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.
In today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “crap,” Mo admits, under pressure from both Jesus and the bartender, that the Qur’an is “crap.” And if you read it, as I have, you may come to agreement with the man below, who supposedly transcribed it.
On Monday evening we took a Zodiac cruise along the coast of Isabela Island (below), a large member of the archipelago. We couldn’t land there because of the cliffs, but there was plenty of wildlife on the steep lava rock.
Here’s Isabela, on the left, produced by the joining of six shield volcanoes. Its top is shaped like a seahorse. Wikipedia says this:
Isabela Island (Spanish: Isla Isabela) is the largest of the Galápagos Islands, with an area of 4,586 km2 (1,771 sq mi) and a length of 100 km (62 mi). By itself, it is larger than all the other islands in the chain combined and it has a little under 2000 permanent inhabitants. The island straddles the equator.
We’ve now crossed the equator three times (there was a celebration Monday night) but we’ll cross it three more times. I hope to be on the bridge the next time we cross so I can photograph the 0.0000 degree latitude.
It was hard photographing animals on the cliff from a bobbing Zodiac; the shutter speed was about 1/30 or 1/60, and I had to wait for a moment of stillness to snap the shutter. The photos I show are culled from a bunch of blurry ones.
A collocation of marine iguanas. I don’t know how they get up these near vertical cliffs, but they do. (We still need a word for a group of marine iguanas!)
More. This is a near vertical surface, but they hang out on the ledges.
A new endemic species for this trip: the Nazca booby (related to the blue-footed booby).
And two views of a native but non-endemic species, the brown noddy.
And of course our famous flightless cormorant, another endemic species. Look at those pathetic wings!
Another view. Those wings aren’t getting anybody off the ground.
A new endemic mammal for me: the Galápagos fur seal. (Photographed at a great distance.) It has external ears, so it should be the Galápagos fur sea lion.
This is what a full Zodiac looks like. They generally hold twelve people plus the driver and the naturalist.
Dinner Monday night. Caesar salad to start.
Steak (rare, of course) with red peppercorns, rice, and asparagus:
And “Ecuadorian lime pie” with meringue. It was a light dinner for me, which is what I wanted.
Yesterday we landed in Urbina Bay on Isabela, an area formed only in 1955 when tectonic movement uplifted a large section of the seabed almost instantly, stranding sea life and leaving huge chunks of coral aboveground. Here’s a huge hunk of coral stranded almost 70 years ago
The skull of a giant tortoise. Our naturalist estimated that it would have been about a century old: a youngster
And the skeleton of a different giant tortoise. It still has the scutes, or pieces of hard skin that grow over the shell. It must have died recently, perhaps of disease.
The trail went by many burrows, which are the refuges of the land iguanas that they dig out themselves.
And, lo and behold, here’s one of these monster lizards. Darwin found them ugly and had nothing good to say about them in the Voyage of the Beagle, but he was anthropomorphizing. They are remarkable animals.
A close up of the head of one of the three land iguanas in the archipelago, the Galápagos land iguana, a widespread species on the archipelago. There are two other species, the Galápagos pink land iguana, found on Isabela island, and Santa Fe land iguana from the eponymous island.
We finally ran into the species we were hoping to see, sitting right in the middle of the trail: a Galápagos giant tortoise, one of the dome-shelled variety (there are also “saddle-back morphs with an indentation in front of the shell to help them reach higher vegetation and cacti.
Some consider the different populations to be different species, usually 11, while others consider the different populations to be subspecies of a single species. (Some islands have more than one type.) This is a judgement call, as the different forms, when in captivity, can produce viable and fertile hybrids. But that’s in captivity, not in the wild. For the moment I’ll consider them subspecies, as their reproductive behavior, at least in captivity, doesn’t indicate any problems with crossing of the different forms. (That’s not a great way to judge,bthough, as species that maintain their distinctness in the wild where they cohabit can nevertheless produce fertile hybrids in the confinement of zoos, like the lion and tiger, which once lived in the same areas of India.)
A head shot. This guy is at least a century old:
The rear leg. Cowboy boots are made from this skin, and you can recognize them by the polygonal scales (alligator and croc have square scales). It is illegal to sell sea turtle boots as the species are endangered, and if you see them on eBay, often duplicitously advertised as “sea alligator boots” or “exotic reptile boots,” report them.
Note the blunt claws, used for digging holes to lay eggs.
Two endemic flowering plants. This one is Cordia lutea, also known as yellow cordia or, in Spanish, muyuyo.
And the other endemic, “Darwin’s cotton” (Gossypium darwinii), in the same genus as the regular cotton plant, but fiber cottons are diploid while this is one of five tetraploid species in the genus.
More tomorrow.
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is doing something that would not be tolerated in our house:
This is dead easy, but several hikers missed this giant Galápagos tortoise along the trail (Isabela island). Can you spot it? This is rated “easy-peasy.”
Much as I’d like to believe otherwise, I see this as a “virtue-signaling” collaboration on the part of Roche, which aims to meld not just Māori medicinal practices with modern medicine, but also Māori “values”. I’m not sure what kind of “values” differ between Māori and so-called “Western” medicine because both presumably value “getting well” and “not getting sick” as the goals of healcare.
Click below to read the article from the New Zealand Herald:
Excerpts (I’m on a ship, and since the newspaper was too lazy to translate the Māori words into English, I don’t feel obliged to, either):
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua and global pharmaceutical company Roche Pharmaceuticals have recently set up Tū Kotahi, a new partnership that will see modern medicine meeting traditional Māori values and practices.
The pact calls for investigating novel approaches to disease prevention, treatment, and wellness for descendants of the iwi, hopefully bringing it to other iwi in the future.
The iwi’s co-chair, Dame Naida Glavish, says the “open, honest and frank” pact opens a new chapter in medical innovation and cultural preservation.
“I feel really good about it because Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua will stand in its own mana motuhake and so will Roche. There is a need, of course, to have an understanding between the two in terms of mana motuhake, total sovereignty, coming together with each other.”
There’s been mutual respect from the iwi for Roche understanding the body and physical health, while Roche admires mātauranga Māori in relation to the wellness of hinengaro and wairua, she says.
. . .“[Ngāti Whātua] holds a responsibility, every tribe in this country agrees, to manaaki all manuhiri who are in our tribal rohe. It benefits all in Ngāti Whātua and, in the rohe of Ngāti Whātua, others will benefit.
“We have no problems whatsoever that if Roche can work with Ngāti Whātua, Roche can work with Te Kahu o Taonui [Tai Tokerau tribe collective]. If they can with us, they can with anyone.”
Putting patients first, according to Roche Pharmaceuticals’ new NZ general manager Alex Muelhaupt, involves acknowledging the health disparities experienced by indigenous peoples.
I see no evidence of what kind of merging of the two “health systems” will take place. Instead, it looks as if the responsibility is on Roche to eliminate “health disparities experienced by indigenous peoples. If there are such disparities, and they’re due to bigotry and not cultural differences, then yes, they must be addressed. But that involves social interventions, not medical ones.
And of course the Māori may have medicinal plants that modern medicine has neglected, and if so, they should be investigated: using the double-blind trials that are the gold standard of testing remedies.
But Māori “healing” also includes chanting and singing: will Roche also test those practices? And how? Will they do nonsensical chants and songs as a control?
The absence of examples, and the finishing of the piece by an implicit claim that health disparities are caused by bigotry, is what makes me suspicious about this endeavor. If they’d give just ONE example of a possible testing of Māori practices with the aim of incorporating them into modern medicine, I’d feel better. But of course we never see that in these endeavors, and I’m pretty sure why.
Since only 4% of all Kiwis can hold a conversation in Māori, while only 55% of Māori adults can speak some of the language, while only 17% of Kiwis are Māori, I would think that New Zealand’s most widely-read newspaper could to its readers the benefit of translating indigenous words in articles such as the above. I can’t think of a good reason why not. If they want to effect cultural fusion by teaching Māori words to the non-Māori-speaking populace, which I see as a good form of cultural appropriation, they need to do some translating. That they don’t I see as a form of arrogance, or truckling to the indigenous population
Yesterday morning we made a trip to Fernandina Island, the youngest in the archipelago, and home of a still-active volcano
First, though, I’ll show you the breakfast buffet. There are several stations, and a fair amount of Ecuadorian food:
The omelet station:
Pancakes and, at upper right, green banana balls, which I couldn’t resist:
A great breakfast: mango juice, Ecuadorian latkes, a cheese and ham tortilla, a sausage, a green banana ball, fresh fruit (the pinapple is terrific), and I had a cappuccino on the side. I try not to eat too much at breakfast, as I never have it at home.
On to a 2.5-hour walk on Fernandina Island:
Fernandina Island (Spanish: Isla Fernandina) is the youngest and third largest island in the Galapagos, as well as the furthest west. It has an area of 642 km2 (248 sq mi) and a height of 1,476 m (4,843 ft), with a summit caldera about 6.5 km (4.0 mi) wide. Like the other islands, it was formed by the Galápagos hotspot. The island is an active shield volcano that has most recently erupted in January 2020.
Here it is, with the top shrouded in clouds. Even the ship’s naturalists cannot access most of the large island. Like us, the naturalists must stay to the paths, which are only along the shore. Clearly there are undescribed species on this island, though it’s regularly accessed by scientists who are allowed to climb to the top.
Here’s where it’s located (arrow):
And the view from the landing site:
Some flightless cormorants, a famous endemic bird species that’s hard to find and photograph. It is the world’s only flightless cormorant, and of course is found on an island with almost no predators.
My one shot of this bird in which you can see the rudimentary (or vestigial) wings. They do help the bird to balance, showing that a vestigial trait need not be a useless trait.
Two love-cormorants courting. Females are larger, so she’s probably on the right.
And of course the marine iguanas, the world’s only marine lizard, are ubiquitous.
And when I say “ubiquitous”, I mean ubiquitous. You have to watch your step lest you tread on one
Face on shot:
Head shot. Darwin found this lizards odious and ugly, but I think they’re lovely and marvelous:
Our naturalist guide displaying the skeleton of a marine iguana:
A lava lizard. There are seven species in the archipelago, and I don’t know which this is:
The Galápagos mockingbird, one of four endemic species in the islands. The mockingbirds were found one species per island, which helped give Darwin the idea that the species descended from a common ancestor and formed in geographic isolation. This notion, however, didn’t come to him until several years after he returned to England. Mockingbirds are mentioned in The Origin, but you won’t find any word about finches in that book.
Another lava lizard; it may be the same species as above:
The endemic lava cactus. Imagine: a cactus that can grow on lava! It helps create soil that eventually allows other plants to grow.
These markers are set in the ground by the National Park and are used by satellites to measure the movement of the tectonic plates on which the islands lie.
An endemic Galápagos sea lion:
And her baby nearby. Babies suckle until they’re nearly three years old, though they also learn to hunt a bit during that time.
A contented mom.
A Sally Lightfoot crab, quite colorful.
Another herd of marine iguanas. They need a name for a group of these animals. Can you suggest one?
A lava heron hunting crabs. This species is also endemic to the archipelago.
The Galápagos brown pelican, an endemic subspecies though some sites call it an endemic species. Since it’s geographically isolated from other pelicans, this is a judgement call.
Sea lion with her pup, which, we were told, was about a year old.
She had another pup nearby, only a couple of months old. They can nurse several pups of different age at once as they have delayed implantation.
While going back to the ship, a young pup climbed up on the dock and made friends with a traveler.
Finally, I didn’t know there were endemic snakes in the archipelago; I thought the only endemic reptiles were the iguanas and lava lizards. I was wrong; behold the Galápagos racer!
A lot of life to see in only a couple of hours!
by Matthew Cobb
In other news, in 1973, Doonesbury delivered this verdict on Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell. It would be two more years before Mitchell was convicted. Be patient, folks.
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is being a cat:
