Slug Spectacular
Current reading: Shell Life: An Introduction to the British Mollusca by Edward Step. If you want the full information about plumed slugs or hairy sea lemons, or just a picture of some whelk teeth, then this is the place to come:
November 15, 2011
February 21, 2010
Lucy the Chimpanzee
A fascinating episode of Radiolab this week, focusing on the strange and sad story of Lucy the chimpanzee, who was brought up by psychotherapist Maurice Temerlin (shown above) in an experimental attempt to see how human she could become. Some of the moments where the human/animal boundary gets very fuzzy in this programme will make your hair stand on end - particularly the bits dealing with Lucy's, er, interest in pictures of naked human males.
Listen to the end to get an update from the Great Ape Trust, where the attempts to teach the apes language seem to have taken a surprising turn: a researcher insists that one of the bonobos has started actually speaking in gruff English. Although his colleague sounds a little less convinced. One thing is certain: if a bonobo threatens to bite you if you don't do what he says, you'd better listen.
July 13, 2009
The Top Animal Artist: Vogelkop Bowerbird
A piece by David Attenborough on the radio the other day was the first I'd heard of the Vogelkop bowerbird in Papua New Guinea. This amazing bird creates a lawn of moss in front of its already impressive nest, and lays out objects on it to attract females. These vary from bird to bird - piles of red leaves, beetles' wings or deer droppings covered with fungi with a bluish sheen (the last apparently highly successful). They endlessly rearrange every bit of fungus or berry for the perfect display.
The females shop around and choose their mate on the basis of the best bower. As Attenborough explained, if you want a chance of filming it mating, you first have to decide which is the best nest to stake out. Luckily, the Vogelkop and humans turn out to have surprisingly similar aesthetic tastes.
You can hear more about filming the Vogelkop here, in an episode of Nature which also features its weird vocal duels.
April 11, 2009
Jackdaws With Human Eyes
According to this article in National Geographic, jackdaws are possibly the only animal able to interpret the human gaze, because their eyes are unusually similar to ours.
Bit of an unsettling idea, though I'd feel even more uncomfortable under the stare of, for instance, a goat:
(Pic from here)
Or Snowy the albino gorilla:
September 20, 2008
Poetry for Primates
There's been increased interest lately in monkey languages after discoveries were made about how putty-nosed monkeys combine sounds to create a basic syntax:
* Hack-hack-hack-hack: "There's an eagle over there!"
* Pyow-hack-hack-pyow-pyow-pyow: "I've seen a leopard, let's move away!"
* Hack-hack-hack-pyow-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack "There's an eagle over
there, let's move away!"
But research at the Great Ape Trust using the sign language Yerkish reveals the primates are capable of far more linguistic sophistication. Primate Poetics sets out a manifesto to enrich this new language, starting, ambitiously, with a translation of the epic Gilgamesh:
"We will learn Yerkish.
We will translate human literature into Yerkish.
We will invent words, word-tricks, word-jokes, word-games to show the
apes new ways of using (their) language.
We will become knowledgeable and original enough to be invited by the researchers of the Great Ape Trust to read our Yerkish translation of Gilgamesh to Kanzi, Panbanisha and all the others."
"We are not here to compare and to compete with the ape but to appreciate its language for its own beauty. This is emphatically not about some lone genius monkey penning the Great Primate Novel."
Found via the sadly lamented Nonist.
See also: The song of the gibbon
Can apes talk?
July 12, 2008
Deep Sea Neon
This video of bioluminescent comb jellies was made by the Vancouver Aquarium - shame about the intrusive subtitles, but the creatures themselves are incredible. You can see more of them in these extracts from the film Deep Blue here.
June 30, 2008
Can Apes Talk?
This Slate interview explores the work of the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, where researchers for many years have been trying to teach chimpanzees and bonobos to use language. Results are still hotly contested: in this film, their answer to most questions seems to be "hot dog" or "banana", which suggests sophisticated language structures aren't quite there yet. But the researchers themselves have learnt to take their charges' abilities seriously; one man whispers his replies to the interviewer, explaining that he's learnt never to make critical remarks about the apes within their hearing: "Yeah! They eavesdrop! It's disgusting!" As one of his colleagues points out, what we need to do isn't to teach apes to be more human, but to find out what's really going on with them. We might be surprised.
Slow Loris
June 8, 2008
The Bear of Hackney Marshes
A visit to Beasts of London leads me to the mysterious tale of the sighting by four terrified boys of a bear on Hackney Marshes in the 1980s. Don't remember hearing about this growing up in Hackney - not even the gory detail that two decapitated bear corpses had been found earlier, floating in a nearby river. These bodies are talked about in various forums as the corpse of a giant, or as skinned bears, the result of feuding local circuses. This writer seems to know the real explanation: one of those 'pointless traditions' which judging by the number of urban wild beast sightings on the internet is still going strong. Weirdly, it looks like the Hackney bear was immortalised in an episode of Jasper Carrott's The Detectives.
June 6, 2008
Unexpected View
Audrey Corregan's photographs of birds from behind give me the uncomfortable feeling that I've offended an owl or a magpie. Via Dear Ada.
May 19, 2008
The song of the gibbon
April 6, 2008
Violet-tailed sylph and blue fairy wren
Since quite a few people seem to end up here after searching for 'the world's most beautiful birds', here are a couple who live up to their names:
March 11, 2008
Gould's Tropical Birds
Beautiful ornithological works by John Gould, from a 1948 picture book.
February 23, 2008
Microscopia
On a rainy afternoon visit the Micropolitan Museum to find revealed the most amazing things:
Waterfleas and ghost shrimps
Algae
Forams - small marine creatures that build houses from chalk
Radiolaria - protozoa that create miniscule skeletons of glass
Very art deco diatoms
and ectoprots, which look as good as they sound:
January 21, 2008
Glowworms v Fireflies
Did you know that glowworms glow green and fireflies glow yellow? And both are beetles. Radio 4 has a fascinating little documentary about bioluminenscence and nature's "lamp of love" - part of a series called Nature's Magic, which also covers glowing jellyfish, electric rays and flies' eyes. Listen again here. Thanks to Speechification for pointing the way to the BBC nature department's impressive archive.
January 16, 2008
Birdsong Translator
If you've always wanted to know what your name sounds like translated into nightingale language, this site gives you the chance. Via Metafilter.
November 18, 2007
Bird Geniuses
In Birds as Individuals, which I've written about before here, Len Howard has made a careful study of the songs composed by the birds in her garden. In particular she hails the blackbird as an 'imaginative genius' for its compositions, and makes notations of the tunes:
Bullfinches are also talented composers:
And she even includes a diagram of the wood warbler's song:
It seems you can still buy Birds as Individuals, here
October 1, 2007
Starling Demands
This starling seems too articulate to be genuine, but apparently starlings can be big talkers: here is a website devoted to starling chat. Theirs sound a bit frightening to me, whispering endearments in a sinister way. Not sure I could live with that. The starlings outside our house just make a lot of electronic squeaks and squawks, possibly from being forced to listen to far too much bleepy music.
September 14, 2007
Inside the Mind of a Bird
On the edge of Romney Marsh is Rye, which might seem like a twee tourist trap but is actually the epicentre of English eccentricity. It was fictionalised as Tilling in the Mapp and Lucia
It's an account of how the author befriended the birds around her Sussex cottage, and made a study of their psychology and individual characters. Her accounts of how blue tits and robins would fly up and communicate with her sound a bit mad, until you see the photos:
She describes an electrician coming to the cottage, and seeing the birds coming down to perch on her:
"His whole countenance seemed to alter, his face glowed, his eyes shone and he kept murmuring: 'How wonderful!' Then he said: 'But why shouldn't it be like that? It ought to be like that.'"
So it should. I plan to adjust my working methods to look more like this:
September 11, 2007
Lemur Face
Actually it's a lemurine night monkey. They have 100 different calls and see in black and white. You can read more about their calls here, from the resonant whoop to the sneeze-grunt.
From Voyage autour du monde sur la fregate la Venus of 1840, at the NYPL, which is full of lovely pictures of more familiar creatures:
September 6, 2007
Moth Names...
... are the best. See here for evidence: Old World Webworm, Scarce Vapourer, Rusty Dot Pearl, The Drinker, Pine-Tree Lappet, Small Dusty Wave, Bird Cherry Ermine, Small Argent and Sable, Sharp-Angled Carpet, Drab Looper, Beautiful Golden Y, Canary-shouldered Thorn, Three-humped Prominent, Rosy Footman, Heart & Dart, Neglected Rustic etc...
Above: Rannoch Brindled Beauty
August 26, 2007
Dog-kneed Monster
Of all the peculiar creatures in Gaspar Schott's Physica Curiosa (found via Rashomon), I think this might be the strangest.
July 3, 2007
Insect Brains
Interesting piece on experiments on cockroach consciousness, via Spectacularly Obtuse.
"Even a breeze from a door opening can ruin a couple hours of work."
June 18, 2007
Beautiful Ducks
June 10, 2007
Butterfly Colours
Colourlovers features colour palettes stolen from butterflies. Via.
Whereas Cute Overload has these glasswing butterflies with no colour at all:
April 28, 2007
Ravens Are Watching
This article describes the surprisingly clever and daredevil nature of the raven - they ride on the backs of wild boars, simulate food poisoning to deter rivals, and like to tweak the tails of wolves. And don't bother trying to hide anything from a raven, even if it looks like it's not paying attention: '"They look at everything we do so carefully," Stöwe says. "We're really the ones under observation."'
March 10, 2007
Peachfaced Lovebirds
March 5, 2007
Dancing Animal No. 1
The sifaka. This lemur can hop, jump, sashay, and, best of all, do an Ancient Egyptian-style sideways dance - see videos of it in action here.
February 23, 2007
Clothing for Ferrets
Get the latest fashions for your ferret at The Ferret Store. If he doesn't like denim, they also have parkas and if he doesn't like being a ferret, there's always:
February 12, 2007
Human Fish
Not a human or a fish but a salamander, the olm lives in caves in Slovenia. This truly uncanny-looking creature is adapted to living in total darkness, with no eyes and pale, unpigmented skin that looks pink - hence the nickname human fish. It may live to be 100 years old and can go without food for six years. No wonder the freaked-out locals in the 17th century took it to be some kind of dragon baby.
February 10, 2007
Bird Talk
The Language of Birds is a section of the British Library sound archive where you can find out that 'There are only two species of bird that use sound to convey to man the unique message: "Follow me and I'll lead you to a bees' nest" ' and listen to them doing it (Windows Media Player required). The cunning black-throated honeyguide flies to the nearest village, makes a sound like a beehive, and lures a villager to come and open up the hive for it. Then they divide the spoils between them. A rare example of man and bird working in total harmony.
You can also listen to Sparkie Williams, the 'most famous British budgerigar', trained by Mrs. Mattie Williams of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who had a six-year working life as a character actor (two accents: "Geordie" and "refined"). Here he is reciting "Jack and Jill' in a voice which I would guess is the refined version: sounds a bit like a middle-aged woman from Newcastle playing a polite Dalek.
