[UA] Cultures in animals

[Gaston Phillips]

on 6/8/01 7:26 PM, Timothy Ferguson at ferguson at beyond.net.au wrote:

> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu [mailto:ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu]On
>> Behalf Of Torsten Bernhardt
> 
>> 
>> No one ever wants to be the echidna. Sigh.
> 
> The echinda is a necessarily cool species.  Especially since it has an
> ancient Greek monster for a name.  Australia is just THE place for cool
> paralell evolution.
> 
> Hey, what if Australia is a fragment from a another iteration?
> Hrrrrrrrrrrrm?  How else do you explain the rats which aren't rats, the
> cattle which aren't cattle and the lions that are possums?
> 

Look at Madagascar, actually.  The idea is (As I remember it) that
Madagascar broke off from Africa before Primates evolved.  And, because the
environment was less stressful, Primates never evolved there.

(Actually, when talking about species and evolution and stuff, I find
'because' to be a generally misleading term).  Regardless.  Point being, in
Madagascar, Primates are Lemurs.  They are called Prosimians, and are
generally thought of as being kind of like halfway between 'Cat' and
'Monkey'.

There's lots and lots of species of Lemurs, from these huge ones called
Indrii to these tiny little 'mouse lemurs'.  But the hands down
bad-assingest weirdest one of all is the 'Aye Aye'.   Duke University pretty
much has the market covered on Aye Ayes in captivity (At least in the
States).  This is their page explaining what they call "The most bizzare of
all the primates" : http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/aye.html  (I,
personally, think we're weirder, as far as primates go.  But still.)
http://www.duke.edu/web/primate/ayeaye1.html has a gallery of photos of the
Aye Ayes.

But here's a general description:

The size of a large racoon, their tails are as long again as their body, and
bushy like a squirrel's.  Their fur is black or grey and wiry.  They have
huge, batlike ears that they can cup around the branch they're on.  They
have rodentlike front teeth.  Their middle finger is as long as their wrist
and incredibly thin and flexible.  I think it has an extra joint.  It can
reach back and touch the elbow, ad ends in a long and hooked claw.  With it,
they tap along the branch, and apparently echolocate maggots in hollow
spots.  They gnaw a hole into the branch, then fish around with that freaky
middle finger of theirs.

They are hunted and killed as Pests in Madagascar because local superstition
holds that if they point that middle finger at you, it will curse you and
you'll die.

Um.  Yeah.  So, don't go stealing /all/ the 'Convergent Evolution' points
for Australia.  Madagascar should at least be awarded a little 'Freakiest
Evil Creature' medal.

Gaston


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