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.
This should get your juices flowing even faster than a latte with a double shot (my favorite morning tipple). It’s a parrot singing Russian songs in a Russian shower—a duet with its owner. The bird shows amazing musical talent, and perhaps a reader who knows Russian can fill us in on the songs. And perhaps a parrot lover can identify the species.
The bird even applauds its own performance with “Bravo! Bravo!”
UPDATE: Reader Michael has named the three Russian songs sung by the bird in comment #2 below, with links to the originals. Do compare the bird’s performance with these, especially the third (“Red Hat’s Song”, starting about 28 seconds in that video). Remarkable!
Alert reader Chris has called to my attention the existence of a site that plots where radio-tagged great white sharks are (Carcharodon carcharias). It’s the OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker, and if you go there you’ll see a map like this:
All the sharks appear to be great whites, and the color of the dots tells you how long ago the location was recorded (orange: 72 hrs.; green: less than 30 days; blue: more than 30 days). Each shark is identified individually and has a name, so you can follow a single one around.
Pity there aren’t many dots, but at least if you’re in Virginia, Georgia, or southeast Africa, you’ll know to stay out of the water.
Looking up these beasts, it appears that their reputation as human-killers is largely undeserved, since we’re not really good fudz for these beasts. Most bites appear to be “test bites”, in which the shark takes a nibble and decides that we’re the shark equivalent of broccoli. As Wikipedia notes:
Humans are not appropriate prey because the shark’s digestion is too slow to cope with a human’s high ratio of bone to muscle and fat. Accordingly, in most recorded attacks, great whites broke off contact after the first bite. Fatalities are usually caused by blood loss from the initial bite rather than from critical organ loss or from whole consumption. Since 1990, there have been a total of 139 unprovoked great white shark attacks, 29 fatal.
Still, these things scare the hell out of me, because their faces look so . . . robotic, making them seem like killing machines.
Here’s a National Geographic video that shows their ferocity, especially when attacking decoy seals towed behind a boat (and yes, I worry that those decoys will kill the sharks if swallowed):
One of the ocean’s most fearsome predators may be in dire straits. According to a research team led by Barbara Block, Professor in Marine Sciences at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, there are fewer than 3,500 great white sharks remaining in the wild, making them rarer than tigers.
Scientists had previously believed great whites were rare but not endangered because they were spotted in a variety of distant locations. However, according to the team’s unpublished study, people have been seeing the same sharks.
To gather data, Professor Block and her team used satellite and acoustic tracking devices to monitor over 150 great whites in southern California and Hawaii. They found that great whites are remarkable long distance swimmers, capable of travelling 12,000 miles in nine months. In addition, the researchers discovered that sharks spotted in Hawaii were the same individuals observed off the coast of California just six months later.
Just a note for readers in Georgia and South Carolina: I’m giving a series of lectures in those states beginning on Saturday, Feb. 2, and continuing through the 7th. I’m putting this up in advance for those who want to make plans.
Saturday, Feb. 2: Talk on WEIT and other stuff spondored by the Fayette Freethought Society, Peachtree City Humanists and the Spalding Freethought Society, in Peachtree City, right outside Atlanta. There are two Facebook pages set up by these groups; you can get registration info and directions here or see who’s coming here. Note: although there’s a charge of $15 (which includes a drink), I am not being paid for this; the money goes to rent the venue. I think there’s a book-signing afterwards, and if you say the secret word (“Henri”, with the French pronunciation), I’ll sketch a cat with my autograph.
Monday, Feb. 4: Talk in Augusta, Georgia sponsored by the Central Savannah River Atheists and Agnostics: “Science and religion are incompatible” at the Jabez Sanford Performing Arts Center at 6:30 pm. Information is here; admission is free, and there may be a book signing, but I’m not sure. If there is, the secret word applies here, too.
Tuesday, Feb. 5: Book talk at Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. No information available yet.
Wednesday, Feb. 6: Book talk at The University of South Carolina at Columbia. No information available yet. (Clearly, skeptic organizations are more efficient than universities!)
4:00 p.m. Book talk (I don’t know if there’s a signing; if so, secret word applies)
7:30 p.m. A debate and then discussion on “Are science and faith incompatible?” with Dr. Lea Sweitz of the Lutheran School of Theology here in Chicago (only two blocks from my office!). I’m looking forward to this one, though I just found, by going to the link, that it’s being held in a church.
This grueling schedule makes me the Hardest Working Man in the Evolution Business (where’s my cape?).
If anybody can recommend BBQ joints or other Southern restaurants in these places, please weigh in below. Remember, I’m serious about Southern food, so the BBQ must be outstanding.
I’ve always wanted to do this at the end of a talk
The Jan. 20 New York Times reports something that is absolutely unbelievable, even in the American South. School tax credit “scholarships”, which are basically taxpayer subsidized ways to pay for private schooling, are being used in Georgia to send students which have strict and explicit anti-gay policies. (These vouchers come from donations of private organizations, which then receive tax credits.)
The schools are, of course, religious:
At issue is an increasingly popular tax credit program that transforms state money into private school scholarships, some of them used at religious-based schools that prohibit gay, lesbian or bisexual students from attending.
The policies at more than 100 such schools are explicit.
The 400 students at a private school in Woodstock, for example, must adhere to a policy that states, “Homosexual behavior, whether an ‘immoral act’ or ‘identifying statement,’ is incompatible with enrollment at Cherokee Christian Schools and is a basis for dismissal.”
A male student at the Shiloh Hills Christian School in Kennesaw, who utters “I like boys” or “I am a homosexual” will be expelled.
And at the 800-student Providence Christian Academy 20 miles north of Atlanta, a student who is gay, lesbian or bisexual or supports people who are could be kicked out.
At least 115 religious-based schools in Georgia have severe antigay policies, according to a report issued this month by the Southern Education Foundation. Public information about the scholarship program is limited by law, so the number is probably much higher, according to the foundation, which was founded in 1867 to improve education for poor children in the South.
Now this is clearly publicly-subsidized education, because those organizations providing such scholarship pay less taxes. And it’s publicly-subsidized discrimination against gays. Even some Georgia legislators recognize that:
“We are circumventing our own public policy with public money,” said State Representative Stacey Abrams, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House. “In our public schools, we do not disallow a child from attending on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
“If this were to be happening at any public school,” she said, “the lawsuit would be great and the settlement extraordinary.”
We need a lawsuit, but according to the Times article nobody has yet come forward (though one person got a settlement): you need “standing” to bring such a suit, which means that you need to show your rights have been abrogated by this policy. Ideally, you’d want a gay kid who was either denied a scholarship or kicked out of school because he said “I like boys” (OMG).
And the excuse of the politicians and school administrators who favor this project is pathetic:
School administrators, legislators and parents who prefer an education based on a specific biblical moral code say the program helps the state save money. Children whose families might not otherwise be able to afford private school tuition get an accredited education at less cost to the state than if the student stayed in public school.
And, they argue, the scholarship program is not discriminatory because it is open to all kinds of schools that might have different philosophical foundations than state-run public schools. It is a matter of choice and religious freedom, they say.
“You can be a Jewish school. You can be a Muslim school. It’s the same as a Catholic school or if I wanted to go to an all-girls school or a homosexual school,” said Claudia Hunt, who runs admissions for the Providence Christian Academy, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school in Lilburn.
“That is why we are independent schools,” she said. “We all have different missions.”
First of all, these scholarships are overwhelmingly for Christian schools; I doubt that any of the scholarships have been given for Muslim schools, and probably few, if any, for Jewish schools. And for crying out loud, “homosexual schools”? Where are they? But the point is that government money should not be used to subsidize any form of discrimination (I am conflicted about all-girl or all-boy schools because, in the end, those involve discrimination too). Yes, the scholarship program is not discriminatory against schools, except that most religious schools in the South are Christian, and you don’t have a choice if you go to school near home. These scholarships should not only be prohibited for schools that discriminate against gays, but also for schools that provide religious education for kids (aka child abuse). After all, that involves taxpayers subsidizing faith.
Many readers sent me a piece from last Saturday’s New York Times describing the incredible journey of Holly, a 4-year-old calico cat owned by Bonnie and Jacob Richter of West Palm Beach, Florida. In early November, they all traveled in a recreational vehicle (R.V.) to Daytona Beach, Florida, a distance of about 200 miles, to attend a R.V. rally, Holly got spooked (perhaps by fireworks) and fled the motor home. Distraught, the Richters put out fliers and canvassed local shelters and animal agencies. Nothing.
Then—a miracle (I’m using the word metaphorically). . .
Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.
Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.
They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”
At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”
The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.
Jacob Richter, 70, left, and Bonnie Richter, 63, flank Holly, the cat that traveled 190 miles to find her way home. Photo by Barbara P. Hernandez for the New York Times
Holly had travelled 200 miles in two months! But how? First of all, it’s likely that she walked a lot of the way:
Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.
In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.
“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”
Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.
But how could this cat navigate? That’s more of a mystery, one discussed at length in the NYT piece. The basic answer is provided by Jackson Galaxy, the “cat whisperer” who host the t.v. show “My Cat from Hell”:
“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”
Holly didn’t go lightly
There’s a YouTube video, of course:
There’s of course a lot of speculation in the piece by animal behaviorists:
There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.
Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.
Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.
Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.
Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”
But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.” [JAC: yeah, and I’ll strangle anyone who does!]
The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany in which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.
Finally, the Times piece refers to a cool project and website, that of the National Geographic and University of Georgia Kitty Cams Project, in which 55 pet cats were fitted with tiny videocams on their collars as a way of learning about their outdoor behavior. The page makes for some fascinating reading, and I especially recommend the page of photos and videos (recommended videos: “Making a cat friend,” “Catching a frog,” and “Finding tasty Chex mix” (really, do watch some of these, as they give a great cat’s-eye view of the world).
Kitty Cams has some nice photos taken by the cats as well; here are two:
Kitty Cams are lightweight, waterproof units with LED lights to record activity at night. They are mounted on a break-away collar and outfitted with a radio-tracking device so we can locate any lost cameras. High quality video is recorded on mini SD memory cards for easy download and viewing.
Sixty pet kitties in Athens-Clarke County wore cameras while roaming outdoors for 7-10 days. We have footage from a variety of different habitats and throughout all four seasons.
That camera looks onerous, but I guess the cats were game:
One of the findings, which probably won’t surprise cat owners:
We had enough footage from 55 of our participating cats to analyze. Thanks to our diligent volunteers, we had an average of 37 hours of footage per roaming kitty. One of the most surprising things we witnessed was cats adopting a second set of owners. Four of our project kitties were recorded entering another household for food and/or affection!
Those who want to investigate this phenomenon further could do worse than read the children’s book Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore, about a moogie who mooched to the max. Seriously, this is one delightful book, and if you have kids and cats it’s a must-have.
Finally, a bit more CAT SCIENCE. The pie chart speaks for itself:
Here: you can haz kitten to close out a long week. But first read about Stresemann’s Bristlefront two posts below, and if you feel so inclined, donate to save it (I’ve added a link).
Eat your heart our, Dr. Krauss! This video apparently shows Taiwanese magician 大支 曾 producing a lovely kitten out of thin air. And it’s done for a good cause—to promote animal adoption. If anyone knows how this is done, weigh in below.
God can make the cosmos pretty
But only evolution can make a kitty.
I’ve heard back from The American Bird Conservancy, and they’ve told us where we can give money to help out this rare bird:
Thank you very much for your inquiry about how individuals can donate to help protect the Stresemann’s Bristlefront. Here is a link to American Bird Conservancy’s donation page on our website. If an individual then types “Stresemann’s” on the mailcode line, their gift will be earmarked for this imperiled species.
Save the highly threatened Stresemann’s Bristlefront by helping American Bird Conservancy and Fundação Biodiversitas protect the Stresemann’s Bristlefront Reserve for conservation. This reserve, created by ABC and Biodiversitas in 2007, now totals more than 1,400 acres. However, the forest surrounding the reserve is under severe threat from agricultural expansion and deforestation, making diligent management of the land already under protection critical and urgent. Stresemann’s Bristlefront Reserve is a top priority for the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), and is the only known site for this Critically Endangered species, and sixteen other globally threatened bird species are found there.
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This Brazilian bird, Stresemann’s bristlefront (Merulaxis stresemanni), may be the world’s rarest bird. (If it isn’t, I’m sure I’ll hear from the many bird experts here!). There are only about 15 of them left. Numbers like that mean almost certain extinction.
“This is the discovery of a lifetime made all the more gratifying by the fact that not only have we found live adult birds, but we have also found strong evidence of several chicks as well,” Alexandre Enout, the reserve’s manager, said in a press release issued by the American Bird Conservancy, which funded the establishment of the property in 2005. [The reserve is the the Mata do Passarinho Reserve run by Fundação Biodiversitas in the state of Bahia.]
Very little is known about the Stresemann’s bristlefront. The species was first seen in the 1830s, but scientists did not collect a second specimen until 1945. The third sighting was 50 years later, in 1995, when a single male was observed near the Una Biological Reserve in southern Bahia, where no further bristlefronts have been seen since. The birds were finally rediscovered further north in 2004 in the region that would later become the Mata do Passarinho Reserve , where surveys have since observed just six individual birds. Using those surveys, the organization BirdLife International estimates the total population for the species at 10 to 15 birds.
Here’s one of them. This species, like many, are named after the famous ornithologist Erwin Stresemann (1889-1972), mentor of the even more famous evolutionary biologist and ornithologist Ernst Mayr.
Distribution and population Merulaxis stresemanni was known until recently from just two specimens, the type, collected near Salvador in the 1830s, and a second taken near Ilhéus in 1945, in coastal Bahia, Brazil. In 1995, it was rediscovered in the wild when a male was observed and tape-recorded at Fazenda Jueirana, near Una Biological Reserve, Bahia (Baudet 2001). Subsequent searches there have failed to produce further records (Baudet 2001, F. Olmos in litt. 2003). However, the species was subsequently found in the Jequitinhonha valley, Minas Gerais, near the border with Bahia (Ribon et al. 2004). Here, too, the future of the species seems to hang in the balance: it lives in a strip of humid valley-floor forest, much of which has recently been cleared to make room for agriculture (F. Olmos in litt. 2006) and pasture (R. Ribon in litt 2007).
Population justification
In the Jequitinhonha valley (the sole currently known population), at least four birds were found in a 100 ha area, but it was thought unlikely that this density could be extrapolated for the whole 5,000 ha partly fragmented patch of forest (R. Ribon in litt. 2006). The latest surveys of the Macarani / Bandeira area near Balbina (Sossego do Arrebol Forest) found just six individuals: five females and a single male (Fundação Biodiversitas in litt. 2010), with likely no more than 10-15 birds in total and none found in other forest fragments surveyed (R. Ribon in litt. 2011). It is therefore now suspected that there may be fewer than 50 birds remaining, and the population is placed in the band 1-49 mature individuals.
Ecology
Very little is known, but its behaviour and habitat preferences appear similar to those of M. ater (Baudet 2001). The male in 1995 was observed foraging on the ground and on fallen tree trunks in an area of drier forest between two humid valleys (Baudet 2001). It was found in humid forest at 700-800 metres along the Jequitinonha and Pardo River valleys (R. Ribon in litt 2007). The species has subsequently been observed apparently feeding on insects on dry litter and under fallen logs (Fundação Biodiversitas in litt. 2010). Birds are very responsive to play-back, approaching the observer to 2 m (R. Ribon in litt 2007). The average territory size of three birds was 2.36 ha, based on initial studies, but more data are required (Fundação Biodiversitas in litt. 2010).
Platt goes on:
The bristlefront, like many in its genus, is a ground-nesting species which does not migrate. The researchers saw a tennis-ball sized hole in a vertical edge of earth about one meter above the surface of the forest floor and realized that it was like other Merulaxis nest. They saw a male on two different days and noticed that he was bringing food though the hole, back to the nest, including one small frog and an earthworm. Getting closer, they used a micro-camera to partially survey the inside of nest, which they estimated to about 1.8 meters deep. Although no other birds were observed, male’s activity led to them to believe that there must have been at least one chick somewhere in the unseen part of the nest.
“No one is going near the nest now, and there are no plans to try to see all of the way into it,” Wiedenfield says. “No one wants to disturb a nest of a species that is that rare! [David Wiedenfield is a a conservation expert with the American Bird Conservancy.]
Your own chances of ever seeing the Stresemann’s bristlefront are slim to none, but check out this one-minute video shot by Ciro Albano of NE Brazil Birding:
Well, prayers that the species be saved are useless, of course, but I’m trying to find out where one can donate to help save either the bird or its reserve. I’ll post that at the top when I get the information.
Remember, when a species is gone, it’s gone for good, and with it every bit of genetic, evoluitonary, and behavioral information it carried with it.
