus and that was scary and others felt barricaded in their office.”
JAC: I suspect that in the “new” version of TESC, the role of the campus police will be minimized. Most of the humanities students hate them anyway, and they weren’t called out by President George “Invertebrate” Bridges to quell disturbances. It’ll be a tough job to be a campus cop at TESC!
Finally, there’s this:
Nancy Koppelman, an American studies and humanities professor, described being “followed by white students who yelled and cursed at me, accused me of not caring about black and brown bodies, and claimed that if I did care I would follow their orders.” Ms. Koppelman, who is 5-foot-1 [JAC: she appears to be white], said the students towered over her, and “the only thing they would accept was my obedience.” She reported that the encounter so unnerved her that she was left physically shaking. Ms. Koppelman wrote that she was worried about “features of the current protest strategy that violate the social contract, and possibly the law.” Tolerating such tactics, she argued, “may create a working environment which is too hostile for some of us to continue our employment at the college.” Her email concluded: “I have not decided whether or how to share these thoughts more widely. If I do, I will very likely be tagged as ‘a racist’ by some of my colleagues and the students they teach.”
Clearly the students now think they’re running the place, and now that they’ve had their Pyrrhic victory by driving two great teachers away from the school, they’re going to feel more empowered. I can’t even imagine teaching there, much less being a student who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid. It’s a sad day when people like Professor Koppelman can’t even write about being intimidated by students without fear of being called a racist.
UPDATE: Betsy DeVos has just reversed the “Dear Colleague” policy. As the New York Times notes in a brief report:
Reversing a key part of government policy on campus sexual assault, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday issued new temporary rules that could give accused students greater protection against campus rape and sexual misconduct claims.
Ms. DeVos said that colleges may now use a higher standard of evidence before finding students responsible for sexual assault, a decision that can lead to discipline and even expulsion.
The change, the latest in a widespread rollback of Obama-era rules by the Trump administration, had been long sought by advocates of accused students, mostly men, who had complained that campus judicial processes had become heavily biased in favor of women accusers.
The rules, a sharp break from the Obama administration’s directives, will now permit colleges and universities to raise their evidence requirements to a “clear and convincing standard” of proof. The Obama administration had demanded colleges use a lower “preponderance of evidence” standard.
The interim rules permit colleges to maintain the preponderance standard if they so choose, but the change suggests Ms. DeVos wants colleges to consider adopting the higher standard, if not actually forcing them to do so. The rules will remain in effect while the Education Department seeks public comment on a permanent set of rules.
I suspect that most colleges will keep the “preponderance of evidence” standard out of simple inertia—unless lawsuits by those found guilty start to accumulate.
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In 2011, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) of the U.S. Department of Education sent its famous “Dear Colleague” letter to American colleges and universities, suggesting how sexual harassment and assault cases should be handled. Before that, it was pretty much up to the colleges how to handle such in-house investigations, and different colleges used different standards of evidence. There are three that could be used (see here for more explanation):
Conviction requires guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”, which of course means that the bar is very high for conviction.
Conviction requires “clear and convincing evidence”, that is, it must be “highly probable or reasonably certain” that harassment or assault occurred. This is conventionally interpreted to mean a likelihood of 75% or higher that the assault took place.
Conviction requires a “preponderance of the evidence” for assault or hasassment. This means that it is more likely that not (likelihood > 50 %) that the offense occurred.
Criminal courts in the U.S. use the first standard for conviction. The “clear and convincing” standard is used in some administrative court determinations and certain civil or criminal cases (a prisoner seeking habeas corpus relief from capital punishment, for instance, must prove his innocence using this standard). The “preponderance” standard is used in civil and family courts; it is, for instance, the reason why O. J. Simpson was found guilty of by a civil court for damages in the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, thus owing them lots of money even though he was exonerated in his criminal trial.
The “Dear Colleague” letter, although said by the Obama administration to be only “advisory”, made a strong suggestion that adjudicating sexual assault cases in colleges should use the lowest standard of proof. Here’s an excerpt (my emphasis):
As noted above, the Title IX regulation requires schools to provide equitable grievance procedures. As part of these procedures, schools generally conduct investigations and hearings to determine whether sexual harassment or violence occurred. In addressing complaints filed with OCR under Title IX, OCR reviews a school’s procedures to determine whether the school is using a preponderance of the evidence standard to evaluate complaints. The Supreme Court has applied a preponderance of the evidence standard in civil litigation involving discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq.
. . . Thus, in order for a school’s grievance procedures to be consistent with Title IX standards, the school must use a preponderance of the evidence standard (i.e., it is more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred). The “clear and convincing” standard (i.e., it is highly probable or reasonably certain that the sexual harassment or violence occurred), currently used by some schools, is a higher standard of proof. Grievance procedures that use this higher standard are inconsistent with the standard of proof established for violations of the civil rights laws, and are thus not equitable under Title IX. Therefore, preponderance of the evidence is the appropriate standard for investigating allegations of sexual harassment or violence
The rationale, as you see, put the Title IX standards in line with that of civil rights violations rather than criminal actions. Although this was touted as a “guideline”, it was made clear that colleges might suffer withdrawal of federal funds if they didn’t adhere to the 2011 standards, and also be subject to on-site inspection by the OCR. Virtually every college now adheres to the standards laid out in the “Dear Colleague” letter.
If you’ve followed the news even cursorily, you know that there were other provisions of the letter (like allowing a form of double jeopardy for the accused) that led to a mess and a bunch of lawsuits by those who were convicted—almost all men. Students could be tried even if the “victim” didn’t complain or even denied that any assault took place: a simple third-party complaint would do. And professors got in trouble merely for discussing other people’s cases, making them subject to their own Title IX complaints (see the recent article in the New Yorker, “Laura Kipnis’s Endless Trial by Title IX“). For other reports of how Title IX has led to widespread confusion, see the articles here and here, as well as Emily Yoffe’s three-part series in The Atlantic (links here).
Criticisms of OCR Criticism of OCR’s enforcement of its directives has come from a broad range of stakeholders, including law professors, civil libertarians, and others. This is a sampling:
Twenty-eight Harvard Law professors protested that OCR’s directives“lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process, are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused, and are in no way required by Title IX law or regulation.”
University of Pennsylvania law professors expressed “outrage” at the fact that campus sexual assault has become “a justification for shortcuts in our adjudicatory processes,” criticizing the practice as “unwise” and contradicting “our principles.”
Members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights noted OCR’s “disturbing pattern of disregard for the rule of law” in addressing campus sexual violence and observed that “nowhere in the text of Title IX, which has been used to justify the school’s need to adjudicate outside the justice system, or in earlier Office for Civil Rights regulations does it state such a low burden be used.”’
Elizabeth Bartholet, a Harvard professor of civil rights, has described OCR’s policies restricting the due process provided to accused students as “madness.”
Cornell University professor Cynthia Bowman reported “general agreement among faculty at the Law School that the procedures being proposed are Orwellian.”
Professional organizations have expressed concerns, as well:
The American Association of University Professors warned OCR that use of the lower standard of proof would “erode the due process protections for academic freedom.”
The National Association of Scholars has urged Congress to “[r]ein in education administration on ‘unlawful’ bullying, sexual assault policies.”
The mess that we’re in started as an admirable attempt to make sure that women were treated equally on campuses (the original purpose of Title IX) and then later to ensure that as few sexual assaults as possible would occur on campuses. We’re all in favor of these things. But the mess came from two sources: the reduction of the standard of evidence for guilt to the lowest possible bar, and to adjudicating criminal acts by colleges acting on their own rather than using the legal system. Further, universities aren’t really set up for this kind of trial system, and widely varying standards of evidence and procedure resulted. Some of the stories are frightening.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently announced that the Trump administration is going to look at the Obama standards and perhaps change them, tightening the standards of evidence. This has been met with outrage by liberals and feminists as the Trump administration’s attempt to “normalize” rape culture. (Surprisingly, an article in the New Yorker by Jeannie Suk Gersen, a Harvard Law Professor and the author of the aforementioned piece on Kipnis, approves of DeVos’s move.)
Now I’m as suspicious of DeVos as anyone else is, but we can’t simply reject every new policy simply because it comes from a Trump appointee. As Gersen said of DeVos’s speech on the subject, what the Secretary said would be uncontroversial if it came from an Obama appointee:
In short, DeVos appears to be proceeding exactly as an agency head should: give notice, take comments, and explain why a given policy is being adopted. But the intent to depart from an Obama-era policy, which itself did not go through those steps, will undoubtedly garner outrage and dismay. “We must continue to condemn the scourge of sexual misconduct on our campuses,” she said. “We can do a better job of making sure the handling of complaints is fair and accurate,” she also said. If these statements were made by a different official in a different Administration, they would seem rational, uncontroversial, and even banal. The idea that an adjudicatory process should be fair to both sides is about as basic as any facet of American law can be, even when it is articulated by an individual who is noncommittal on the basic educational rights of L.G.B.T.Q. students and students with disabilities, and who believes that guns belong in schools to protect against grizzly bears. But in these times, especially following the equivocal statements made by President Trump on the violence in Charlottesville, the very concept of “both sides” may approach moral peril (to say nothing of the fact that Trump himself has boasted of sexual assault).
It’s clear that Title IX needs fixing. I’m not sure how to do it, but I think the “preponderance of evidence” standard needs to go. Sexual assault is a serious matter—a heinous criminal act—and should be judged according to higher standards of evidence.
One solution is that all cases reported to colleges be reported to the courts first, who will determine what to do and, if there’s determined to be sufficient evidence for a trial, find the accused innocent or guilty. If guilt is determined, then the college can make its own judgment about how to treat the guilty student. Others object to that because not all victims want to report assaults to the police. But then it doesn’t seem fair that someone can be convicted by a much lower standard of evidence (granted, they’d just get suspended rather than incarcerated)—especially a “>50%” one that comes close to a judgment call. I haven’t yet formulated a strong opinion on this, but am asking readers to weigh in on one of four choices.
First, you can choose whether or not all sexual assault cases reported to colleges should be immediately given to the police for handling, and only after the courts have resolved the issue should the college step in. (I’d think that a finding of “not guilty” would end the matter, but maybe not.) Or, if you think that colleges should judge these cases independently of the courts, using their own standards of evidence and procedure, which of the three standards above should the college use?
These are mutually exclusive choices, so please vote for one and please justify your answer in the comments if you have time. You can view the results after you vote.
Today we have some nice photos from reader Mark Sturtevant. His notes are indented:
These are some pictures of arthropods that I have taken this summer. The first picture is a common but lovely red milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). These are a kind of longhorn beetle that feeds on milkweed, and the bright colors are likely a warning that it is toxic. A character of many longhorns is the possession of compound eyes that wrap around the base of the antennae. This species takes that trait to extremes because the eyes are split by the antennae – so here is an insect with 4 compound eyes! The scientific name refers to this feature.
The next two pictures are of an ant mimicking jumping spider, Synemosyna formica. These things are tiny, and so the picture was taken with the aid of a Raynox 150 on my macro lens. She was pretty cooperative for a jumping spider, but she would wander around on this leaf and occasionally pick up this bit of food and nom on it. She would then put it down, explore the leaf a bit, then return to the morsel for another tasting.
[JAC: Isn’t this a remarkable mimic?]
The next picture is of a mating pair of bee-like robber flies (Laphria sp.). These flies are fearsome predators, and are always worth looking for. The male (on the left) was alarmed by my presence and kept trying to buzz away. But he was firmly attached to the female who did not want to fly off, so he was repeatedly yanked to a halt. I hope it was not too painful.
The next three pictures are of some odd-looking grasshoppers. These are adult pygmy grasshoppers (I think Tetrix arenosa) that are only about a quarter inch in length. Another peculiar feature of these ‘hoppers is that the dorsal plate of their first thoracic segment (the pronotum) is extended rear-ward to cover their wings. The first individual has what seems to be mites, and these may be the larval stage of the red velvet mite (see below). The second picture is of a female I spotted only because she had moved. So I got comfortable on the muddy trail and was taking her picture when I noticed a furtive movement nearby. It was a male, and he was creeping up on the female. The male attempted to climb on her but she would kick him off. This happened a few times, but the male was persistent. In the last picture we see he did manage to clamber aboard but his problem is obvious.
The red velvet mite (Trombidium sp.) in the last picture was creeping around on the forest floor, so I moved it to a place where I could more easily take its picture. It turns out that they have pretty interesting lives. Red velvet mites start out as nymphs which attach themselves to a larger arthropod to suck their hemolymph, as shown here. The nymphs later grow up to be the cute little velveteen critters that we see here. At this stage they are predators of soil arthropods, but of course their minds are really on sex. The sex lives of velvet mites resembles an X-rated soap opera. This story was shown here in WEIT several years ago, where Jerry linked to an educational online cartoon from The Oatmeal. That lesson bears repeating, and so the link is here .
JAC: Here’s a video Mark sent showing the creature in action.
Good morning and happy End Of the Work Week: it’s Friday, September 22, 2017, and we’re into fall. It’s also the 265th day of the year, so we’ve got but a hundred to go until 2018. Today is also my last physical therapy bout for the shoulder, so my aging carcass, having suffered some trauma, is healing well—though of course my finger remains crooked.
It’s the Autumn Equinox, when the day is as long as the night, and Google is celebrating with this cute animated Doodle. The rodent, however, is using a tea bag, when we all know that rodents prefer a proper cup of tea brewed with leaves.
It’s National White Chocolate Day; lacking chocolate liqueur, and beefed up with milk solids and sugar, this substance is basically cocoa butter, better applied to your skin than your stomach. I can eat the stuff only in white-chocolate/macadamia nut cookies. I’m surprised there isn’t a postmodernist article on the stuff. And it’s HOBBIT DAY, celebrating the birthdays of both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins as recounted in Tolkien’s books; it’s also the beginning of Tolkien Week. As I said, I haven’t read the books for decades, and haven’t seen a single Tolkien movie, but that epic stands as the greatest fantasy book of our time. Wikipedia notes this about Hobbit Day.
Some Tolkien fans celebrate by having parties and feast emulating the hobbit’s parties. Other fans celebrate by simply going barefooted in honor of the hobbits, who don’t wear shoes. Some schools and libraries use this as an opportunity to pique interest in Tolkien’s work by putting up displays and hosting events
Well, I’m barefoot now (in bed, and as I write this it’s 4:20 a.m.), but not for long.
On September 22, 1692, the last person convicted in the Salem witch trials was hanged, with the other accused people released. On this day in 1776, the 21 year old Nathan Hale was hanged by the British for spying. It’s banner day for Mormons, for on this day in 1823, Joseph Smith claimed he retrieved those golden plates after the Angel Moroni, directed by God, led him to their burial site in New York. On such thin and unbelievable tales are religions founded. On this day in 1888, the first issue of National Geographic was released, and it’s been going downhill for a long time, publishing soppy articles on Where Jesus Walked.
Finally, on this day in 1896, Queen Victoria passed her grandfather (King George III) as the longest-reigning British monarch. She eventually ruled for 63 years and 216 days. But now Elizabeth II has passed that: as of today she’s been reigning for 65 years and 226 days. But both pale compared to other monarchs; in fact, according to Wikipedia’s list, Victoria is only #50. The longest reigning ruler of any country given there is Sobhuza II, ruler of Swaziland from December 10, 1899 to 21 August, 1982—a total of 82 years and 252 days. When he died he had had 70 wives and left over a thousand grandchildren. (Take that, Cordelia Fine!) Sobhuza II became king at the age of only four months. Here he is after having reigned many years:
Wikipedia says this, which I didn’t know: on September 22, 1948, “Gail Halvorsen officially started parachuting candy to children as part of the Berlin Air lift.” In operation “Little Vittles,” Halvorsen dropped bubble gum and chocolate to the sugar-starved kids of Berlin. On this day in 1975, Sara Jane Moore unsuccessfully tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford, and exactly five years later, Iraq invaded Iran.
Notables born on this day include Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism (1539), Michael Faraday (1791), Debby Boone (1956) and Joan Jett (1958).
Those who died on this day include Nathan Hale (1776; see above), Shaka Zulu (1828), Marion Davies (1961), George C. Scott (1999), Isaac Stern (2001), Eddie Fisher (2010), and Yogi Berra (2015). The video below is in honor of Scott in his greatest performance, Patton. Who wasn’t mesmerized by this opening scene? (Note: don’t bother to tell us if you don’t like it; just don’t watch it). Make American great again!! Punch Nazis!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, where the staff is eating plum pies [ 🙁 ], Hili is more interested in her kibbles:
A: Hili, you had your breakfast half an hour ago.
Hili: Yes, but I burned up all those calories in walking around. I need my strength to be able to sleep.
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, pół godziny temu jadłaś śniadanie.
Hili: Tak, ale wszystkie kalorie spaliłam podczas spaceru, muszę nabrać sił, żeby móc się przespać.
Matthew sent two tw**ts; this one shows a young seal leaping into a boat to avoid Death by Orca. When I wrote back, “Poor seal,” Matthew responded “Poor orcas,” and then lectured me on how horrible nature is. I think he didn’t have a good breakfast.
This brave little seal was being chased by 12 hungry orcas — so he climbed on to this family's boat to get help. pic.twitter.com/RRLlgLSF5Q
Is there a Match.com for gastropods? Because if there is, “Jeremy,” a rare left-handed variant of what the Torygraph says is a garden snail (Cornu aspersa) needs to put up his profile pronto:
Left-handed garden snail seeks mate for companionable dinners (no garlic butter!), long crawls on the beach, and, above all, mating. No right-handed snails need apply.
Most land snails have right-handed coiling, but the Torygraph reports that researchers at Nottingham University found a rare, left-handed variant: a one in a million find. Naming it “Jeremy” (these are hemaphrodites), they started a worldwide search for another left-handed snail, because, for reasons shown just below, lefties can only mate with lefties, and righties with righties:
And just weeks later, after drawing international attention, Jeremy’s love story appeared to reach a fairytale ending. Not one, but two left-coiling mates came forward: “Lefty,” a snail owned by a collector in England, and “Tomeu,” a snail rescued at a restaurant while awaiting a fate as a menu item.
As winter hibernation came to a close, Davison hoped the heat would turn up for Jeremy and one of his two possible mates.
“But in a tragic twist, Jeremy has been left shellshocked after being given the cold shoulder by both of his suitors,” Davison said.
That’s right, Jeremy was thrust into a love triangle. The other two snails took a liking to each other, leaving Jeremy a bachelor once more. Lefty and Tomeu began copulating, and now have produced about 170 eggs between them, Davison announced Wednesday.
“We liken it to when you’re interested in someone romantically and you end up introducing that person to your best friend,” Davison said. This first batch of eggs to hatch were “fathered” by Lefty and laid by Tomeu in April. (Snails are hermaphrodites so they can take on the role of either mother or father.) Two more batches of eggs — another laid by Tomeu and one laid by Lefty and fathered by Tomeu — will soon be hatching.
The curious thing is that all the offspring of Lefty and Tomeu have right-handed coiling! How could that be? Well, it’s an interesting story of snail genetics and how the genes for coiling are inherited and activated, but I’ll let a reader fill in that part.
Here’s Jeremy along with a snail of opposite coiling:
Photo by Angus Davidson
And Lefty and Tomeu mating (TRIGGER WARNING: SEX: NSFW!) Poor Jeremy!
“Lefty” and “Tomeu” are pictured mating. (Courtesy of Angus Davison).
As of last May, the aging Jeremy was still a virgin. Lefty went back to hir owner (these are rarities), but the researchers still hope that Jeremy and Tomeu will mate. With further judicious crosses, they could produce an entire race of left-handed snails, and they’d in effect be producing a new species, since members of that group couldn’t mate with the right-handed type.
[JAC: Isn’t this a remarkable mimic?]
JAC: Here’s a video Mark sent showing the creature in action.
