H. neanderthalensis - H. sapiens Interbreeding?

The BBC reports that the question has come up again as to whether early modern humans and Neanderthals, whose occupation of Europe overlapped, interbred. This new speculation is based on radiocarbon dating and re-examination of 30,000 year old skeletal material from a cave site in Romania. The bones (cranium shown above) are said to show diagnostic features of both modern humans and Neanderthals.

I would think that a lot of this can be sorted out by the project to map the Neanderthal genome that we blogged on last summer. Professor Clive Gamble, quoted in the article, also says that the DNA evidence should tell the tale at the end of the day and that we should be cautious about the evidence for interbreeding. Neanderthal DNA recovered so far seems to show that our evolutionary lines diverged 600,000 years ago. My favorite quote from Gamble: "We've known for some time that the earliest modern humans in Europe are a funny-looking bunch".

Steve's take on this:

I love this: "The question is whether these robust features show that they were up to no good with Neanderthal women behind boulders on the tundra, or whether they were just a very rugged population."

Rugged to be out shagging on the tundra I should think...

Phorusrhacids

Ah, synchronicity! The press release on "terror birds" that I posted on last week came just as Darren Naish was finishing a literature review of phorusrhacids. You can read the first of a series of posts on these big critters over here at Darren's Tetrapod Zoology.

A Horseman

I couldn't think of a single contemporary "hook" for use of this photograph, but I like it so much I just had to put it up. This is my grandfather, Travis Reid, in a picture taken in Jonesboro, Arkansas. From his appearance and its placement in the album, I believe this was taken in the winter of 1921-22, when he was 21.

My grandfather loved horses and boats and fishing. Though he was born in 1900, he always kept a very 19th century mind-set. My father (his son-in-law) still jokes that air-conditioning and the outboard motor on his fishing boat were the only 20th century inventions that Mr. Reid really approved of.

He was a fine man and I was lucky to spend a lot of time with him. He taught me how to fish, gave me my first canoeing lessons, would always toss a baseball, and patiently answered my myriad questions. He took me on trips to the Ozarks. We went fishing at his favorite spots in the lowlands west of Crowley's Ridge: Cache River and Portia and Shirey Bays, horseshoe lakes on the Black River. One quirk: he never used my name when he talked to me. It was never "Reid", but always "Grandson" or "Old Boy". In the 27 years we shared I never even thought to ask why.

You can tell from this picture that Travis Reid was a sharp-dressed man. Look at that raffish cap and the hacking jacket. And dig those boots!

Hmmmm

Patrick sent me this item: a foxhound pack in England is flying a hybrid eagle at foxes.

IF-- very big "if"-- the bird is very well- trained and, above all, the dogs are accustomed to it, this could work-- after all, hounds, eagles, and horses work together every winter in Asia.

But most likely this isn't so. I fear Patrick's scenario: "Let's see -- amped up hounds, lots of people, a couple hundred horses, a panicked fox, and someone in a coat and tie handling a massive Golden Eagle cross in the middle of it all. Madness on stilts if you ask me! When the eagle is injured or killed, it will be described as an "accident" rather than planned stupidity".

Only it may not be the eagle that gets killed...

(And will someone tell me why anyone would dilute the genes of a Golden with those of a gerbil- eating Steppe??)

"Sun Head"

The petroglyphs Reid blogged about below put me in mind of the "Sun Head" figure at the Tamgaly site in Kazakhstan, below. Could it be a shaman figure? According to a Kazakh brochure, other figures might be as well. "Unique representations of 'magic personages' can be found, dressed up in animal skins with wolf tails and the extremities of the hands crooked in spirals. But the brochure says that what it calls "a deity with a round aura around the head" is missing. While some have been stolen and allegedly shipped to Japan-- I never could find the dog and ram photographed by archaeologist Renato Sala, for instance-- this one was obviously there!

These are from the oldest, Bronze- Age group, along with hunters, dogs, horses, and even sex.

Reid?



Reid says:

That's a great petroglyph, Steve! Shamanism has deep roots in Central Asia and Siberia. Some of the classic ethnographic descriptions of it come from here and typically, the shaman uses a drum to induce the trance. Studies have shown that beating the drum at a certain frequency causes people to go into the trance state. The "swirling" hands, the feeling of extra digits, and the swirling feeling around the head that you mention are common images in shamanism world-wide.
Here's another Coso petroglyph showing the swirling head effect to accompany the ones shown in my original post. Do you recall seeing any geometric designs that might fit with the "entoptic images" that Whitley and others have talked about?

Bronze Age would certainly fit - I imagine that's about 2000 - 500 BC there. Dave Whitley gave a paper at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in 2005 where he said that the earliest archaeological evidence in Asia for shamanism dated to about 8,000 years ago. He believes he has rock art evidence for shamanism here in North America that he can date back to 12,000 years ago. He thinks it is possible that shamanism was invented in North America and that the practice traveled back across the Bering Strait to Asia. Certainly a provocative theory, but I thought it was quite a reach.

Around the web

Peculiar writes to me:

"This one sounds like the first chapter of a pretty good thriller: "Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk said on Tuesday he spent part of private donations for research to pay the Russian mafia for mammoth tissues to clone extinct elephant species."

He adds: "I like this line too, though I wouldn't have figured it was very hard in Korea: "Do you know how hard it is to secure four or five animal ovaries at butcher shops? You need to keep the workers there happy." "

Michael Blowhard begins an excellent series of interviews with the brilliant and politically unclassifiable writer Bill Kauffman, whose thinking is admired by "Crunchy Cons", paleoconservatives, anarchists, and old- fashioned Democrats (if there are any of them left).

Want to write a novel? Quickly? Go here and do it! Actually I think this is a very good idea and if I were not writing (at least) two books right now-- more on that soon-- I'd be in there too.

The nanny state is determined to kill your dog with kindness. Go here to find out how Joe Trippi and the dog meddlers around Denver want to bring in a "European- style" model that includes the outright destruction of certain breeds. Is yours next?

"European models" for the US are as much red flags as are the words "for the children" as justification for the latest in social engineering. Come to think of it, these dog rules seem to stink of both.

French guns again

For fans of French design, like, for instance, my 16 gauge Manufrance Ideal: here is an even prettier one, a twelve. It is available if you want it, from Kirby Hoyt.

Spellcheck

Here is one that will resonate with all writers and editors, courtesy of my agent Bill Bowers:

I have a spelling checker,
It came on my PC.
It plainly marques for my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your please to no.
Its letter perfect in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

New England Autumn

Annie D's friend 'Batwrangler'sent me this haunted image of a New Hampshire buck. Somehow it makes me nostalgic.

Big Bird

The LA Times carries the LA County Natural History Museum's announcement of the discovery of the largest fossil bird every found. There was no species name listed in the story, but the fossil skull, discovered in Patagonia, is related to an extinct group of birds known as phorusrhacids - "terror birds." He has been dated to the Oligocene, 15 million years ago.

I'd like to see one scaled against a moa. This new fellow looks quite a bit more robust than the herbivore moas.

Vandenberg Launch

One of the interesting things about living here in Santa Barbara is the fact that occasionally you can see satellite launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located about 40 miles northwest of us. The US launches satellites from two facilities: Vandenberg, where the launches go south over the Pacific, generally for payloads with polar orbits; and Cape Canaveral, where the launches go east over the Atlantic, generally for payloads that need equatorial orbits.

Under the right conditions, they can be seen for a long way. Probably the most striking view I have had of a Vandenberg launch, was about 10 years ago, actually before we moved here. It was just after dusk and we were attending one of Travis' Little League baseball games in Palmdale. That's about 140 miles away from Vandenberg. You could clearly see the flaming exhaust and two distinct stage separations. The game stopped as everyone stared at the big fireworks.

I had almost forgotten about the pictures I'm showing here of a launch that took place almost exactly a year ago. Normally we don't get any advance warning of these, but this was a unique event, the launch of the very last Titan IV. My employer has employees seconded at the base, and they gave us the heads up. That's a group of my co-workers on the west porch of our building waiting for the show.

This shot shows pretty much what the view was like to the naked eye. We are facing west and you can see the Titan headed south. You can get some idea of the scale from the tree in the foreground. We were far enough away that there was no sound at all. In towns like Lompoc and Guadalupe that are closer to the base, these guys rattle windows.

We saw later in the news that this launch had a classified payload. Nice euphemism for spy satellite.

This is about the limit of my little point-and-shoot's telephoto. You can clearly see the flames out of the rear of the first stage.

This was taken after the first stage separation. You can see that the first stage has fallen away, and is no longer firing. Daytime launches don't put on quite the show that night launches do.

I wish I could say that I took this picture, but must admit I borrowed it from the LA Times. I did witness the launch however, which took place one evening during the summer of last year. Connie and I were walking on the beach and saw it go up. Of course I had no camera with me. It was a spectacular display, and this shot is a good representation of what it looked like.

Pluvialis is back..

.. from Central Asia. Click here for a pic of her with a Lammergeier-- one with a tale of its own.

Andy Rooney, Latter Day Vegetarian

I'm probably in the last generation of people who could pick Andy Rooney out of a line-up; he and my two late grandfathers are WWII contemporaries. I've known Rooney's face and his voice all my life, and I've always liked him. How could you not like such a gruff old contrarian, eyebrows and all?

Sure, many find him annoying. And for a time (perhaps a whole decade), the network seemed to have him staged as a kind of pet, reduced almost to slapstick. He was too old I guess to seem relevant and too young to be taken seriously.

Now Andy's back, older than ever and still rumpled-looking in high definition. His new role makes him kind of an elder statesman, and it suits him. I still like him. But what's this all about?

(Click link and play clip, "Food For Thought")

Some More on Shamans in Coso Rock Art

I wanted to add some more pictures to the Shamans and Coso Rock Art post below but ran into the usual Blogger content limitations, so I'll put a little more up in this post. As I mentioned below, it's theorized that some of the rock art in Little Petroglyph Canyon is there to record what shamans saw during their vision quests. As one walks the length of the canyon, one can see a number of small cleared areas, stone circles if you will, along the sides of the canyon. Here is a picture of one of these above. These could be places where vision quests were conducted. They are often close to their rock art representations. If you look closely in this picture just to the left of center you can see a square geometrical petroglyph, perhaps one of the entoptic vision shapes described by Whitley.

Petroglyphs such as the one above.....

......and the shapes that cover this boulder are representative of what Whitley talks about as the shapes seen in entoptic visions. These are common throughout the area.

There are also a number of anthropomorphs, like this little bowman, who have more than the normal five digits. Apparently the hallucination of extra digits is common during shamanistic trances.

Shamans in Coso Rock Art

I have posted about the spectacular rock art at Little Petroglyph Canyon up in Inyo County several times now but have so many interesting images from my visit there last year you'll be seeing more. This shot shows petroglyphs of several shamans from high on the canyon wall. I had to use a telephoto lens to get this level of detail.

The rock art expert who has written the most about shamanism as represented in the rock art of the California desert is David Whitley. His best compendium of this is in his book Art of the Shaman. Whitley's work is fairly controversial, some of it I disagree with, but I have to give Dave credit for some good ideas. I'll present some of those here.

Whitley believes these images were made by shamans, healers or religious leaders who were believed to enter the supernatural world by entering a trance. The shaman would go on a vision quest: isolating himself and going through a period of fasting and meditation (and drug use?)until he entered the trance and had a hallucinogenic vision. The shaman would acquire power to accomplish things - heal the sick, make rain, bring game animals, find lost objects - usually as he took the form of an animal spirit helper.

Often during the trances, the shaman would see glowing geometric patterns "in the mind's eye" in the form of zig-zags, spirals, dots, grids, or nested curves. These shapes are apparently due to the neuropsychology of trances - are hard-wired into all humans - and are seen in the same general forms in all cultures that practiced shamanism. They are called entoptic visions and could be mixed and matched in a bewildering variety. These were seen by the shaman as symbols of power and images he would want to record. Whitley believes that shamans would want to record in rock art the things experienced during trances immediately at the end of the vision quest, so they would not forget the powerful visions they had seen.

The images of shamans above are believed by Whitley to show the shaman portraying himself as he thought he appeared during his trance. The figures are all wearing ritual shirts believed to be skin shirts painted with the patterns of the entoptic visions that the shamans saw during their trances. The largest shaman in the middle has so taken on the characteristics of his spirit familar that he has bird feet instead of human feet. His face is a swirl, and the hook shapes projecting from his head are most likely emblematic of quail topknots used in a headdress. Hard to tell what the implements in his hands are: maybe a bow and some arrows?

This fellow with the quail topknot headdress is so interesting looking that he has taken on a sort of iconic status. The Maturango Museum in the nearby town of Ridgecrest has taken him on as their logo. They have a bronze statue of him just outside the door. It is a nice museum for its small size, and they conduct tours at Little Petroglyph Canyon. Also, I saw this shaman used as part of the decoration of a brass wall clock for sale in a schlocky "Southwestern Art" store in Sedona. I'm sure the copyright ran out long ago.

Around the Web

Carel has a wonderful post on nomenclature up, with perfect visuals as well, of course. Most taxonomy nuts (and Far Side fans) know Gary Larson has a beetle genus named after him. But how about this?

"Australian paleontologist Greg Edgecombe has named many trilobites for musicians, including Avalanchurus lennoni, A. starri, Struszia mccartneyi and S. harrisoni for the Beatles, Mackenziurus johnnyi, M. joeyi, M. deedeei, and M. ceejayi for the Ramones, Aegrotocatellus jaggeri and Perirehaedulus richardsi for members of the Rolling Stones, and Arcticalymene viciousi, A rotteni, A. jonesi, A cooki and A. matlocki for the Sex Pistols."

Also: discovering a new species in your Utah back yard.

Gail Goodman sent me this story on the anti- Cesar Millan Not to take sides exactly-- though I go more in the direction of this article-- but I love this, partcularly in view of our recent discussions on dog ancestry:

"Learning from wolves to interact with pet dogs makes about as much sense as, 'I want to improve my parenting -- let's see how the chimps do it!' "

Cathy Siepp finds our manners wanting. I have always agreed with the remark made by Stephen Maturin in one of Patrick O'Brian's sea novels: " Question and answer has never seemed to me to be a liberal form of conversation".

A mere taste, and some weather..

Peculiar has blogged our trip to the Manzanos ( go here and scroll up). This post has everything-- history, geology, natural history, splendid photos, and humor-- a serious "read the whole thing". Here is a mere taste:


And we had our first snow two nights previous. Here is a dawn shot-- again a mere taste.



Update: link fixed for Manzanos. And for more on tazis-- another splendid piece of writing-- go here.

Endangered Species

Union Products, Inc., the company that manufactures plastic pink flamingoes is about to close its doors. Please say it ain't so!

Dwarf Water Buffalo

The New York Times has this article on extinct dwarf water buffalo that were found on the island of Cebu in the Philippines. An interesting analogue to the pygmy mammoth that was found out here in the California Channel Islands.

Colonel Cooper and Wolves

After posting the remembrance of Jeff Cooper below, I decided to dig up our correspondence. I had written him complimenting this essay and recommending the flight of eagle against wolf as one of the 'great hunts'. He replied on 6 august 2002:

"Certainly falconry must be included among the great hunting experiences. The activity, however, is entirely beyond my ken, so I have no comments to make upon it.I will not, however, hold still where the wolf is the target, unles you are speaking of cubs. For a bird to kill a wolf is one of those things "I gotta see".

"However, I do take note, and I appreciate your interest.

"Cordially,
Jeff Cooper"

I responded with more material and received the following:

"Puppies perhaps. Hundred pounders, Unlikely.

"Cheers!"

This is the photo I sent:



(pic captured from Kazakh website)

Two Modes

Posting will likely continue light for a few weeks. I am either doing this:



Or this:

Elsewhere on the Web

I can't COMPLETELY quit referal- blogging!

Roseann sent me this hilarious-- if ultimately dismaying-- story: a party of Forest Service workers demanded evacuation by helicopter because they heard wolves howling!

From Matt-- ancient giant dromedaries and camel hunters. I find this particularly interesting because I thouught dromedaries to be more "derived" and later than Bactrians. What say you, Darren?

A new mouse has been discovered on Cyprus, the last of the surviving Mediterranean endemic island species.

Elephants are suffering social and mental crackups in both Asia and Africa, killing humans, terrorizing villages, even raping rhinos. This excellent and serious New York Times magazine article explores some reasons. Read and weep for the elephants.

Will there be a statue of Genghis in Washington? "Mongols Say Leader Is Misunderstood".

Some rather original 'doom & gloom' thoughts from a scientist.

Crunchy Conservative Rod Dreher writes movingly and at length on his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Reactions have been mixed. I think this is an essay by a brave and honest man who knew he would get a lot of grief but chose to follow his conscience. Rod is also father to a new baby girl-- congratulations Rod!

A little late: the legendary Colonel Jeff Cooper, firearms instructor, warrior, writer and contrarian, died a few weeks ago. 'Armed Liberal' gives him the best of memorial tributes, affectionate but clear- eyed, here. Cooper could be difficult-- I once had an exchange of about six letters with him trying to convince him, with photos, that trained eagles could kill wolves, but he seemed insulted by the thought. The world will not see his like again. The Alpha Enviro used to say that he should have perished in the Cretaceous Extinction Event.

A Quick Report

Things have been busy in Querencia- ville. As I promised, we have been going out; hiking, hunting, and gathering, and will be for a while. In between I have been preparing and hustling for a book on eagles and a collection of travel essays-- neither sold yet, but hopeful signs on both-- and revising a novel parts of which have sold (one, "A Friend of the Devil", was out a few months ago in Gray's Sporting Journal). And I am still looking for a Goshawk. Tuuli is flying with Bodie in Albuquerque because of a dearth of accesible hares here-- still only an unreliable vehicle, and the nearest good population this year is north of White Sands Missile Range almost 50 miles away.

Two field trips await photos. Last week Peculiar and Mrs. Peculiar celebrated their first and our tenth anniversary by hiking into the unique ecosystem that dominates the east side of the Manzano Wilderness in the Manzano Mountains east of the Rio Grande Rift, also about fifty miles away. An odd combination of geology and climate has made the forest there resemble that of the eastern US-- lush, cool, and deciduous, dominated by oaks and especially maples. Climbing up through the mist, I felt as though I were walking through a Massachusetts woods in winter-- where were the ruffed grouse?! At the crest, the mist cleared briefly to offer us a magnificent view of the grassy plain to the west. On that side of the rift, the mountains fall off in vertiginous vertical cliffs, home to Peregrines and golden eagles, while the forested slopes behind slide gently down to the prairie. On the way back we drove into the heart of a thunderstorm, backlit by the sunset; descending the steep western slope was like flying into it in a plane. We drove through and looked back to see what we all agreed was the most perfect rainbow we had ever seen, a complete arc backed by the nearly- black thunderhead but rooted in the golden plain.

Here is Libby further on that day:"Yesterday they [ P & Mrs.] took us and two of the tazis up to the Manzanos to hike through the deciduous forest there -- it was gorgeous. We were hiking in the woods in the mist all the way up to a ridge -- when we got there the clouds parted and we were looking down on Belen and the Rio Grande valley. It was raining on the way up there, but somehow we had a window for our hike without it. As we were coming back down the hill from Mountainair we drove right into the middle of a gigantic thundercloud that was slamming into the mountains -- all the way through it we could see this very bright light to the west. We emerged from the cloud, looked back and saw the brightest double rainbow any of us have even seen. Spectacular! Then we came back and had twice- baked potatoes, braised leeks, and buffalo London broil for the anniversary dinner, washed down with lots of vodka and wine."

I hope Mr P. sends photos soon. Meanwhile you'll have to be content with these from the same storm system, taken the day before from Casa Q.






This weekend we hosted thirteen saluki- tazi people from all over the world-- three from England, one from Norway, and from many states as well. I took virtually no photos because I was ranging ahead with the hounds-- if you don't work actively with them they will just hunt where they will-- but I am promised photos from everywhere.
Meanwhile here are a few of the puppies.














A good time was had by all.

All Quiet In The Warm Front

Ironically, I check in here a couple times a day to see if maybe Reid or Steve has posted something. I'm missing my Querencia fix.

Is everyone staying dry? A giant green wave on the radar foamed up out of the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday---This vast weather-maker has us alternately ducking squalls and bitching about the heat. It seems to cover half the continent, and it's supposed to stay all week.

A little something to keep your spirits up: Minor Tweaks. This is columnist Tom Bartlett's very funny blog. I followed a trail of links to find it, having read Bartlett's recent Washington Post piece on the "raw milk underground," (Who knew?)

I recommend that one to you, and then invite you to check out the blog. Enjoy!

Two if by Sewall

A couple new essays to share from our friend Jake Sewall: the first a pondering of our humble origins and the second a strategic view from the rooftop lofts.

Dust

and

Warrior Monks of the Rooftops

Enjoy!

Something Fishy

Reid hooked this op-ed piece (LATimes) by Victoria Braithwaite, a behavioral biologist at Edinburgh University, and sent it to Steve, Rebecca and myself for comment. I threw back the following flippant reply, which Steve suggested I share with the rest of the class.

Maybe everyone can chime in with their views in Comments?

...I've seen that report written up but not yet heard directly from its author. I find it unsurprising. It's annoying from the standpoint of assuming (as the researcher seems to) that anglers ALL believe fish do not feel pain and that this alone justifies our "dragging millions of them ashore with little enough conscience."

As a hunter, I see it as totally beside the point. I assume all animals feel pain; my efforts to hunt them are actually informed by this assumption. As I love to say, though I know it's trite: I'm out there to kill animals, not hurt them!

To expect us all (every person, not just every hunter or angler) to cease and desist any behavior that might cause another animal pain is tantamount to suggesting
mass suicide. None of us lives without consequence, right Steve?

I think scientific exploration of pain is extremely valuable and SHOULD give us pause. I am not a sport-fisher or a catch-and-release falconer in large part because I feel certain it's wrong to hurt animals for no better reason than my sport. But killing animals, especially to eat them and always by the swiftest possible means, that's a necessary part of being alive (a status I will not conveniently disallow myself, no matter how many fish doctors suggest it's the right thing to do).

Sidewalk Art

Once or twice a year, some city commission here in Santa Barbara arranges for an exhibition of art that is installed along the sidewalks of State Street, our main street downtown. Sometimes it consists of a number of works by a single artist, other times they are by multiple artists. They vary in quality.

Last spring, the exhibition was sculptures were of multiple pairs of giant (6 ft long) trout, with outdoor scenes painted on the sides. These were pretty nice, and I guess I missed the boat not getting pictures of them. They were done in connection with the Steelhead Festival which honors those few ocean-run trout who still try to swim up Mission Creek to spawn.

Last year one of these exhibitions was a series of large bronze masses that were done by a single artist. Local citizens noticed that in shape and color, these bronzes resembled nothing so much as giant coprolites, and were quick to point this out to city government. The exhibition period for the bronzes was cut short. I'm not sure how much money gets spent on this.

The current exhibition has been up about a month. The bronze shown above is titled "Musical Chairs."

This one is called "Reflection Disc." The differential surface treatments of the limestone give a sort of pleasing contrast, and the nice yellow color really glowed in the afternoon sun. It reminded me of building stones in Magdalena.

This one is called "Igiyagi", which I understand is a made-up faux-Japanese word. It has a pleasing look. Connie thought it resembled a nautilus, but it reminded me of the popped-up aluminum bags of Jiffy-Pop Popcorn we used to cook back in the 1960s. Leave it to me to think of food.

This was actually my favorite of all of them and is named "Logout." Sort of rustic and sort of self-contained. Made me want to go camping.

This was quite a provocative piece - two discs (there's another on the opposite side) with upside-down MacDonald's Golden Arches painted on them, shot full of giant green arrows. A local MacDonald's franchise owner was outraged. The name of this piece is "W." Is this a political statement? A symbolic fast-food restaurant review? Lotta levels of meaning here.

Dog Origins

This is in response to Darren's excellent post on dog origins that Reid comments on below-- you might read it first. Some commentors insist on the conventional " dog = wolf " formula Darren casts doubt upon, but I think the evidence is with Darren.

I have a friend named Vladimir Beregovoy, a retired Russian zoologist in Virginia, who has made a lifelong study of "primitive" breeds. He has even written a book on them: 'Primitive Breeds- Perfect Dogs'.(Here is a link to his book on laikas). He doesn’t speculate much on origins, but several things are clear. While they share a bunch of traits that seem superficially more 'wolflike' than more 'derived' breeds-- less obedient, more pack oriented, single annual estrous, more likely to howl and yodel than bark a lot, den- digging-- they still fall strongly on the dog rather than wolf side of the divide behaviorally, still have more neotenic skulls, up- curled tails, still watch humans for cues and want to please-- the whole suite of things Darren mentioned, and more. They do NOT revert to wolf but to pariah (or in the north 'laika' types with more coat-- quite naturally).*

Never mentioned in the 'dogs are wolves' view is the apparent antipathy between dog and wolf. Wolves invariably kill and eat dogs if they can. Coyotes will try to, (personal experience) until the dogs are large and can course and kill the coyote. I have seen the latter more than once. Matings in captivity have to be made carefully and work best with breeds that probably do have a few wolf genes, notably husky.

I have worked with wolves in a zoo, dogs, and primitive breeds. No question that the wolf is the behavioral outlier.

As we know, species hybrids are not that rare. Darren gave me examples recently, even of hybrids betwen genera-- also, are the saker and gyrfalcon one species or two?

That wolves are closer to dogs than coyotes is not in doubt-- coyotes originated in the New World, wolves in the old. Why does this invalidate the idea that dogs could be a separate (Old World) species more closely allied to wolves?

'Multiple origins' didn't cut it in humans and I predict won't in dogs. ALL have too many similarities. I do think that more derived dogs are more neotenic a la the Russian fox experiment (still going on I think).

Ray Coppinger knows a lot about behaviour-- brilliant there-- but I think much less about genetics and evolution.

The one point the first commenter made that was valid was that dogs did come to the New World with humans. But they didn't necessarily have to come with the FIRST, who might well have been west- coast marine hunters. They almost certainly came down the ice- free corridor with the humans who came 12,000 years ago. This timeline fits well with your scenario. (And of course these humans came from 'first- dog' Asia).

I don't think Christy Turner has published officially yet. He has a rather far- fetched theory that dogs protected humans from large hyenas, but he is an anthropologist, not a zoologist. Still, he recently found a 14,000 year- old dog tooth in the Altai.

Dogs aren't wolves.

* 'Oriental' sighthound breeds, like aboriginal Afghans, salukis, and my tazis, have the whole primitive suite of behaviors including single estrous. They form a natural clade from the Middle East to Mongolia and should probably be considered only one breed (if 'breed' has any validity whatsoever). They are virtually unrelated to such other coursing breeds as greyhounds, deerhounds etc which act much more'doggy'. Curiously, modern show selection etc-- probably for less feral behaviour-- has made the Kennel Club types more doggy, even changing their reproductive cycle to 'normal' dog two- heat. Mine still have only one-- thank God! Seven dogs are quite enough for now.

Another Curious Caterpillar

Steve's picture of a caterpillar in his "Getting Out" post reminded me of this one we saw while out in the field with Steve & Libby in Magdalena last month. Afraid I have no idea as to who this fellow might be, though he is an attractive shade of green. Caterpillar enthusiasts, grab your guidebooks!

Controversial Origins of the Domestic Dog

Darren Naish has one of his as-usual excellent essays up, dealing with the origins and evolution of dogs. A recommended read on a subject of interest to posters and commenters at this blog.

What I'd Most Like to be Doing

Trapping Goshawks in Idaho.


Even if an eagle gets into the net.


That's our friend Bruce Haak, biologist, writer, and falconer with the eagle. He traps and bands every fall on an 8000- foot ridge, where winter comes early.

Bleg

For a project-- does anyone know where I can find a copy of the 1971 made- for- TV movie (the second Movie- of- the- Week ever!) "Harpy", starring Hugh O'Brian, Elizabeth Ashley, and a big serious falconry- trained Harpy eagle?

I believe the bird was trained by Jim Fowler, protege of Marlin Perkins. Lots of strange connections there I may lay out someday.

I don't think it's on a commercial tape, and I know it's not on DVD.

Getting Out..

... is most of what I have been up to.

I have found a mysterious nest made mostly of lengths of various kinds of wire, with some sticks and cholla joints woven in...


Some curious caterpillars...



Can anyone identify it? Is it a Dysschema howardi? I saw some of those there recently...

And the girls are regaining their girlish figures as they begin to hunt. Puppy and other dog pics soon-- these courtesy of Jutta, visiting from Germany.


I am also starting a new book project-- more when I know more.

Quiet Please

A sign from the flight line at Santa Barbara Airport. The airport has been here since the 1920s, when it was surrounded by lemon groves and pasture. Now that those have been replaced by UC - Santa Barbara and suburbs, people complain about the noise. Like they didn't know the airport was there when they bought their houses.

An Unexpected Benefit

It’s supposed to be fun. Anything you do for yourself, as a hobby or pastime, is supposed to be fun. So why do we need this reminder? We shake our heads at angry Little League fathers and puzzle over Prima Donna chess players. Probably there’s a brooding and hostile Tiddlywinks champion out there, a big chip on his shoulder.

Distressingly often, I am this way about my falconry.

I can leave to hunt in a sour mood and sometimes sink deeper if the day goes badly. I’m not violent, but I’ll blame and fume and curse and carry on. I wonder what that’s all about.

In moments of clarity I know: Falconry is not a hobby. It is everything you are (or need or have to offer as a person), but in a hayfield. You will do it angry or sad, or tired and resigned, as you might eat a cold supper in an empty kitchen. No one eats only when he’s happy.

Yet there is happiness in hawking, tremendous heights of it—Laugh-out-loud moments and many little opportunities to smile. These, and not the lowest ebbs, are what make you wonder why your hobby is not more consistently fun.

This year I’ve started hawking with a partner. Not the hawk—Smash is mercenary, more an ally of convenience. I mean my green new dog, Rina, who is much closer to a daughter. I surprise myself to write that, but true: Taking Rina to the field raises many of the same concerns as taking my daughters hunting. I worry more about the heat, the bugs, and snakebite; moreover, I wonder… Is she having fun? Does she understand what we’re here for? Will she resent it someday?

Silly. She’s a dog. She loves to hunt! Closer still, she lives to hunt. She was, in fact, born to hunt. But when she holds back before leaping a ditch or hesitates in a patch of briars I hear myself encouraging her; speaking softly and smiling in my voice.

“That’s a girl. You can do it. Come here, sweetheart.”

And so she does, and we continue. She high-steps around the next briar, and though I clearly need her to go through it, I’m smiling at her choice. When she spots a bird and runs around to flush it from behind, I am exultant. I am, at all times in the field with Rina, a little softer in my manner, and more patient. Strangely, I do not find this at all an intrusion. I find it makes me happy.

El Morro

One of our vacation stops was El Morro National Monument east of Zuni pueblo in west-central New Mexico. This striking mesa has been a landmark along a heavily used travel route for hundreds of years.
Rainfall and snowmelt from the mesa top drains down this channel and waterfall into a large pool, also providing incentive for travelers to stop here. Native American, Spanish colonial, and historic Anglo passers-by have etched petroglyphs and inscriptions into the soft sandstone on the sides of the mesa.

There are many Spanish colonial inscriptions dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Almost all include the formulaic phrase paso por aqui - "passed by here." This is the earliest and most famous of those, left in 1605 by Don Juan de Onate (afraid my keyboard won't let me put the ~ over the n) the leader of the initial Spanish colonization of New Mexico. As you can see, a Native American petroglyph was later done over his inscription.

There are many Native American petroglyphs all around the mesa. Here is a shot of some of these.

This petroglyph was Connie's favorite: a fat quail, complete with feather topknot.