animated natural history: why dogs have floppy ears

thanks british library (PD)

Wolves: upright, pointy ears.  Most dogs: floppy ears.
Hares and wild rabbits: Ears up.  Many domesticated rabbits: Soft floppy ears. 
Boars/pigs? Check. Goats/goats? Check.  Cats/Cats? Um - that one doesn't work; they're all up and pointy, wild or no. (Cats: Throwing wrenches in the works since...ever.)
Still, the ear phenomenon is prevalent enough that it sparks curiosity.  And when I ran across this short, entertaining animation on the subject at NPR, I learned the latest research on why those ears (and those shorter muzzles and those spotted coats).  A publication by Charles Darwin is namechecked: "The variation of plants and animals under domestication."  Want to idly flip through some of that?  You can find an introduction and several editions here.

hey cat, what do you see?

thanks pixabay

I ask my cats that all the time.  I'm really looking for an answer about what it means to them - I persist in believing the cats live examined lives.  This morning, though, while watching Ronnie trying to eyeball the exact location of the treats in front of her feet, I thought: "What do they actually SEE?"
After sifting through the usual webdreck, here's some sort of answer for cats and dogs.
Artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm did research and simulation to provide several conditions of cat vision.  Check 'em all out.
Meanwhile, over at the Natural History Museum in London, here's a post on how several creatures see the world, with a slider of people vs. dog vision.

"newly arrived from zurich, 1798"

image copyright and by kindest permission of the artist

Here we see "Marie-Jeanne-Amélie de Lalande, Contemplating the Spheres, Employing the Orrery, newly-arrived from Zurich, 1798."  No doubt you're asking yourself at least one of the following:

1.  But isn't that a rabbit?

2.  Who's Marie-Jeanne-Amelie de Lalande?

3.  What's an orrery?

The answers are 

1. Yes, and that's the genius of Canterbury UK artist DD McInnes (whom we've seen before here at the Museum).  If you're like me, you were attracted to the juxtaposition of solemn atmosphere with a thoughtful bunny, and then before you knew it you learned that 

2. Marie-Jeanne-Amelie de Lalande was an 18th-century French astronomer and mathematician.  

3. You also decided to look up "orrery" and discovered that it was a mechanical model of the solar system, like the modern one in this video.  (You'll note the one above has eight planets.  Neptune was discovered in 1846, Pluto in 1930 before its demotion to dwarf planet in 2006.)

While I was lost in admiration for this work, my memory scratched at me.  I knew there was a work of the 1700's of which this reminded me, and I found it:  Joseph Wright of Derby's work of around 1766, A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery.

See what happened there?  You looked at a brown bunny, and before you know it you were contemplating space, and it was mysterious fun.  This is why I love McInnes, and here's more reasons why.

monkey business

...That's the name of a chapter in East of the Andes and West of Nowhere: A Naturalist's Wife in Colombia, by Nancy Bell Bates.  This memoir of years spent with her husband Marston Bates in Villavicencio, Colombia is warm, chatty, full of appreciation for the life they lived there and their work studying animals known and previously unknown.  An assemblage of unusual pets is a given in such a life; here's a few of her memories on the monkeys who came to stay.
***
The cebus, so common here, are known as "maizeros" or "corn stealers." Anyone who has followed a hurdy-gurdy a few blocks knows what they look like. One of them, Roberta, took an intense dislike to the rhesus monkeys, and when chained near their cage spent her whole time throwing stones, banana peels, and anything else she could lay hands on at them, along with her insults. She even tore some of the screening off the side of the animal house one day when her chain was too long. Of course there was heavy wire netting back of the screening, but the rhesus were very much upset about it. In her heyday, before she outreached herself, Roberta was allowed to run loose. I think what led to her being permanently chained was that she grabbed the glasses off a gentleman's nose one day, carried them up to the top of a bamboo, and then dropped them. Or perhaps it was because she took his boots up and left them there.We have had many saimiri because they have turned out to be such good experimental subjects*, and they make lovely pets. They are dainty little things, and the local name of "titi" just seems to suit them. They have bulbous heads, flaring ears, and tiny faces with muzzles that look as though they had been dipped in ink. The other end of them is black too—the long tail that hangs down as though weighted by the tuft of hair at the end. In between they are the color of pepper, salt, and mustard mixed together. I often watch them nimbly catching flies to eat, or scratching each other's backs.
The woolly monkey makes a nice pet too, although he is rather stupid. He makes me think of a clipped, round ball of black yam, lightly dusted with white sugar. Mournful eyes gaze out of a wrinkled black face so appealingly that I often pick him up and carry him about like a baby, his tail wrapped around my arm. It seems to be the one thing he really enjoys.
Then there are the douroucouli, nocturnal monkeys with big staring eyes, that have earned them the common name of owl monkeys. Like the saimiri they make good laboratory animals. They have very silky soft fur, tails that are not prehensile, and almost no voice at all. At first glance you would not take them for monkeys. Their faces are almost completely furred, therefore rather expressionless, and their hands are like paws. But they are monkeys, all the scientists say so. They make gentle, even affectionate pets.

*Behavioral studies, not invasive medical experiments. - curator
-- Bates, N. Bell Fairchild. (1947). East of the Andes and west of nowhere: a naturalist's wife in Colombia. New York: Scribner. 114-5

alfred adler parts from his dog

Alfred Adler, the Austrian founder of the school of individual psychology, realized in the early 1930's that he and his family would have to leave their home behind due to the political climate.  He made arrangements to close his home in Salmannsdorf, Vienna, in preparation for a move to the United States.  His student and friend, the novelist Phyllis Bottome, was present on his last day in his home.  In her biography of Adler she records this one small but evocative detail of his parting from so much he had loved:

Adler's dog walked stiffly with him to the gate as if he knew this was the end. It was the only time that the author ever heard Adler sigh. He patted the dog's head, and explained apologetically: "He is staying on with kind people that he likes very well, but I am afraid that they may forget to brush him—and he likes so much to be brushed."

-- Bottome, P. (1939). Alfred Adler: a biography. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 184.

style and prey

thanks vintageprintable.swivelchairmedia.com.  Believed PD:US in good faith

This illustration of a black cat - "catus niger," reads the inscription below his feet - is so awash in style and attitude that it took me a few beats before I realized  there was a mouse under one paw.  Leave it to 17th-century Italy to illustrate a natural history text on animals with a mix of elegance and essence.  This fellow (by some other hand) is found in one of the works written by pioneering Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), who among other things established Bologna's botanical garden.

a little cat science

This Friday I thought I'd post a couple of things about cats that lean toward the scientific, thanks to the fun I've been having reading livescience.com:
- Six secrets to unlocking your cat's personality:  which leaves me wishing I'd known anything about Elizabeth's dad
- I may have posted this before but it's worth a second look:  The world through a cat's eyes
- In the the not-exactly-news department: Cats do control humans, study finds
- And we may not be helping the matter any
- Toxoplasmosis: an unexpected source of fearless mice?
- And this one is because I love tigers - but three of these subspecies are extinct, so don't go here if that makes you sad.  Too late for me, I went already.

noah webster on the dog

Of the nature of the Dog. The Dog is carnivorous, but easily tamed, and rendered subservient to the purposes of man. Indeed there are no wild dogs, except such as have proceeded from the domestic dogs which have been neglected, and suffered to escape into the wilderness. The dog has great vivacity, force and swiftness; he is faithful to a proverb; affectionate and submissive. He watches the eye of his master, waiting his orders, and a glance is sufficient to put him in motion. He is a stranger to revenge; forgetful of injuries, but grateful for favors. He licks the hand that has chastised him, and disarms resentment by submissiveness. More docile than other animals, he learns to hunt, to watch his owner's house or his flock, and will hazard his life to defend his master's person and property.

 - from Noah Webster, History of animals: designed for the instruction and amusement of persons of both sexes (New Haven: Howe & Deforest, 1812), p. 55.

BONUS! Noah Webster on the Skunk:
. . . The Skunk is an American animal, somewhat resembling a polecat, but smalIer, and of a distinct species. He is of the size of the domestic cat, of a dirty white color, interspersed with black spots. He lives in the woods and hedges, or burrows under barns; subsisting on small animals or eggs. The flesh is good, and when the animal is undisturbed, he. is not offensive; but if provoked he emits from two small bags, a fluid substance, volatile, penetrating and fetid, beyond any other substance in nature. It diffuses itself through the air to the distance of half a mile. If cast upon a garment, it resists all the art of man, and all the effects of soap. Happily this animal is not very frequent, nor troublesome.  (pp. 66-7)

audubon's dog goes birding

The great naturalist John James Audubon, of adventuresome spirit and tireless patience, speaks kindly here of aid given by his dog upon a heron-finding escape:
* * *
The young Herons seemed quite unconcerned when a person approached them, although on displaying one's hand to them, they at once endeavoured to strike it with their bill. My Newfoundland dog, a well-trained and most sagacious animal, was whistled for and came up; on which the birds rose partially on their legs, ruffled all their feathers, spread their wings, opened their bills, and clicked their mandibles in great anger, but without attempting to leave the nest. I ordered the dog to go near them, but not to hurt them. They waited until he went within striking distance, when the largest suddenly hit him with its bill, and hung to his nose. Plato, however, took it all in good part, and merely brought the bird towards me, when I seized it by the wings, which made it let go its hold. It walked off as proudly as any of its tribe, and I was delighted to find it possessed of so much courage.

(Get ready for the title. Original spelling retained.) 

John James Audubon, Ornothological Biography, Or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America: Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled, The Birds of America, and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, Volume 3 (Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1835), pp. 542-3

all the evidence points to this being a cat

book in public domain

Say you have a Cat in one basket and a Dog in the other.  How may your strict factual observation tell you which Critter you are currently manhandling?  This page from a 1901 children's natural science reader may help. (Click on image to get a bit bigger view.)  Please pay attention to the illustration of "A Cat's Mouth."  What kind of a cat did they have there?  A panther?
From Frederick William Hackwood, Chatty object lessons in nature knowledge: being companion object lessons to Longman's Chatty readings in elementary science (Longmans, Green, 1901) page 108.