Animal of the Week, February 12, 2013 -- Darwin Day

A depiction of the last common ancestor.

If asked whether I'd ever do a mythical AOTW, I’ve always answered “no”. No dragons, no unicorns, no griffins or minotaurs. And while the Androscoggin beast, supposed big cats in the UK, and yetis have had mentions over the years, all were based on real animals. But this week’s animal breaks the only rule of AOTW: it's a work of science fiction, created by phylogenetic wizardry, and lacking a name. It’s the last common ancestor of all placental mammals (the 5000 species or so that give birth after a placenta nourished gestation, rather than lay eggs (platypuses and echidnas) or raise young in pouches (marsupials)).

Using a large database of morphological characteristics of living and fossil mammals, genetic data, and dates from fossil record, research published in the journal Science back-modelled the evolution of mammals since their divergence and determined that the last common ancestor of anteaters, cows, camels, elephants, humans, and whales was a small insectivorous shrew-like thing living about 64.85 million years ago (give or take 100 000 years). The latest estimates for the asteroid impact that did for the dinosaurs (those that aren't birds) is 66.04 million years ago. Researchers had previously thought the splits between major groups of placental mammals happened while dinosaurs still walked the earth. The new research shows that these groups probably split in the first few hundred thousand years after the extinction of the dinosaurs. This is not to say that other groups of placental mammals weren't alive with the dinosaurs, but that they went extinct too, without leaving any descendents, perhaps in the same event.

We already knew that the animal would be quite shrew-like, because most fossil mammals from the time of the dinosaurs were. But according to the analysis tracing back the evolution of thousands of characters described in extant and extinct mammals, the animal weighed 6-245 g, ate insects, and likely gave birth to one hairless baby. Of course, this is science, and it could all be proven to be wrong. But the last common ancestor definitely did exist, and maybe this is what it was like and when it lived.

February 12 is Darwin Day, honouring the man whose work laid the foundations for the science of evolutionary biology, so I think this wonderful story is a fitting AOTW to mark the occasion.

Animal of the Week: Jan 29, 2013 -- Carry on animal

Well, the snowfall in the UK seems like a distant memory now doesn't it? But wasn't it wonderful? Sure we grumbled. And we stood forlorn on platforms wearing Ugg boots or other unsuitable footwear soaking up the puddles of slush, waiting for trains that we knew would never come. We knew the trains wouldn't run and that it was snowing before we left the house, and yet we left the house, and we complained.

BUT THEN WE ALSO HAD LOADS OF FUN! We went sledging using whatever we could find as a sledge, we walked through the hushed woods early in the mornings after fresh snow. We had snowball fights, and we built all manner of exciting snow sculptures. Newspapers, Twitter, and Facebook feeds were filled with great examples of snowmen, snowpugs, snow henges, snow Easter-Island heads, snowdragons, snow-Buzz Lightyears; people's imagination seemed to know no bounds, and, in some cases, no decency...

Tibetan snowcock, the eastermost species.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/

Snowcocks are five species of bird in the genus Tetraogallus. They are related to partridges and pheasants which they  broadly resemble. The five species in range across the mountains and plateaus of Eurasia, from the Caucasian snowcock in the west to the Tibetan snowcock in the east. The birds live at altitude, sometimes migrating up and down mountains with the seasons.

All species are monogamous, with females incubating the eggs and males standing guard. When not incubating some species are social, forming mixed flocks, providing safety in numbers from their predators such as foxes and eagles.

In defense of the shoebill

Last night many people were gripped by the BBC’s visually stunning new wildlife series Africa. As has been the wont of wildlife filmmakers since the dawn of time, the Africa crew toyed with our emotions throughout. Baby gorillas stared the camera in its lens and the viewer in her primeval ovaries, a drought-starved baby elephant breathed its last as its mother tried to nudge it back to life tenderly with a foot the size of a tree stump, later a new baby elephant frolicked in rain-refreshed pastures (you could almost hear strains of Sir Elton John’s Circle of Life begin to play beneath the already intrusive underscoring). But the thing that riled Twitter the most was the outright evil of the shoebill.

A shoebill, not a human

A nest of two chicks, one of the chicks was a few days older than the other, its head-start in life meant that it was bigger and could muscle its way to food ahead of its sibling, meaning that it grew faster and the size gap increased. As the difference grew, the larger chick got even more food, and eventually, seizing every advantage while the mother was away searching for catfish in the limpid pools of a dense swamp, we saw the large chick pummelling the other with its massive beak. Feathers flying, the weaker chick seemed done for. But then the mother returned to restore order…oh, wait. The mother returned, but shunning the weaker embattled chick she gives the bigger one food and lavishes all her care on this avian Cain. WHY? WHY CAN’T SHE LOOK AFTER THE WEAK? Twitter was alive with people shocked and appalled: for at least half an hour shoebills were officially more despicable, less caring, and warranted our opprobrium more than the Coalition Government on welfare-reform Tuesday.

But what people seem to forget, easily done given the nature of the documentary and its wanton emotional toying with the viewer, is that THESE ARE BIRDS. It would be easy to point out 101 things more inherently preposterous, destructive, uncaring, and designed to screw over our fellow human beings that people do before midday each day (most of them on the tube in London), but that would be continuing in the anthropomorphism of the show. I could also point out that in every series of Springwatch, we watch in fear that the barn owls won’t find enough voles and the older chicks will eat their way through their younger and smaller siblings to make up the calorie deficit – so this siblicide is nothing out of the ordinary, and many birds lay extra eggs as insurance policies, expecting that some offspring will not make it. But rather, I’d like to take a paragraph to celebrate the wonderful shoebill. A bird that, when  I first saw it on a nature documentary as a youngster, helped to spark my interest in evolution and ecology.

Shoebills (Balaeniceps rex) are massive long-legged wading birds. Resembling a cross between a heron and a pelican designed by Jim Henson and viewed in a distorting mirror, they are unmistakable with anything else and utterly unique. Their uniqueness belies their evolutionary history, which is something of a mystery. The birds are in a taxonomic family on their own. On the basis of their shape and feeding habits (stalking fish in the reedbeds of East Africa’s swamps) they have been allied with storks and herons, but DNA analysis suggests they are more closely related to pelicans. Their closest living relative is almost certainly the hammerkop, another curious African bird also of murky evolutionary affinities. Shoebills specialise in hunting catfish and lungfish in shallow or dwindling pools of vast swamps; these fish come to the surface to take gulps of air, at which point a patiently waiting shoebill will strike. Their massive bills (which give them both their English name and their latin genus name Balaeniceps [meaning “whale head”]) enable them to capture larger fish than other stalking waders such as herons and storks, and unlike these birds they can also tear larger prey apart rather than having to swallow it whole. The fossil record of shoebill ancestors is sparse, with some clear relatives from 30 million to 25 million years ago, but not much else. Given their remarkable size, striking appearance, and impenetrable habitat, it’s no surprise the shoebill is one of the species top on the list of any birdwatcher visiting Africa. And when you watch Africa, just remember, they’re only doing what they need to do to survive. They may not be cute, or dying, but they are pretty fricking amazing if you ask me.

Animal of the Week January 7, 2013 -- HOW MUCH?!

What's the most expensive animal?

Well, unsurprisingly the record stands with a racehorse: the most expensive I could find was The Green Monkey, a 2 year old colt that sold in 2006 for $16 m before going on to earn his new owners around $10 000 on the racetrack and being retired in 2010 having not won a single race. The Green Monkey is now a stud horse, earning his pimps $5000 a pop. The $16 million was generated through a bidding war between two racehorse-owner rivals clearly with more money and pride than sense. Although $16 million is exceptional, it is not so outlandish: a great racehorse can earn several million in its racing career and as stud animals, tens of millions. The owners of unbeaten racehorse Frankel, for example, charge £125 000 (about $200 000) to mate a mare with him (no foal, no fee!), and stud fees of $500 000 are not unheard of.

But outside the world of equestrianism, the week's animal, Thunnus orientalis (Pacific bluefin tuna) has set a new record for fish, selling for $1.7 million. Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co, paid the record sum to buy the 222 kg fish for the company's Sushi-Zanmai sushi chain.

The pacific bluefin tuna is a large predatory fish of the same family as mackerel. They can reach a 3 m in length and weigh up to 450 kg. Their close relatives, the Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus) can reach up to 4.5 m in length and weigh over 600 kg. Tuna meat is popular for sushi and sashimi in Japan, and thin strips of the the fatty belly meat of bluefin tuna, called O-Toro, can cost $25 each. Some of the world's bluefin tuna stocks are in sharp decline, including the large Atlantic bluefin, but the Pacific bluefin stocks seem to be doing OK for now. But such crazy prices, and the dwindling of other stocks, are only likely to increase exploitation.

The components of the fish are in no way worth the amount paid, but the first fish sale of the year at the Tsukiji Fish Market (the largest fish market in the world) in Tokyo is traditionally a place for people to show off by paying well over the odds. Last year, Kimura set a new record, but paid only about a third of this years price for a slightly larger fish. But who can put a value on the global exposure of Sushi-Zanmai generated by this news story? How much are these inches in AOTW worth?

For those of you about to tuck into a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, it's probably not bluefin, but most likely skipjack. And skipjack tuna, despite being the 2nd most captured fish (by number) in 2009, has fairly healthy stocks. And the most captured fish? The delicious delicious anchovy.
 
Here is an interesting list of some other costly animals. Including a million dollar tibetan mastif. And here is a very striking looking million-pound sheep. I hope none of these tales is made up like that recounted in "poetic" form when sheep were AOTW.

And finally, a former sushi related AOTW

Animal of the Week December 31, 2012 -- Robin singing in the dead of night

While we're still in the middle of the 12 days of Christmas, I thought a festive edition would be in order. And inspired by my own private music box outside my window, this week's animal is Erithacus rubecula (robin).

As I turned off an episode of Deadwood of the day (S02E11) last night, the absence of Al Swearengen's foul language revealed a robin singing its slightly mournful but impressive song somewhere outside my window, high notes, low notes, trills...at midnight. I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the wild west, and when I woke, inexplicably at 0430 h (the words "Miss Isringhausen" on my tongue), the bird was still at it. Someone should clearly tell this bird about the dawn chorus, no?

Not a nightingale   c PierreSelim/wikimedia commons

I previously wrote about the common confusion of robins with nightingales owing to their habit of singing at night. Certainly in London on December 31, not even in Berkley Square will you hear a nightingale. But fiercely territorial robins sing all year round and intensify their song as the breeding season approaches. So important is a robin's territory that they are often the first birds to strike up song in the dawn and the last to quiet at night. And in built-up environments they will sing throughout the night. Once thought simply to be due to the effect of street lighting, research suggests that robins sing at night to avoid noise pollution. As cities wake up, birdsong becomes drowned out by the human noises, so to effectively establish their territories, robins sing at night.

Other birds are thought to alter their calls to adapt to cities, with great tits changing the pitch of theirs so that it travels better and stands out more among the milieu of city noises.

The robin's association with Christmas is actually slightly convoluted. Postmen in Victorian times were nicknamed Robin Redbreasts because their red tunics recalled the birds, people looked forward to the cards brought to them by the Robins at Christmas time, and rather than stick a picture of a postman on a christmas card, some wag stationer ran with the idea and made the robin a festive symbol.

Many Christmas cards depict groups of robins clustered together, downy feathers puffed out on a twig in a snowy garden, but such a scene would never happen, for robins are highly territorial birds. Males will fight to the death in defence of their breeding territories.

Found throughout Europe but for the far north, in the UK, the robin is the stuff of Christian folklore: one of the explanations for the red breast is that it was stained by the blood of Jesus Christ when a brown robin perched on  the cross and sang to soothe him in his time of dying, all robins henceforth bore the mark. As an evolutionary biologist, this lamarckism strikes me as unlikely, but hard to test.

Animal of the Week September 17, 2012 -- hands off our badgers

It's a purple patch for the mustelids in terms of animal of the week, for this week's animal Meles meles (European badger), is a distant cousin of the otters, among the family of carnivores that also includes weasels, wolverines, polecats, martens, tayras, fishers, and ferrets.

It's not such a purple patch for the badgers of England, because the government has just issued the first culling licence to landowners in Gloucestershire, where it is hoped the cull will help to bring bovine tuberculosis under control. This preliminary licence will allow a consortium of landowners -- farmers, estate managers, and like -- to begin to cull badgers once they have proven that they have the funds to maintain a cull removing 70% of badgers for 4 years. The cull could begin in 3 weeks.

The possibility of culling badgers to reduce the damage caused by bovine tuberculosis has been considered for many years, to the extent that a randomised trial of badger culling was done to investigate the effects. The randomised badger culling trial ran for 9 years in the 2000s and was led by Professor Sir John Krebs, a highly respected scientist. In the trial, the tuberculosis incidence in areas in which badger culling took place was compared with that in areas where it did not. The study concluded that in areas where 70% or more of badgers could be culled, the incidence of bovine tuberculosis could be reduced by up to 16%. However, the study also found areas adjacent to culling sites that did not achieve a high badger mortality experienced increased incidences as infected badgers were displaced and moved to new homes. So the scientists concluded that culling badgers was not a particularly effective means of controlling tuberculosis, and if not done properly could lead to increased incidence of bovine tuberculosis.

Alternative approaches to reduce the impact of bovine tuberculosis are improved animal husbandry and hygiene, increased testing of cattle herds, more efficient exclusion of badgers from cattle sheds and pastures, and development of vaccines for cattle and badgers. There is a licensed badger vaccine, but that is costly to administer as large numbers of badgers would need to be caught and injected, so ideally an oral vaccine should be developed that can be given in bait. No cattle vaccine is licensed, because with the vaccines that are available, once given, because of the immune response it is impossible to tell a vaccinated cow from one that is infected.
Now, I am a pragmatist, and culling is essential in some settings. For example, since we did away with all our large predators, to maintain sustainable populations of herbivores, we have to fill that role in some woodlands to keep deer numbers in check so that trees can regenerate. But such culls should be based on necessity and evidence of benefit, not on pandering to pressure and not with ones eyes on votes and campaign funding for the next election. The badger cull is unneccessary, will lead to suffering for many animals, and could possibly lead to a huge decline in numbers of these delightful animals for a marginal or no benefit.

When I tweeted about the licence earlier, Defra kindly got back to me suggesting that scientists agree a badger cull could help, linking to a document summarising the conclusions of the culling trial. The document contains such supportive comments as these:
"If culling is not conducted in a coordinated, sustained and simultaneous manner according to the minimum criteria, then this could result in a smaller benefit or even a detrimental effect on confirmed cattle bTB incidence."
[Minimum criteria include taking out 70% of badgers, but the number of badgers is unknown, so no-one will know when 70% has been reached]
"In order to have a significant impact on national disease incidence, culling would need to be conducted over a very large area (bTB is currently considered endemic in over 39,000 square km of England – the area under annual bTB testing). The associated impact of culling at this scale on the national badger population is unknown."
"If culling is undertaken, it should be in addition to, not instead of, existing bTB control measures in cattle, which should be maintained and strengthened."
"Monitoring the implementation and impact of any badger culling policy, and the management of expectations, is of key importance."
[For which there is no plan.]
When interviewed about issuing of a the licence to cull earlier today, Krebs called the plan "crazy".

You can sign the petition to stop the cull here. It might be too late, although if the cull could be delayed to the closed season on December 1, then it could not take place again until June 2013 giving more time to make the government and farmers see sense.

Animal of the Week September 10, 2012 -- An Otter For Nutkins

Oh sad times. Television legend Terry Nutkins died on September 6 after a battle with leukaemia, at the age of 66. For many people of a certain age, Terry was the gateway to an appreciation of wildlife. Joining Jonny Morris on Animal Magic in the early 1980s, Nutkins contributed to the educational entertainment perfectly pitched for a young audience, with animal facts interspersed with silly voices, clunky special effects, and appearances from Terry's pet sealion Gemini. After Animal Magic came to an end, Nutkins went on to help create The Really Wild Show which ran for 20 years and launched the career of nature punk Chris Packham.

Otter c Franco Atirador

This week's animal, in honour of Nutkins, is a creature that inspired him, and certainly left its mark, Lutra lutra (Eurasian otter). As a young man Terry spent some time living in the Scottish home of Gavin Maxwell, who is best known for writing The Ring of Brightwater, a story inspired by a smooth-coated otter he bought back from Iraq and raised as a pet. While living with Maxwell, a European otter, Edal, bit the tips off two of Nutkins' fingers, a story that although fairly gruesome became the stuff of comedy. How many people have lost fingers to an otter? And despite this amputating encounter, Terry's passion for animals was undimmed and inspired several generations.


The Eurasian otter is the most widespread of all the otter species, and can be found from Ireland in the west to south Korea in the east and from Norway in the north to Sri Lanka in the south. They are also found in parts of north Africa. This distribution is testimony to their adaptability, and they live in a range of habitats from coastal waters to mountain streams, eating fish, frogs, crustaceans, molluscs, birds, and small mammals, even small beavers.

Otterhounds

During the last century, otters declined in much of their range due to habitat loss, use of pesticides, and hunting. In the UK the otterhound was bred specifically to hunt otters, it has an excellent sense of smell and webbed feet; but the outlawing of otter hunting in 1978 has since led to the decline in the number of otterhounds, such that they are now one of the rarest registered breeds. The protection afforded to otters and the banning of the most harmful pesticides and hunting has seen a dramatic return of the otter population across the UK. Where once they were restricted to the southwest and the wilder parts of Wales and Scotland, as of 2011, otters could be found in every county of England, including greater London (in 2006 the body of a full grown male otter was found run over in Wapping). But if you are lucky enough to encounter an otter, learn from Nutkins' loss and keep your fingers to yourself.

So, anyway, I'm not normally one to be affected by celebrity passing, but this AOTW is for you Terry! So long and thanks for all the animals.