One for the Taphonomically Inclined

(Click the image for a larger version.)

About ten days ago I found this dead hawk.  I think that it is a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), but hawk identification is not one of my strong points. It was lying on a nearly vertical stream bank, about a foot above the waterline.  

It had been lying in this position long enough for several twigs to accumulate on it, without having been disturbed by scavengers.  The feathers were still in a configuration which was nearly perfectly life-like. At the same time, what appear to be the neck vertebrae were exposed, indicating that the hawk's soft tissues had been removed, presumably by the action of insect larvae.

The hawk reminds me somewhat of Archaeopteryx specimens with preserved feathers.  It is interesting to consider the length of time that the hawk's feathers and skeletal structure had remained undisturbed, and how this would affect the potential for long-term preservation, in the rare event that such a dead bird would eventually be covered by sediment.    

An Important Ridley Question

The movie Prometheus, from director Ridley Scott, will be opening Friday.  I don't think that I will see it, because I don't see a lot of movies, and in general I am really tired. But for years, every time that a Ridley Scott movie has come out, I have been plagued by a vexing question: If Ridley Scott were to fight the Ridley Sea Turtle, who would win?

I suppose that, since the turtle only weighs around 100 pounds, the director would win.  But, as in many things, the outcome of the battle would probably be determined by where it took place—on land, or in the water. 

American Idolatry

Last week American Idol crowned this season's winner, who was . . . um . . . somebody.

I have never watched a single episode of American Idol, and I am proud of that fact.  The entire point of America Idol is to find the next Celine Dion.  I don't think that we need another Celine Dion.  I'm not even sure that we need the Celine Dion that we have now. 

(I once tried watching Dancing with the Stars, but every time that they would dance I would fall asleep, and I would only wake up when the dancers were being criticized.)

For the first two or three years that America Idol was on the air, whenever someone mentioned Ryan Seacrest, I would be reminded of the time that he proposed to Angie Harmon on The Tonight Show.  But it turns out that that was actually Jason Sehorn, who is an entirely different person.  

When I was young, we didn't have American Idol; all that we had on television was Urkel.  (Urkel was on Dancing with the Stars recently, but that's beside the point.) And when I was really, really young, we had Fonzie.  But that's a whole other story.  

Maybe what stands out most in my mind about American idol and other competition-based reality shows is that when we watch them, we see people being told that they are no good and having their dreams crushed. Do we really need television shows doing that?  Doesn't real life crush people's dreams enough as it is?  

The Kentucky Derby and Geology

  I noticed that there were not one but two horses at last week's Kentucky Derby with names related to somewhat geological topics. 

First there was Gemologist.  A gemologist is, of course, someone who studies gems. 

Then there was Sabercat.  Sabercat is a term used for extinct felids such as Smilodon, which were once known as sabertoothed tigers, but which were not closely related to modern tigers.  

(The Kentucky Derby website has a page for each of the horses, as linked above, but the information  there was mostly genealogical.  I wish that the pages had included more personal details, such as the horses' favorite movies and television shows, where the horses went to college, and who their horse role models are.)  

One Word

I don't watch much prime time television.  The only three prime time shows that I watch on a regular basis are The Office, Parks and Recreation, and 30 Rock.  (Fortunately they are all broadcast on the same network on the same night.)

I noticed something while watching the April 12 episode of 30 Rock.  Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) was told that his mother had been fitted with a heart pump. He replied that it was the the same kind of pump that "my good friend Dick Cheney had".  But the word had sounded a little off.  I imagine that the phrase was originally "my good friend Dick Cheney has", because the show had presumably been taped prior to Cheney's March 24 heart transplant.  And that one word had to be changed in post-production to keep the show's story seemingly up to date.  

I'm probably not the only person to have noticed this.  But I am too lazy to do the research necessary to find out.  

If nothing else, though, I have learned that the name Cheney is not accepted by my computer's spellcheck feature.  

The Skinks Are Out Early This Year

There is often news about the sort of paleontological and zoological topics that I find interesting.

To cite a recent example, paleoanthropologists have announced the discovery of the Red Deer Cave People, a potential new species of hominid that lived in China only about 12,000 years ago.

Or, to cite another recent example, an entirely new species of Leopard Frog has been found living in the vicinity of New York City.

Sometimes I think that I should blog about these topics. But if I did, I wouldn't have anything new to add; I would only be repeating what could be read elsewhere.

Now I do have something original to say, on a zoological topic that I've discussed before, the Five-lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus, formerly known as Eumeces fasciatus). The unseasonably warm weather in northern Virginia over the past two weeks has brought the skinks out of hibernation at an abnormally early date. On Thursday, March 22, I saw Five-lined Skinks out and about at two localities, Huntley Meadows Park in Fairfax County, and the African American Heritage Park in Alexandria. (The skink pictured here was at Huntley Meadows.) This is a good month before I normally first observe their spring activity.

But due to the near-freezing temperatures predicted for Monday night, the skinks will have to go back to hiding under rocks and inside logs.

I sometimes wish that I could hide under rocks and inside logs.

Things That Are Stupid

I don't normally like to blog about anything even remotely serious. And I also don't normally like to blog about my alma mater, Yale University. But I am making an exception because of a story that gained a fair amount of traction on the internet a few weeks ago (I always come in late in my blogging), and which is way too stupid to be allowed to pass without comment.

The story in question appears in the Telegraph under the title "The Plot to Create Britain's Super Race". And in general it appears to have been accepted uncritically.

The Yale Herald's blog described the story as "very unsettling and creepy" and "disturbing stuff". (I used to write for the Yale Herald, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.)

The story consists of two facts:

1. During World War II, members of the Yale faculty invited 125 children of Oxford faculty members to live in New Haven.

2. Many member of the Yale faculty at the time were interested in eugenics.

Supposedly these facts mean that there was a secret plot in place in which the Oxford children would return to England after the war and form the basis for a new, intellectually superior population. There is, however, absolutely no evidence presented to link Fact 1 and Fact 2, only wild speculation. Nor is there any indication of how 125 individuals could make any difference in the hereditary characteristics of a nation of millions of people. This entire idea of a secret eugenics plot is completely unsupported, yet it was published in a major British newspaper, and believed in its entirety at Yale, where people are supposed to be smart.

Maybe if someone had succeeded in creating a super race, those superbeings would have been able to understand how ridiculous this story is.