Symbolik?

 

Händer just nu. Den blommar alltså ikväll och imorgon kväll. Enbart.

The divine prankster

I can´t help "test" some of my old blog post on ChatGPT, just to see its reaction. Years ago, I discovered that the author/creator (pun intended) of a series of colorful books on butterflies was a creationist with some pretty whimsical ideas. So naturally I had to ask the AI some whimsical questions about it!  

[My old blog post/book review] "Butterflies of the Neotropical region. Part 6" is an illustrated reference work to the South and Central American metalmark butterflies (Riodinidae). That, however, is the least interesting part of the book... 

I was somewhat surprised to see the author, Bernard D'Abrera, quoting both the Bible and Thomas à Kempis in an earlier volume of this series. In this volume, the plot thickens as D'Abrera turns out to be...yes, a true blue creationist! His creationist musings can be found on ppg. 984 and 1015-1016. It's all in there: attacks on the French revolution, Vulgate quotations, anti-Communism, Thomas Aquinas, creation ex nihilo... 

Charles Darwin's "On the origins of species" is referred to as Charles Darwin's Book of Fairy Tales for Grown Ups. I take it D'Abrera is a very conservative Catholic. 

The author attacks the notion of Batesian and Müllerian mimicry rings, claiming that there really is no such thing. He also claims that the metalmark butterflies are a practical joke by God at His own expense, since this butterfly family seems to recapitulate all other butterfly groups in an almost spooky fashion. I admit that they do. 

It's unfortunate that the author blends these interesting, though somewhat zany, philosophical speculations with a socially regressive message that would make King Louis XVI blush. Still, it does mean that I managed to solve a little mystery. 

[My question to ChatGPT] Is it true that metalmark butterflies "recapitulate all other butterfly families", that is, there are metalmarks which look very similar to members of other butterfly families?

Yes, it is true — metalmark butterflies (family Riodinidae) are remarkably diverse in appearance and often show striking resemblances to species from other butterfly families, including Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae, Pieridae, and Hesperiidae. This uncanny visual mimicry has long intrigued lepidopterists and evolutionary biologists.

---

🦋 Why Do Metalmarks Resemble Other Butterflies?

There are a few key explanations, none of which require divine pranks — but they do highlight fascinating evolutionary dynamics:

---

🔁 1. Mimicry (Batesian & Müllerian)

Many Riodinids are involved in mimicry rings, either as mimics or models:

• Batesian mimicry: A harmless species mimics a toxic one.

• Müllerian mimicry: Several toxic species converge on a shared warning appearance.

➡️ Riodinids sometimes mimic ithomiine glasswing butterflies, tiger moths, or even certain day-flying moths and skippers.

---

🎨 2. Morphological Plasticity and Evolutionary Flexibility

Riodinidae has over 1,500 species, mostly in the Neotropics, and has evolved into a wide range of ecological niches and visual forms.

• Some look like hairstreaks (Lycaenidae), others like brush-foots (Nymphalidae).

• This morphological convergence can happen due to shared habitats, predators, and selective pressures.

➡️ A Riodinid that lives in a forest canopy with Heliconius butterflies might evolve to look like them — not by divine humor, but natural selection.

---

🧬 3. Genetic and Developmental Flexibility

Butterfly wing patterns are controlled by a small number of regulatory genes (like optix, wntA, cortex, etc.). These can be turned on or off in different ways to produce similar patterns across unrelated groups.

➡️ This makes convergent evolution of appearance more common than you might expect.

---

🧠 D’Abrera’s Interpretation

Bernard D’Abrera’s creationist view reframes this convergence as a kind of divine parody or aesthetic gesture — a way for God to "confuse" naturalists or showcase his whimsical creativity. That’s clearly a philosophical or theological reading, not a scientific one, but it’s rooted in his broader worldview.

Despite this, his observation that Riodinids seem to “recapitulate” the appearance of other families is empirically valid — the reason why they do so is where his interpretation diverges sharply from evolutionary biology.

---

✅ Conclusion

Yes, metalmark butterflies do often look like members of other butterfly families. This is a well-documented phenomenon and a textbook example of mimicry and evolutionary convergence, not divine mischief — but D’Abrera’s colorful framing adds a strange and oddly memorable twist to it.

Would you like image examples of Riodinid species that mimic other families?

The mystery of the mosaic

 

Credit: LancerEvolution

Evidence for Roman exploration and conquest in the New World? Probably not, but the topic is fascinating. 

The first link goes to a short piece by Richard Carrier, discussing whether art from Pompeii shows pineapples, an American fruit which (probably) shouldn´t have been known to the Romans. He reaches the conclusion that it´s another delicacy altogether.

I already blogged about the content in the second link (see third link!), but here we go again. The "Roman mosaic" with the South American parrot is with outmost probability a forgery. So nah, the first Italian to reach the Americas probably was a certain Columbus, after all...  

The weird fruit mystery

Mystery of the macaw mosaic - a (not so) Roman riddle

The mystery of the macaw

Terrorbirds

So I just learned that seriemas aren´t really gruiforms, but belong to an order all their own closer on the evolutionary tree to falcons, parrots and passerines. Does that matter? Not really...except that the seriemas are the only surviving cariamiforms. The order was once more diverse and also included, ahem, terrorbirds...

I never really thought about it, but it *is* funny that terrorbirds are closer on the evolutionary tree to the songbirds in your backyard than they are to cassowaries (the modern birds they superficially resemble). It´s also really, really funny that they have been extinct for quite some time, LOL.

The end of the AFL-CIA?

 

Is this the end of the labor wing of the CIA? The Social Democrats USA are rolling in their graves...

Department of Labor cancels pro-worker grants 

Världsrymden anfaller

 

Är 2025 det värsta året någonsin? Jag kunde ha svurit på att det var 2020!

Mardrömsbeskedet: kannibalmasken har överlevt vintern i Skåne

Who else is with me?

 

So I discovered "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" on YouTube. Werner Herzog´s 1972 quasi-historical drama, featuring Klaus Kinski, used to be something of a cult movie. I saw it on TV when very young, but only remember the opening scene and the ending. Now, I´ve seen it again. "Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes" (the original German title) comes across as a peculiar blend of B-movie and surrealist work of art. It´s *very* loosely based on the life of rogue conquistador (more rogue than usual) Lope de Aguirre and his debased exploits in search of the famed kingdom of El Dorado. 

I have no idea what Herzog wanted to say with this production, but it does come across as yet another story of how civilized White men go crazy in the jungle. Except that in this case, the colonialists aren´t very civilized to begin with, enslaving people as they frantically search for gold or "converts" to their hypocritical Christian faith. 

To some extent, the whole thing comes across as parody. A self-proclaimed "emperor" has a sumptuous meal in the wilderness, attended to by a Black slave, while bragging that his "kingdom" is already six times larger than Spain. Yet, he really just eats fruit from the jungle, drink river water and have no salt, his "empire" being no larger than a raft. All kinds of allegorical meanings can be imputed to this, obviously! It´s pretty obvious from the start that Aguirre´s expedition will end in failure.

More disturbing are the hints that Aguirre has an incestuous relation with his daughter, and his sudden descent into madness. (Bizarrely, the actor Klaus Kinski was half-mad in real life and was later accused of abusing one of his daugthers!) The idea of a hubristic conqueror who fancies himself being "the wrath of God" can also be interpreted in various allegorical ways. At one point, Aguirre claims to be able to control the birds. Is Aguirre modern or faustian man, who thinks he can rule over Nature, while actually being mercilessly destroyed by it? Note also that he is a traitor, leading a mutiny, while trying to reach an edenic city. Is he a fallen Adam or a Cain, trying to stage an inverted exodus to the promised land?

Or is it just a failed, borderline turkey movie? But then, that´s how much of world history also comes across...     

A new look at Easter Island...or maybe not

 

DNA studies supposedly confirms the new take on Easter Island, a kind of best blend of post-colonial political correctness and crypto-Hancockite pre-Columbian contact. 

Or maybe not. 

Note the critical remarks hidden away in the two last paragraphs! Did they test the wrong skeletons (all 15 of them)? Something tells me this controversy will continue for another seven decades or so... 

Easter Island population never collapsed, but it did have contacts with Native Americans

Latinx neo-dinosaurs?

 

Real neo-dinosaurs from Latin America

Some mystifications. Neo-dinosaurs in Latin America?  

Neodinosaurs in the Amazon basin

Pygmy plesiosaur

Anti-Krists mirakler

En mycket bisarr sekt i USA och Latinamerika. Något slags framgångsteologi, fast med väldigt egenartade och delvis självdestruktiva drag.  

Lizbet Garcias egenartade sekt

Mystery or mystification?

 

“Easter Island Origins” is a very recent documentary about the mysterious Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the Pacific Ocean. The island is almost isolated from the rest of the world but famous due to its large stone statues (“moai”), remnants of a vanished high culture. But perhaps Easter Island isn´t really that mysterious. Maybe its people and culture have simply been mystified by outsiders? Judging by this documentary, the answer is “yes”…but some of the new research on the island have led to sensational results anyhow.

Controversially, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl claimed that Easter Island had been inhabited by migrants from South America. While this is disproven (the earliest settlers on Rapa Nui were certainly from other parts of Polynesia), DNA research suggests that there actually might be a connection between the island and the South American mainland. The documentary is somewhat unclear on this point, but if I understand it correctly, the idea is that the *Polynesians* sailed to South America, rather than the other way around. 

Genetic markers typical of the Zenú people in Colombia have been found among the peoples of the Tuamotu Islands, the Marquesas Islands, Mangareva and Easter Island. The idea seems to be that the Polynesians first colonized the two former, then reached the South American mainland, only to return home (presumably with Zenú wives and/or mixed race children). Some of these people with mixed descent participated in the somewhat later discovery and settlement of Mangareva and Easter Island, explaining why the Zenú marker is found there too. The sculptures in “medieval” Colombia had a strong resemblance to those found in the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Mangareva and Rapa Nui (although the moai at Easter Island are much larger in size).

The usual Western picture of Easter Island is that of a downright irrational population who cut down all trees and used up all rock (which could be used as fertilizer) in a vain and manic pursuit of building larger and larger statues. War and civilizational collapse promptly followed, and when the Europeans arrived, the native Polynesians had already forgot their great traditions, lived in caves and drank sea water. 

“Easter Island Origins” contain interviews with archeologists who deny this traditional picture. They believe that the population of the island was always relatively small (and hence couldn´t dramatically “collapse” in the first place), that there is no evidence of warfare, nor of settlements being abandoned by people taking to the hills. There *is* evidence of wide-spread deforestation, but this was due to rats, which lacked natural enemies and hence proliferated en masse, consuming the seeds of the trees in the process. 

The real (human) population collapse took place after the arrival of the European colonists, when various diseases to which the natives lacked immunity killed off most of the population. *This* led to the great statues being abandoned or destroyed during the 19^th century. Easter Island was also attacked by slave-raiders from Peru. The handful of survivors who were able to return to the island carried smallpox with them and infected the rest of the population. At its lowest, the native population was only 40 people! Today, it´s back around 3000, approximately the same number as before Western colonialism. The island has been controlled by Chile since 1888.

It´s a tragic story of a people that actually reached the American mainland centuries before Columbus made a landfall in the Caribbean…

And no, no evidence of Lemuria!

America Before

 

Do we finally have evidence that the Polynesians reached the New World long before the conquistadors showed up? Analyses of plant remains from Easter Island (Rapa Nui) suggest that the Polynesian settlers visited South America and took back food plants only found there. Which means they had contacts with some Native people growing them. 

I´m not particularly surprised that the Polynesian connection have been proven. Or proven first? The Polynesian landfall was around 1000 AD, hence later than the "Viking" journey to Vinland, but still pre-Columbian. Sure wonder what else lurks out there...

The second link goes to an article arguing that the mysterious rongorongo script was developed independently by the Polynesians at Easter Island.     

Polynesians at Rapa Nui had contacts with South America 1000 years ago

Rongorongo script developed independently

Goodbye to AMOC?

 

A recent climate model suggests that the AMOC (a system of streams in the Atlantic Ocean) might collapse with catastrophic consequences for humanity. Temperatures in Europe might drop by 30 degrees Celsius within a century, while the tropics will become hotter than today, destroying the Amazon rain forests once and for all.

However, there seem to be many "ifs", "buts" and uncertainties with this report, so I suppose we aren´t entirely deep-freezed just yet...

Critical Atlantic Ocean current system showing signs of collapse, prompting warning from scientists

The fire ant next time

- Have you heard of the invasive fire ant?
It recently established itself on Sicily!
- Oh, I know, but I´m more interested in
Chinese spy balloons!

 A new problem in the wake of the climate crisis. Yes, it´s the world´s worst ant species, coming right at ya! 

Invasive fire ants have made it to Europe

The Nagas of Brazil

Credit: Dick Culbert 

I´ve heard of the Pachamama, but never the Sachamama. Any connection? Note the claims that this is an actual unknown animal! Rather than, say, a very angry nature spirit come to life...

Sachamama

Minhocao

The mystery of the macaw

Credit: Benjamint444

I´m not an art historian, but my subjective impression after browsing the web and looking at pictures of Roman mosaics is that the one depicted in the linked article is simply "too good". And indeed, the only source as to its provenance claims that it´s a modern forgery made in Tunisia. 

My guess is that the depiction of a blue-and-yellow macaw (a bird only found in South America) is a mistake. The Romans did depict other parrots on their mosaics, so perhaps the Tunisian forger found a picture of a macaw, thought it was nice, and used it, not realizing that this particular species can´t possibly have been known in the Roman Empire.

Unless you believe that the Roman imperial navy discovered South America 1,300 years before the conquistadors...

Not the first time I see an anachronistic parrot, btw. On the web, I found a presumably modern picture of the Hindu deity Bala Tripurasundari, in which the child goddess has a cockatoo on her shoulder, a bird not native to India! But sure, I suppose *it* could have been imported from Indonesia.       

The mystery of the macaw

Dog days

 

Credit: Sage Ross

“Dogs in the Wild: Meet the Family” is a 2022 BBC nature documentary. Everyone knows about the domestic dog, but here we are indeed invited to meet its “family”. I admit that the diversity of the Canidae is pretty staggering. Some live in unexpected places: the Tibetan fox in the Himalayas, the Arctic wolf at the Queen Elizabeth Islands and the diminutive fennec fox in the Sahara desert. And yes, many red foxes live in London!

Some canids are embroiled in intricate near-symbiotic relationships with other organisms. The dingoes at Fraser Island survive in part by eating eggs of sea turtles, but they inadvertently also protect hatched turtles from further predation, since no other predators dares to approach the beaches if the dingoes roam there. The Fraser Island dingo population is also considered important since these specimens are supposedly very “pure”, genetically speaking, while dingoes in other parts of Australia have interbred with domestic dogs. To stop further racial mixing, domestics have been banned from the island (sure wonder why humanity meddles into the love lives of feral canids, but there you go).

Meanwhile in South America, the wolf apple is the preferred diet of the maned wolf, a bizarre canid that looks like a fox on stilts. The maned wolf´s bad eating habits help spread the wolf apple, with some assistance from leaf-cutter ants! The canid literally shits out the seeds of the wolf apples it consumes, and the seeds are then saved from the scorching sun by ants, which takes them to shaded and moist places around their nests (the ants are interested in remaining fruit fragments attached to the seeds). There, the seeds sprout and a new wolf apple plant can wet the appetite of the maned wolf…

I don´t think “Dogs in the Wild” has any deeper purpose or meaning. The point is to show the viewer some interesting animals, and perhaps to show off the technological prowess of the BBC. But sure, I admit that “the family” was pretty wild!

Percy Fawcett did nothing wrong

"Amazon - the lost world" is a three-part documentary from 2020, following archeologists and anthropologists trekking in the Amazon rain forests in South America. Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru are visited. The goal is to investigate evidence that a high culture once existed in the Amazon basin. Once believed to be pseudo-science, recent discoveries suggest that this was indeed the case. Early European explorers were telling the truth when they reported towns along the Amazon river. Likewise, traditions among certain Native tribes about a more glorious past (and much larger settlements) have also been proven correct. At its height, Amazon was the home to a population of about 10 million people! 

The Amazonian civilizations disappeared during the 16th century due to a variety of factors: lethal diseases inadvertently introduced by the Europeans, poisoning by quicksilver (used in gold extraction), and massive slave-raiding. In some areas, the high cultures were declining already before the conquista, due to climate change. Some mysteries still remain, for instance why one Native group have genetic markers similar to those of Australian Aboriginals, Papuans and the Andamanese! That an ancient high culture can just disappear, its remains overgrown by jungle, its few descendants becoming hunters and gatherers, is quite chilling...  

The documentary is "pro-Native" and features interviews with contemporary Native groups about their land rights struggles against the Brazilian state. We also get to follow a Peruvian army unit attacking illegal gold prospectors. 

Actually quite interesting. Recommended.  

Latinamerikaniseringen av Sverige

Håller Sverige på att bli lika klass- och rasmässigt polariserat som Latinamerika? Från Tobias Hübinettes blogg.  

"Latinamerikaniseringen av de svenska klassklyftorna fortsätter"

Gorillas against guerillas

"Primates" is a 2020 BBC mini-series about apes, monkeys and prosimians. Some humans (mostly primatologists) have been thrown in for good measure, too! Most of the documentary is standard fare: spectacular footage of non-human primates from all over the world, and calls to save them for posterity. Good for a boring Christmas holiday, but perhaps not *that* interesting...

However, I did notice a few things. 

In the Congolese hills, the Virunga National Park - with a rare population of mountain gorillas - is protected by "park rangers", actually a heavily armed uniformed militia. The park rangers have been repeatedly attacked by rebel groups operating in the region. But why would humans volunteer to protect gorillas against guerillas, risking their lives in the process? The BBC interviews a ranger who claims to have a spiritual bond with the gorillas. Maybe he has. 

However, there is a much more mundane explanation. The rangers are recruited from the local population and paid by international organizations. Eco-tourism from Western nations is another source of income. Also, the local communities get a share of the profits. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it *does* mean that the rangers have a very vested *human* (Homo sapiens sapiens) interest in protecting the gorillas. They are simply protecting their own sources of income. Since the rebels are presumably Hutu expats or expellees from Rwanda, some kind of ethnic dimension can´t be ruled out either. The people in the Virunga area are literally defending their homeland against foreign intruders. See how I managed to de-romanticize the whole situation? When the Western money stops coming, the mountain gorillas are bush meat, if you ask me...

Another uncomfortable fact. As I have repeatedly pointed out on this blog, even Native peoples deplete their resource bases if given half the chance. Research carried out at Koram Island off the coast of Thailand shows that monkeys, specifically crab-eating macaques, do exactly the same thing! The monkeys are tool-users: they use heavy stones to crack open oysters. The tool-use leads to over-exploitation of the oysters, which tend to become smaller and less abundant as a result. Imagine what would happen if some primate started to use tools consistently...wait... 

Edenic ecological balance doesn´t even exist among tool-using freakin´ *animals*, it seems. 

"Primates" does contain other interesting information, to be sure. We get to meet a team of animal rescuers trying to "retrain" young orphaned orangutans for a life in the wild (the orphans are used to human "foster parents" and have therefore lost these skills). As part of their project, the human trainers have to take climbing lessons in really tall trees! Another team tries to reintroduce pet gibbons into the wild. Gibbons are popular as exotic pets, but many of them are snatched from the wild and essentially trafficked as part of the illegal animal trade. The gibbons shown in the docu are rescued and taken back to their original habitat. 

So perhaps there is some hope, after all. However, I have to say that what really caught my attention was the somewhat more pessimistic facts, some of which BBC doesn´t really want the viewers to confront...