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.
Today’s Jesus and Mo refers to an incident that happened—can it be?—eight years ago. As the author notes in his/her email:
Another old one today. Do you remember the story that led to it?
I swear, if this strip were published today, the author would have to buy a Kevlar vest! (And Mo needs to get some exercise. Riding wingéd horses doesn’t exactly put one in shape.)
It’s hump day, and there are many things to do, all involving some sort of preparation for the release of the Albatross: writing essays for various venues to help publicize it, reading for interviews, and so on. It’s going to be a busy two months, so forgive me if posting becomes lighter than usual. The chat with Brother Sam was lovely: it went 1.5 hours and covered a lot more than the book, including free will, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the curious attitude of the Left toward Islam, “mindfulness” and so on. (We did NOT discuss profiling or torture.) It’s nice to talk to someone who is a free-will determinist! I believe the podcast will come out on Book Day (May 19).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is glad that spring has arrived, though she makes a funny about Cyrus’s micturations:
Hili: Resurrection!
Cyrus: Where?
Hili: Everywhere, except for this bush you are constantly peeing on. It didn’t manage it.
Hili: Zmartwychwstanie!
Cyrus: Gdzie?
Hili: Wszędzie, tylko ten krzak, który ciągle obsikujesz nie dał rady.
by Greg Mayer
Why, so can I, or so can any man; But are there any to come when you do call for them?”
[Update below.]
In writing about today’s Loch Ness Monster Google Doodle, Jerry noted that I have taught about cryptozoology (the science of “hidden animals”) for many years, and we’ve written about it here at WEIT on several occasions, including a mention of the Loch Ness Monster. The “surgeon’s photo”, supposedly taken in 1934 by military physician Lt. Col. Robert K. Wilson, features in Jerry’s piece, and, indeed, in most accounts of the monster. Although the photo shown by Jerry is well known, it is less well known that it is cropped from a larger image. Here’s the original.
I have always been suspicious of the surgeon’s photograph, because it seemed to me that the ripples are the wrong scale for a large object. This is not something I could quantify, but, just as in older Japanese monster movies you could tell it was a scale-model city burning (and not Tokyo) because the flames didn’t look right, the water doesn’t look right for something the size of the monster. Commenters on the original photo note that the far side of the Loch is visible in the distance, but I can’t see it in this version (see Update below).
In 1994, the story broke that the photo was a hoax arranged by Marmaduke Wetherell, a big game hunter, in order to embarrass the Daily Mail. (If only Wetherell were alive today, so that he could see how thorough a job the Mail does in embarrassing itself every day without his assistance!) Some have considered the hoax story a hoax, but that’s not the consensus view. Stephen Lyons has a good account of the photo on PBS’s Nova website. His account is part of a companion website for the NOVA film “The Beast of Loch Ness” (1999), and I can recommend both the site and the film (which features participants in the Academy of Applied Sciences expeditions– see below),
As Jerry notes, Wilson was always very cagey about the photo and the circumstances under which it was taken, and what was in it. As Nicholas Witchell put it in The Loch Ness Story (1975),
Colonel Wilson refused to enlarge upon the bare facts of his story and would not try to estimate the size of the object. In fact, he never claimed that he had photographed the ‘Monster’; all he ever said was that he photographed an object moving in the waters of Loch Ness. He wrote: ‘I am not able to describe what I saw. As I finished, the object moved a little and submerged.’
Witchell took this to be the sober reticence of a scientifically trained observer, but in hindsight we can see it as a guy being real careful not to lie. In teaching cryptozoology, I have the students read the account of the photo in Witchell, and ask them about exactly which claims (extraordinary or otherwise) were made by Wilson (Answer: essentially, none). If the hoax story is true, then Wilson must have been in on it, but depending on exactly how the photos were taken, everything he subsequently said could be true.
In addition to the surgeon’s photo, there are also the famous “flipper photos” of 1972, and the “body and neck” and “head photos of 1975. These were taken by a team from the Academy of Applied Sciences led by Robert Rines and Harold Edgerton. Edgerton was a well-known physicist, inventor, and pioneer in photographic technology who was also a Nessie skeptic, but agreed to help inventor and lawyer Rines, an MIT alumnus, in his quest to photograph the beast.
The flipper photos seemed the most like a definite object in the water, but Dick Raynor, a member of the 1972 team, has argued, convincingly I think, that they are simply photos of the Loch bottom that have been enhanced beyond recognition. The 1975 photos aren’t clearly of anything, to my eye. Here’s one of them.
The 1972 and 1975 pictures were the subject of some scientific interest, with publication in science/technology media, and an account of a Cornell University conference in the scientific literature (Adler, 1976). Adler and other well respected herpetologists were impressed at the time for the evidence of something being in the Loch, but this was before the degree of alteration by enhancement was widely known. There are things in the Loch– sturgeons have been long known, and, more recently, seals, which have convex backs and heads that stick up at the surface, have been found in the Loch.
The now infamous Garry Trudeau gently ribbed the Academy of Applied Sciences Loch Ness expeditions in a series of Doonesbury cartoons in 1976; here are my two favorites.
And finally, I must applaud Google’s Streetviews of Loch Ness and the vicinity of Castle Urquhart– they include what looks like a trebuchet, my favorite medieval siege engine!
Update. Reader Michael notes that there are even less cropped versions of the surgeon’s photo in which the opposite shore is visible. He provides a link, but it’s rather long, so I here provide the photo, from Darren Naish’s Tet Zoo blog, which we have long commended for its cryptozoological acumen. Also, I note that a few readers of Jerry’s Google Doodle post also thought, like I did, that the ripples in the surgeon’s photo looked fishy for an animal supposed to be quite large. (Jerry told me about his post early today, and I set about writing my post before reading the comments on his.)
Adler, K. 1976. Loch Ness Monster evidence presented at Cornell University. Herpetological Review 7:41-46. (My copy of this, in one of the first journals I subscribed to while in high school, is a treasured part of my library.)
Rines, R.H., H.E. Edgerton, C.W. Wyckhoff, and M. Klein. 1976. Search for the Loch Ness Monster. Technology Review March/April 1976, pp. 25-40.
Witchell, N. 1975 The Loch Ness Story. Rev. ed. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.
Here’s a “ribbet-ing discovery”, a pun that comes from the Daily Mail. And, this time I did check the date on the research, and it is indeed new. The bad news is that I can’t access the journal Zootaxa (you can find three pages of the larger paper here, two of which are references), so I’m going on second-hand reports, which report the discovery of a new glass frog in the genus Hyalinobatrachium: H. dianae, which already has its own Wikipedia page. Here’s a screenshot of part of the first page, which gives the reference:
The frog is getting attention because it supposedly looks like Kermit. You be the judge; I refer you to that eminent repository of biological research, The Daily Mail:
Glass frogs are of course named after their renowned transparency, which this one shares:
The Mail reports (hey, I’m happy that they give this much biological information in a tabloid!):
Scientists were surprised to stumble across the frog, given that a through survey of the region was conducted late last century, and reported their find in the journal Zootaxa.
The frog was named by Brian Kubicki who discovered it, after his mother Janet Diana Kubicki to thank her for supporting his interest in science, Costa Rica’s Tico Times reported.
. . . Lead author of the study, Dr Kubicki said: Its advertisement call is quite unique…It’s different than any other species that has been discovered.’
The study says the frog’s ‘advertisement call’ consists of ‘a single tonal long metallic whistle-like note with a duration of 0.40–0.55 s… and a dominant frequency of 3.35–3.44 kHz’.
It’s likely the frog uses it to find a mate in the mountain forests.
Dr Kubicki said that the amphibian sounds more like an insect than a frog, which may explain how experts missed it during their extensive survey.
The frog also measures just one inch (2.5cm) long, making it relatively difficult to spot among the foliage in the west forests and rainforests of the Caribbean foothills of Costa Rica where it was discovered at elevations of between 1,312 ft to 2,624 ft (400–800 m).
And USA Today adds this:
Brian Kubicki said the small, semi-translucent specimen is delicate and “is a good indicator of the general health of the eco-system.” Kubicki named the frog “Hyalinobatrachium dianae” in honor of the senior author’s mom Janet Diane Kubicki, the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center says.
Other authors include Stanley Salazar and Robert Puschendorf, according to the Center.
According to C|Net, the species has been given the adorable common name of “Diane’s Bare-hearted glassfrog,”
NBC News has a report with a video and this introduction:
A new species of frog found in the Central American country of Costa Rica is being compared to Jim Henson’s most famous Muppet and apparently the two look most alike in the eyes.
I love the note “the Central American country of Costa Rica,” as if most people don’t know where it is. But by “most people” I mean “most people in the world,” for Americans are notoriously ignorant about geography.
And here’s the video; click on the screenshot below to see it:
h/t: Chris
This is unbelievable: Amnesty International is demonizing not only Israel, but Jews in general. I’m distressed to hear that Amnesty International has defeated a resolution to condemn and respond to the rise of antisemitic sentiment and violence in the UK (see below for the resolution):
Amnesty International has rejected a motion to tackle the rise in antisemitic attacks in Britain at its annual conference.
The motion was table by Amnesty member Andrew Thorpe-Apps in March who said it was defeated at the International AGM on Sunday by 468 votes to 461.
Mr Trope Apps said: “It was the only resolution to be defeated during the whole conference.”
In March the charity confirmed the resolution calling for the group to “campaign against antisemitism in the UK and lobby the government to tackle the rise in attacks” had been accepted for discussion at the conference.
A spokesperson for Amnesty said: “We can confirm this resolution has been tabled and will be debated at the AGM.” [JAC: “AGM” is the Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International]
Mr Thorpe-Apps said he put forward the motion because “I recently joined and I believe passionately about human rights.
“I was aware that the organisation has been outwardly pro-Palestine in the past but it hasn’t stood up for the Jewish population and I think it would be good if they did that.
Seriously, do you think that AI would have defeated a similar resolution that called for action against anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK, and more effort to combat the rise of anti-Muslim violence—something I’d support? Don’t make me laugh. Antisemitism is, apparently, no longer such a sin.
Here’s the resolution:
This AGM CALLS On AIUK to:
• Campaign against anti-Semitism in the UK.
• Lobby the UK Government to do more to tackle the rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Britain, whether physical or verbal, online or in person. The UK Government should monitor anti-semitism closely and periodically review the security of Britain’s Jewish population.Proposer background notes:
It has been 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. Yet, even in 2015, European Jews are facing intolerance and abuse from anti-Semites.There are now Jewish schools in the UK where the children are prepared for a potential terrorist attack, and there are Downing Street-style car bomb barriers to shield school buildings.
This year witnessed the murder of four Jews following the appalling Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. In February a Jewish man was shot outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue following an attack at a free speech debate.
On 9th February, the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into AntiSemitism report was launched at Lambeth Palace. The report found that there was a 221% increase in hate crimes directed at Jews during the 2014 conflict between Israel and Gaza, when compared with the same period in 2013.
The Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitic abuse and attacks, recorded 314 incidents in July 2014, the highest ever monthly total and more than the preceding six months combined. A quarter of these incidents took place on social media, and one third used Holocaust-related language or imagery.
The All-Party Parliamentary report recommends that:
• An independent council of non-Jewish figures is established to highlight trends in anti-Semitism, and make suggestions to the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
• The UK Government fund more research into antiSemitism, report the findings to Parliament at least once per session about its work combating hate crime, and work with the CPS, police, and social-media companies to make online anti-Semitic abuse easier to report and stop.
Is there anything objectionable in that resolution beyond the obvious fact that it deals with hatred of Jews? If so, I don’t see it. Amnesty International—join the lineup of those who, by refusing to recognize or deal with the increase in anti-Semitism, tacitly sanction it.
UPDATE: I’m a real dummy; I failed to check the dates of any of these items and a eagle-eyed reader noted that they’re all from 2011! I should have seen that from the dates on the Science paper, if not the links. Oh well, it’s still interesting stuff.
*******
A paper in Science by Ryan McKellar et al. (reference and link below; no access to full paper without $$!) reports the amazing discovery of feathers preserved in amber from the late Cretaceous (around 65-90 million years ago). The amber (fossilized plant resin) was discovered in deposits at Grassy Lake, Alberta, Canada. There’s also a nice piece in The Atlantic which summarizes the importance of the findings and a series of photos at io9.com with explanations of what each photo shows. The striking finding is that there are all stages of feather evolution seen in the amber, from simple filaments to very complex feathers.
Now we’re not sure what creatures these feathers belong to, so I’m jumping the gun a bit with the title. Our uncertainty is because there are no fossils of anything in the layer where these feathers were found. But the authors justify the conclusion that these are dinosaur feathers because they’re in layers near those containing near dino remains:
Although neither avian nor dinosaurian skeletal material has been found in direct association with amber at the Grassy Lake locality, fossils of both groups are present in adjacent stratigraphic units. Hadrosaur footprints are found in close association with the amber, and younger (late Campanian and Maastrichtian) strata of western Canada contain diverse nonavian dinosaur and avian remains. There is currently no way to refer the feathers in amber with certainty to either birds or the rare small theropods from the area. However, the discovery of end- members of the evolutionary-developmental spec- trum in this time interval, and the overlap with structures found only in nonavian dinosaur com- pression fossils, strongly suggests that the proto-feathers described here are from dinosaurs and not birds.
Since we already have all kinds of fossil dinosaurs showing imprints of feathers, and those feathers seem to range from simple filaments to more complex feathers similar to those of modern birds, what does this finding add to what we already know? The answer is that these are 3-dimensional feathers that aren’t compressed, and give us a much better look at what early feathers were like. And that view supports a previously-suggested scenario of where bird feathers came from.
That scenario, as sketched in the paper, is diagrammed below. It begins with single filaments (I) that branch out to form a tuft of filaments (II), and some of these either coalesce to form a central shaft, or “rachis” (IIIb), or develop secondary branches (IIIa), with the next step the development of “tertiary” branches (IIIa + b).
Then those tertiary bits can either develop hooks (“distal barbules”: “d.b.” in the middle figure) or unhooked “proximal barbules” (“p.b.”). At this point, stage IV below, we pretty much have a modern feather with a central shaft and side filaments that hook together to make the feather into a unit (essential for flying). In stage V, other specializations develop. Remember, this figure represents a hypothesis about how feathers evolved before the amber feathers were found.
What the authors found was that basically every stage of feather development could be seen in the eleven specimens of amber analyzed in the paper. This, then, supports the scenario given above. I’ll show some photos from io9, but let me first add four things.
First this scenario for feather development suggests that feathers evolved, as I and many others long suspected, for thermoregulation. The filaments are, according to the authors, present in densities that would help thermoregulation and “protection” (I’m not sure what they’d protect), militating against any use in gliding (filaments don’t help you glide) and perhaps against ornamentation as their sole function (though they could also have served to ornament the bird).
Second, some of the feathers are so well developed that, according to the authors, they would have enabled the dinosaurs bearing them to fly. I’m not an expert on this, so I’ll take their word for it.
Third, some of the feathers are pigmented, and in ways similar to those of modern birds. Further, some of the filaments are coiled at their base, a feature that modern birds like grebes still have, and use to trap water to ferry to their young. Apparently the coiling of a straight filament enables the groove in the middle to trap water through capillary action.
Finally, all of these stages of feather evolution were found in roughly the same time period (same deposit), implying that there were all sorts of dinos coexisting with different degrees of feather evolution. Certainly not all of them gave rise to modern birds; most surely went extinct along with the rest of the dinosaurs. In fact, it’s likely that none of these specimens are from a species that was ancestral to modern birds.
Now to the feathers; all indented captions are from io9:
An isolated barb from a vaned feather, trapped within a tangled mass of spider’s web in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Pigment distribution within this feather fragment suggests that the barb may have been gray or black. Image via Science/AAAS
This is one of the later stages of feather evolution.
Below is an earlier stage when there were just filaments. Notice that there are many all together, which supports the notion that they could have been involved in thermoregulation.
Numerous individual filaments in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. These filaments are morphologically similar to the protofeathers that have been found as compression fossils associated with some dinosaur skeletons. Pigment distributions within these filaments range from translucent (unpigmented) to near-black (heavily pigmented). Image via Science/AAAS
Here are the water-retaining feathers with filaments coiled at their base:
Cross-section through a feather with basally-coiled barbules, accompanied by a microphysid plant bug. The helical coiling observed within these barbules is most obvious in isolated barbules within the image, and is directly comparable to coils found in modern bird feathers specialized for water uptake. The high number of coils in the amber-entombed feather is suggestive of diving behavior, but similar structures are also used by some modern birds to transport water to the nest. Image via Science/AAAS
Pigmented feathers!
Series of six feather barbs in Late Cretaceous Canadian amber. Localized pigmentation creates a beaded appearance within each barbule: This has implications for the structural interpretation of fossil feathers exhibiting this general morphology. Pigment distribution within the specimen suggests that the feather would have originally been medium- or dark-brown in color. Image via Science/AAAS
More colored feathers.
A feather barb within Late Cretaceous Canadian amber that shows some indication of original coloration. The oblong brown masses within the dark-field photomicrograph are concentrated regions of pigmentation within the barbules. In this specimen, the overall feather color appears to have been medium- or dark-brown. Image via Science/AAAS
And more complex feathers.
Overview of 16 clumped feather barbs in Canadian Late Cretaceous amber. Image via Science/AAAS
_________
McKellar, R. C., B. D. E. Chatterton, A. P. Wolfe, and P. J. Currie. 2011 A diverse assemblage of late Cretaceous dinosaur and bird feathers from Canadian amber. Science 333:1619-1622
I have two real hardbound copies right here! It’s always a thrill to see the final product in the flesh (actually, in the paper). It goes on sale a little less than a month from today—May 19. And for the last time I’ll ask those readers who want to buy the hardback to do it as a pre-order (venues are here), as those count as first week’s sales.
As always, those who want to mail books to me for autographing are welcome to do so as long as they enclose a stamped and self-addressed return envelope. You might even get a cat drawn in it if you ask nicely. . .
We’ll start today with a birth announcement: the bald eagles Desi and Lucy have produced at least one chick, and maybe more. We have proof from the photographer and chick’s godparent, Stephen Barnard from Idaho. Here is the bouncing ball of fluff:
This morning [JAC: yesterday] I took the first clear photo of a chick this season. They’re so ugly they’re cute. I can’t tell whether there are more than one.
Alex MacMillan sent a whole variety of pictures from a whole variety of taxa, all taken in southwest Ontario:
Blue-Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma laterale. This salamander is common at Rondeau Provincial Park. The ambystomatid salamanders are known to have a unique breeding strategy. Many populations are all female and engage in what some biologists refer to as kleptogenesis in which the females mate with males from other species but only express the female genes, that is they ‘steal’ the males sperm. This complex consists of five different ambystomatid species and the individuals are all degrees of polyploid.
Coyote, Canis latrans. A coyote watches me from the middle of a farm field in early winter.
Eastern Fox Snake, Pantherophis gloydi. This is a large snake that is found near marshes along the great lakes. This particular snake I found at Hillman Marsh and was close to a meter long. I was alerted to its presence by the sound of angry Red-Winged Blackbirds mobbing it. This species does prey on birds, particularly nestlings. It also has a display in which it mimics a rattlesnake by rearing up and vibrating its tail.
Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes. A Red Fox at the side of the road as we drove through the country. A moment later it ducked under the fence and was gone.
Eastern Hog-Nosed Snake, Heterodon platirhinos. Picture taken at Komoka Park. Hog-Nosed Snakes have an upturned nose which they use to dig out their favourite prey, toads. They are known for their impressive displays. This one is flattening its head and neck as well as hissing and curling its tail. If that doesn’t work it will play dead. There are several different scale patterns in this species. It is also a rear-fanged venomous species; however, no human deaths have been recorded to my knowledge.
Eastern Garter Snake, Thamnophis sirtalis. This is a melanistic garter snake at Long Point Provincial Park. These melanistic garter snakes are common around Lake Erie.
Queen Snake, Regina septemvittata. Queen snakes are very specialized and feed almost exclusively on newly molted crayfish. This individual was found at the Ausable River. I had been reading a book in which a biologist described finding Queen Snakes in abundance at a particular spot on the Ausable in the 1960’s. I went to check it out and sure enough around 50 years later I found several Queen Snakes in the exact same place.
Red-Headed Woodpecker, Melanerpes erythrocephalus. I am a big fan of Picids so I was very pleased to get a good shot of this Red-Headed Woodpecker at Rondeau.
Ring-Necked Snake, Diadophis punctatus. This small snake is a rear fanged venomous species, however I have never heard of one envenomating a human. This picture was taken at Inverhuron Provincial Park on Lake Huron.
Spiny Softshell Turtle, Apalone spinifera. Usually I only see the adult softshell turtles so when I saw this young turtle in the Thames River I scooped it up for a quick picture before letting it go. As soon as I put it back in the water it buried itself in the sand with just a bit of its head showing.
