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June 10, 2016 Volume 22, Number 22 |
Changing of the Guard
This issue of The Scout Report marks the end of Craig Hase's tenure at the Internet Scout Research Group. We would like to thank him for all the great work that he contributed and wish him the best of luck with his future endeavors. While we are sure to miss Craig, we are happy to welcome Molly Blake to our team. Tune in next week for her first full Report.
A Note From Craig
It's seems like only yesterday that I wrote my first Scout Report, but in fact it's been nearly two years. Along the way, I've learned more than I ever thought I would know about the intricacies of 19th century New England agricultural practices, the vicissitudes of quantum physics, and the best places on the web to find contemporary maps of the African savanna, among many other things. I've also had the pleasure of working with the dedicated staff at the Internet Scout Research Group, who are working day in and day out to bring the creme de la creme of the web to readers. Wishing you all the best. Scout well. [CNH]
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Rethinking "Dead as Dodo:" New Scientific Insights About the Dodo Bird and Animal Extinction | |
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The Smart, Agile, and Completely Underrated Dodo How humanity first killed the dodo, then lost it as well Death by Dry Spell Memoirs of Hugh Edwin Strickland There's No Such Thing as Pristine Nature Will It Happen Again? Examining Mass Extinctions on Earth In the 350 years or so since the last dodo bird died in Mauritius, the flightless bird has come to represent the havoc that human beings can wreak on a defenseless, comically ill-equipped species. However, over the past few years scientists have made discoveries that challenge this traditional narrative of the dodo bird's demise. In 1598, Dutch sailors first described encountering the dodo bird in Mauritius; less than a century later, the species had died out. According to legend, dodo birds were plump, slow animals that were quickly hunted and consumed by Dutch settlers. Immortalized by numerous paintings and books - and a cameo appearance in Alice in Wonderland - the dodo bird briefly fascinated Victorian researchers, but lost the public's interest by the time Mauritian naturalist Louis Etienne Thirioux uncovered the skeletons of two dodo birds at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, over 100 years after Thirioux's discovery, a team of scientists including Leon Claessens, Julian Hume, and Kenneth Rijsdijk have studied Thirioux's findings and have come to new conclusions about the dodo bird. Notably, the dodo's skeleton and brain suggest that the bird was smarter and more agile than legend suggests. This new research challenges the notion that dodos were swiftly hunted to their extinction in the 17th century, leaving room for new theories about what likely killed out the dodo. [MMB] The first link will take readers to an article by Emily Anthes that appeared in The Atlantic this past week. Anthes describes in clear detail what Claessens and his team have discovered about the dodo by studying Thirioux's skeletons. The second link leads to a BBC article by Colin Barras that describes the long history of how researchers throughout the last three centuries have studied, imagined, and also ignored the dodo bird. The third article, from Sid Perkins of Science Magazine, details the drought that killed many dodos over 4,200 years ago - providing readers with a richer history of the dodo in Mauritius. Next, readers will find the complete memoir of Hugh Edwin Strickland, a Victorian ornithologist and naturalist who, along with Alexander Gordon Melville, was instrumental in keeping interest in the dodo bird alive during the 19th century. (In 1848, Strickland and Melville published the monograph, The Dodo and Its Kingdom. Readers will find a link to this monograph in the BBC article above). The fifth source will take readers to an essay by Michelle Nijhuis. Published in the New Yorker this week, the essay notes that human influence on ecosystems long predate the death of the dodo bird. Finally, readers will find a New York Times lesson plan designed to help youth think about extinction. | |