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".
8 comments:
Re Cesar Millan--OK, face it, I still watch and like him. I wish he'd just do his thing though, and not try to explain it. I wonder if he has ever observed wild wolves. The dog-wolf behavior connection has never made much sense to me anyway. But he's found some buzzwords that impress his clients, and I guess he does have to talk to them. He is acutely aware of quick and subtle behavioral signs, but not so good at explaining them. (Check out Turid Rugaas at Amazon.com, who is good at it).
To me, Cesar's 'hand-bite' works as well as scruffing does, and dominant downing changes the subject for the dog (and shows off Cesar's strength and quick reflexes). He very rarely uses either.
The difference in the dog's face from the beginning and end of a show is the important part. I think people should watch before they bash.
Now, let's talk about Gunther...
OK-- want to do a guest post?
Thanks, but you've heard it all already. I'd rather just daydream and remember. One thing though, Gunther didn't try to explain the whys and hows, he just did what he did, it seemed instinctively.
Besides, I might get distracted into talking about his kid, which would turn into another bashing, based very little--but more than enough for me--actual observation. Which is exactly my argument against Cesarbashers, and I would thus become a prime example.
p.s. The 'word verification' part of posting makes me instantly dyslexic. Especially 'p', 'q' and 'g'.
I have yet to see Millan's show (I live in Latin America, and-oddly enough-Natgeo has yet to air the show here. Searching through the blogosphere, however, I do find the emotion-laden defensiveness of his female hero-worshippers somewhat off-putting-even on a working dog site which I'll be polite enough not to name. The critics seem to be on a more even emotional keel.
RE exercise:Most of the dogs in the middle-to-upper middle class community where I live seem to never leave the owner's property. Typically they go nuts when I walk past with my dog. The non-Hispanic population of the area can't be more than five percent, but about half the time when I encounter another dog walker on the street or the park it's another gringo. But I don't live in Mexico, maybe it's entirely different there.
Perroazul-- I never think about exercise because mine get a lot-- MUST for my sanity! Even when I have to walk them across the highway in pairs on leashes they must run at least three times a week-- and by run I mean a mile or more, preferably after hares.
Do that and they are good dogs.
Just a stranger passing through...
Your wolf/chimp quote might make a little more sense if you replaced 'wolves' with 'foxes'. Maybe.
My reasoning being, that dogs are direct descendants of wolves, whilst humans may be in the same family as chimps, one did not descend from the other. Descend may even be the wrong word entirely, as it is a matter of domestication.
Not that I agree with all of Millan's methods. Just to say that looking to wolves shouldn't be ruled out. Dogs were wolves at one time. Their genes have been manipulated, we haven't created a novel species.
Samuel Johnson (Boswell, Life of Johnson, A.D. 1776): 'Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen. It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection.'
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