Manatees not dumb, just weird
Fascinating item in the NYTimes today about manatee brains. Apparently they're very small, and smooth, which usually suggests dumbness, but scientists have now decided they're just extremely well-adapted to a lifestyle that involves basically doing nothing. Let's hear it for the manatee!
The story also has this exciting but sad tidbit: "Another sirenian, Steller’s sea cow, lived in the Bering Sea and exceeded 5,000 pounds. It was hunted into extinction in the 1700’s." Damn you 18th century! Must you ruin everything??
The sea cow in action:
posted by Zak | 9:45 AM
5 Comments:
I can't believe you. I was just coming here to post this.
OK, I have a few questions and comments.
1. In 2003, Dr. Bauer and four colleagues, including Debborah Colbert and Joseph Gaspard III of the Mote Marine Laboratory, reported in The International Journal of Comparative Psychology on the visual testing of the Mote manatees, Hugh and Buffett. The manatees were trained to discriminate between two underwater panels of evenly spaced vertical lines, swimming toward the correct panel for a reward of apples, beets, carrots and monkey biscuits. By varying the distance between the lines, the researchers showed that Buffett’s eyesight was about 20/420, similar to a cow’s and far worse than a human’s.
Poor Hugh, Dr. Bauer said, was blind “even by manatee standards.”
What, for the love of Neptune, is a "monkey biscuit"?
2. In research not yet published, Diana Sarko, a graduate student in Dr. Reep’s lab, confirmed that another mammal has vibrissae dispersed over its body, the rodent-faced, rabbit-size rock hyrax, the manatee’s distant cousin.
Like the manatee, the hyrax, which inhabits rocky outcroppings, spends much of its time in dim light and has poor vision.
“Rock hyraxes live in little cave dwellings, so they probably use these hairs to navigate in these dark surroundings,” Ms. Sarko said.
The "rabbit-size rock hyrax"?? That chick just totally made that thing up. In fact, I believe she plagiarized it from Dr. Seuss.
3. For now, the question of how intertwined the sensory abilities of manatees might be remains unanswered. Yet even what is known reveals a degree of complexity that argues against labeling them as sweet but dumb — peaceable simpletons.
Dr. Domning of Howard could not agree more.
“They’re too smart to jump through hoops the way those dumb dolphins do,” he said.
Hee. I love Fa as much as the next guy, but I love it more when people get bitchy about dolphins.
4. And speaking on behalf of the Ruinous 18th Century: Yes, yes we must.
i am the hyrax, i speak when i sneeze!
I observed a Rock Hyrax in the wild once, near the Cape of Good Hope. And, sadly, I was also just coming here to post this manatee story - only I read the "International Herald Tribune," so everything happens two days later for me.
And as further evidence of the Manatee brain I refer to the recent much heralded local story of the manatee that showed up frolicking (skylarking?)in the Hudosn River and then a week later of the coast of Warwick, RI. It was the story of the summer!
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