Egg-laying mammals

 

"But anon, you can´t use terms such as primitive, ancient or strange when writing about Sir David Attenborough´s echidna. Don´t you understand that those are colonialist tropes?" 

My kingdom for an echidna

A spiny ant-eater named after David Attenborough (sic) has been rediscovered in New Guinea and all cryptozoologists just yawn or something...

But sure, Zaglossus attenboroughi isn´t a pterosaurian or anything like that!

Australia with a twist

"Tasmania: Weird and Wonderful" is a fascinating nature documentary narrated by David Attenborough. It´s presently available at YouTube. Many of the species on the island are similar to those on the Australian mainland, but their size and behavior often differ markedly. The local platypus is much larger than its mainland form, there is a thriving population of mutant white wallabies, and the Tasmanian giant lobster takes 40 years to grow to a size of one meter. By contrast, the local penguins are diminutive (and nocturnal, to avoid being attacked by hungry gulls). There is also the dangerous "jack jumper ant", a large ant that can jump and the venom of which can on rare occasions kill humans! 

Of course, the main character is the so-called Tasmanian Devil (a marsupial mammal), with its bizarre calls and equally weird habits. For starters, the Devils are scavangers. I´m not even going to comment on their mating rituals! Western Tasmania has a climate almost the exact opposite of Eastern Tasmania. The western part is humid - in fact, it rains most of the year, while the eastern section is extremely dry.

The most fascinating organism mentioned in the documentary is Mountain Ash, really a species of eucalyptus tree (Eucalyptus regnans). The tree reproduces in a curious manner: its seeds are only released during bush fires, which may kill all other plants (including the Mountain Ash itself), but make it possible for the seedlings to sprout and grow without competition. But in western Tasmania, bush fires are rare due to the constant rains. Therefore, the eucalyptus trees simply continue growing - in one area of the island, all trees are 400 years old and reach a hight of 100 meters! In effect, this means that the latest bush fire took place at some point during around the year 1600... 

One species never shown in this production is our very own Homo sapiens. The viewer gets the impression that Tasmania is pure and pristine wilderness. Actually, the island is an Australian state, the home of about half a milliion people, and an economy partially based on mining and logging. And yes, the White settlers completely exterminated the local Aborigines during the 1830´s. Somehow, I feel that needs to pointed out for context.

That being said, "Tasmania: Weird and Wonderful" nevertheless deserves a closer look or two. This really is Australia with a twist.

It's not a kangaroo, it's a wallaby!

This is the fifth volume of “Handbook of the Mammals of the World” (HMW), although logically it should have been the first. It covers the monotremes and the marsupials, most of which are endemic to Australasia. The monotremes are fairly bizarre, being the only egg-laying mammals (the platypus even has a beak!). Marsupials are (perhaps) less bizarre, but at least to people outside Aussie, they look exotic and somehow “primordial”. This volume could therefore be of considerable interest to the general reader, the main barrier to procurement being the extremely high price.

Judging by the preview at the publisher's site, the family and species presentations are relatively understandable (at least compared to the super-heavy scientific text of “Handbook of the Birds of the World” from the same publisher). All photos are fairly large and in color, and the species presentations are complemented with color plates.

There is a special chapter on recently extinct marsupials and monotremes, including the Toolache Wallaby, the Desert Rat-Kangaroo and the famed Thylacine. What makes this topic of interest to the public is, of course, that some of these “extinct” animals may still be around. Since HMW is a so-called serious work, it doesn't contain any information on Yowie and the Bunyip, but I suppose you can't get everything even for $200…

There must be many books out on the market about Australian marsupials in particular, but if you want them all under one cover, I suppose this voluminous work could be an option. Five stars!

Sisterhood at Harvard

In a well-known incident, sociobiologist Edward Wilson was attacked by a group known as InCAR (or CAR) at an AAAS conference. They still brag about it, almost 40 years later.

Recently, I learned about another attack on Wilson, which failed.

Apparently, one of Wilson's opponents, Richard Lewontin, had the offices at the floor immediately above Wilson's at Harvard. For reasons unknown, this particular office also had a curious mascot: a real, live spiny anteater named Franny (or Frannie). At one point, Lewontin's students took Franny downstairs and released her at Wilson's floor, apparently hoping that the hedgehog-like creature would create havoc. Wilson is a myrmecologist, and presumably kept a lot of ants in his laboratories. And spiny anteaters, well, eat ants. Instead, the uncooperative Echidna just crept into a corner and fell asleep!

Ooookay...

Although I'm an opponent of sociobiology, I admit that I don't like these attacks on Wilson, who seems like a nice guy when discussing, say, biodiversity, ants or homosexuality. However, feminist Franny sounds cool! Must be the most original womyn's lib activist of the 1970's.

All hail to Franny the Spiny Anteater! ;-)

Mixed emotions

“Tasmania: Paradise at the End of the World” is a nature documentary about wildlife and conservation in Tasmania, the island-state of Australia. It also deals with colonial history.

I got mixed feelings watching this production, since it literally *never* mention the genocidal war of the settlers against the Aboriginal population. This makes the romantic angle about “preserving nature as it originally was” look more absurd than usual. 19th century loggers and miners are painted as heroes, which is surely unusual in a nature documentary, but the viewer is given the impression that Tasmanian history started with these heroic settler-proletarians, when in reality Tasmania has been inhabited for 40,000 years by the Aboriginals!

That being said, the documentary is nevertheless interesting, with a good overview of the exotic animals and plants of the island. Wallabies, wombats, echidnas, the platypus and Tasmanian devils are featured. So is the extinct Tasmanian tiger or thylacine. The producers take the rumor about the possible survival of the thylacine seriously. So do I. On the plant side, there are tree-ferns, white gum trees and Eucalyptus regnans, said to be the largest flowering plant in the world. Sometimes, “Paradise at the End of the World” comes close to comic relief, as when a group of crow-like currawongs help themselves to the tourists' fast food below a huge sign saying “Don't feed the birds”! Since this is originally an ORF production, there is also an unintentionally comic Austrian angle, with constant mentions of one Gustav Weindorfer, no doubt a brave explorer but hardly a household name.

Had the documentary not tried to hide the darkest chapter in Tasmanian history, I would have given it five stars. As it is, I give it four. It *is* a good documentary with great footage of animals in various situations, and part of me wants to believe the romanticized John Muir-esque atmosphere, but I suppose I'm too cynical to entirely buy this "Whitewash"…