Amazing and Incredible

Tuesday, 29 October 2019

Northern Flying Squirrel

The northern flying squirrel “Glaucomys sabrinus yukonensis” is a gliding “volplaning” mammal that is unable to true flight like birds and bats. There are around 25 subspecies across North America with Interior Alaska being the most the northern and western limits of the species' range.

The generic name, “Glaucomys” is from the Greek “glaukos” (silver, gray) and mys (mouse). The “Sabrinus” is derived from the latin word “sabrina” (river-nymph) and refers to the squirrel's habit of living near streams and rivers.

Description: Adult flying squirrels’ average weight is about 139 gm and 12 inches in total length. The tail is broad, flattened, and feather-like. Moreover, an exclusive feature of the body is the lateral skin folds (patagia) on each side that stretch between the front and hind legs and function as gliding membranes.

The Northern Flying Squirrel is nocturnal and has large eyes that are extremely resourceful in the darkest nights. The color of eyeshine is a distinctive reddish-orange. The squirrel pelage is silky and thick with the top of the body light brown to cinnamon, the sides grayish, and the belly whitish.

Habitat: The Northern Flying Squirrels require a forest mosaic that includes acceptable denning and feeding areas. Den sites include tree cavities and witches' brooms. Tree cavities are most frequent in old forests were wood rot, frost cracking, woodpeckers, and carpenter ants have created or enlarged cavities.

Witches' brooms, clumps of abnormal branches caused by tree rust diseases. The most common denning sites of flying squirrels in Interior Alaska. About Nov or Dec, when temperatures start to drop sharply, flying squirrels move out of cavities and into brooms. When the coldest periods of the winter season, they form aggregations of two or more individuals in the brooms and sleep in torpor.

Northern Flying Squirrel Facts

The feeding areas normally preferred by flying squirrels contain fungi (mushrooms and truffles), berries, and tree lichens and maybe in either young or old forests. Also, dried fungi cached in limbs by red squirrels are sometimes stolen by flying squirrels.

Flying squirrels perhaps get water from foods they eat and rain, snow, and dew. Hence, the constant sources of free water are lakes, ponds, and watercourses, and they do not appear to be a stringent habitat requirement.

In a year's time, a flying squirrel in Interior Alaska may use as many as 13 different den trees within 19.8 acres (8 ha). On a night foray, a squirrel may travel as far as 1.2 miles (2 km) in a circular route and be away from its den tree for up to 7 hours.

It may change den trees at night and move to different ones more than 20 times over a year, staying in each for a varying number of days. Den trees with brooms are used more than twice as much as trees with cavities.

Fairly dense, old closed-canopy forests with logs and corridors of trees (especially conifers) that are spaced close enough to glide between are needed for cover from predators. High quality flying squirrel habitat can be a community mosaic of small stands of varying age classes in which there is a mix of tall conifers and hardwoods.

Moreover, the part of the mosaic must be an old coniferous forest with den trees containing witches' brooms, woodpecker cavities, and natural cavities for nesting sites. Riparian zones provide outstanding habitat in all coniferous forest associations.

Life: In Alaska flying squirrels breed anytime from March to late June but depending on the length and severity of the winter. The female squirrel may breed before 11 months of age and give birth at about 1 year of age. The gestation requires about 37 days, so the young are born from May to early July. One litter of two per year is probably the usual case for Alaska, but they are identified to have litters ranging from one to six in other parts of their range.

At the birth time, the young flying squirrel (nestling) is hairless, and its eyes and ears are closed. The nourishing process is slow in comparison with other mammals of similar size. Normally eyes open at about 25 days, and they nurse for about 60 to 70 days.

At around 240 days, the young are fully grown and cannot be distinguished from adults by body measurements and fur characteristics. The mortality rate for northern flying squirrels is 1 and 2 years old, at around 50 percent, and few live past 4 years of age. Complete population turnover can occur by the third year.

Individual flying squirrels’ nest in tree cavities, witches' brooms, and drays. In Interior Alaska, most brooms and cavity entrances have southerly exposures. Nests in cavities are usually located about 25 feet above the ground but may range between 5 and 45 feet. Flying squirrels excavate chambers in witches' brooms and line them with nesting materials.

A dray nest is a ball-like mass of mosses, twigs, lichens, and leaves with shredded bark and lichens forming the lining of the chamber. Flying squirrels build drays completely by themselves or adapt the nests of other species (e.g., bird nests, red squirrel nests). The dray is frequently positioned close to the trunk on a limb or whorl of branches with its entrance next to the trunk. Most dray in Alaska are probably conifers.

Food: The Northern Flying Squirrel is omnivorous, so very little is known about its diet. However, the the food they consume in other parts of its range include mushrooms, truffles, fruits, lichens, nuts, seeds, green vegetation, tree buds, insects, and meat (fresh, dried, or rotted).

The nesting birds and birds' eggs may also be eaten. Those observed foraging in the wild in Interior they ate mushrooms (fresh and dried), truffles, berries, tree lichens, and the newly flushed growth tips on white spruce limbs.

In the spring and summer seasons, their fall the diet is mostly fresh fungi. In winter it's mostly lichens. Flying squirrels are not known to cache fungi for winter in Alaska, but they are known to do so elsewhere in their range. Witches' brooms and tree cavities would be likely places to find their caches.

Predators and parasites: Hawks, Owl, and carnivorous mammals prey on flying squirrels. However, the main predators are perhaps the great horned owl, goshawk, and marten due to their massive occurrence and widespread range in Alaska's forests. The three different flea species may infest a single squirrel.

Normally, forest fragmentation is a real threat to flying squirrel population due to dependence on gliding locomotion in forests. Though, the gliding ability isn’t affected by weight and sex. So, the forest gap should not exceed the distance traversable with a distance between forests and tree height at the forest edge. These are the only gliding mammals that extend the wingtip by means of a cartilage at the wrist

Economic and ecological value: Flying squirrels are important to forest regeneration and timber production because they disperse spores of ectomycorrhizal fungi like truffles. Truffles are fruiting bodies of a special type of fungus that matures underground. They are dependent upon animals to smell them out, dig them up, consume them, and disperse their spores in fecal material where the animal travels.

The the animal serves to inoculate disturbed sites (e.g., clear cuts, burned areas) with mycorrhizae that join symbiotically with plant roots and enhance their ability to absorb nutrients and maintain health. The northern flying squirrel's ecological role in forest ecosystems, consequently, gives it economic value.

Furthermore, they may be important prey for a variety of hawks, owls, small carnivores, and furbearers like marten, lynx, and red fox. Numerous Alaskans value flying squirrels just for their interesting habits and aesthetic qualities.

In the view of management considerations, the logging for house logs, wood for fuel, and lumber can have devastating effects on flying squirrel populations if clear cut size is too big or if some scattered tall conifers in large cuts are not retained as cover and for travel across the open spaces.

Management should include the retention of other squirrel species in shared habitats. Snags with woodpecker holes or other natural cavities and coniferous trees with witches' brooms must also be maintained in managed forests in order to provide adequate habitat for flying squirrels.

Flying Squirrel Sound

The Northern Flying squirrels emit short, but high-pitched chirps to connect with one another. Normally they are habitually a soft churning noise and chirping sounds they make. Flying squirrel is not dangerous to humans but make their homes into your property and damage the wires, pipes, drywall, and insulation.
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Flying Fish - How to Fly Fish?

People flying in airplanes invariably think of birds in flight and often draw analogies between the aerodynamic design of birds and that of aircraft. The study of bird flight and of the form and structure of birds had supported the development of human flight. But the birds are not altogether appropriate models for aeronautical design. Birds use beating wings to defy gravity and to propel themselves through the air, while airplanes use fixed wings for lift and engines for propulsion.

To be truly analogous with aircraft, birds-or other flying animals- would have to generate their propulsion from a source other than their wings, and those wings would have to remain fixed. Decades ago, as the field of aviation was quite literally getting off the ground, researchers had looked at a different group of animal flyers with fixed wings as a possible analog to the airplane.

In the October 1908 issue of The Aeronautical Journal, between an article titled “The Probable Cause of the Explosion of Count Zeppelin’s Airship” and another called “The Wright Bros’ Flying Machine,” was one about the flight of flying fish. The article was beautifully examined the steering and handling mechanisms of the fish for application to the airplane. But the subject is complex.

A decade after Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis, researchers could not fully grasp how fish could fly above the surface of the ocean. Airplane designs were used to understand flying fish, rather than the converse. I first observed some flying fish from a boat off Key Largo in Florida. As the boat cruised along, the fish exploded from the waves produced as the bow sliced through the water.

They took off in a direction perpendicular to the boat’s course. With outstretched wings they sailed into the air about two feet above the water, traveling in a lazy banking arc. At the end of the flight, they descended gradually to the surface of the water before falling back into the sea and disappearing into the swells as magically as they had appeared. Years later, interest in flying fish-unconnected in any way to emerge from studying the variation in wing design among genera of flying fish and how such design influences aerodynamic capabilities.

How to Fly Fish?

Flying fish are part of a single taxonomic family known as the “Exocoetidue” and are most closely related to needlefish and halfbeaks. The family includes eight genera, eight groups, which frequent the tropical oceans of the world. Most are small, approximately six inches long, although the California flying fish can grow to 18 inches.

The “wings” of flying fish are enlargements of the pectoral and pelvic fins, the paired fins of the body. the shoulder and located just behind the gills, and the pelvic fins are located toward the rear, on the underside of the body. When outstretched, both sets of fins furnish a broad surface to generate an upward lift force for flight.

The aerodynamic shape of the pectoral fins is remarkably like that of some birds’ wings. Like the curved upper surface on the wings of any bird or any commercial jetliner, the numerous fin rays supporting the wings of flying fish produce a curved or arched profile that helps generate lift for flight.

Flying fish are gliders, not true flyers like birds, bats, and insects, all of which fly by beating their wings. They had misunderstood the fluttering of wings from fish in flight. The wing flutter is not as with birds-an oscillatory mechanism to generate lift, but the result of air rushing by a flexible.

The pectoral fins are borne by structure. It is like a flag waving in the breeze. To take to the air, a flying fish leaps from the water or rises to the surface continually beating its tail to generate propulsion as it starts to taxi. The taxiing run lets the fish accelerate at the water surface and build momentum for takeoff. Once the fish reaches its top speed of 20 to 40 miles per hour it spreads its elongate fins and becomes airborne.

This action was captured beautifully in a series of high-speed elements flash photographs taken at night by the father of stroboscopic photography, Harold Edgerton. The animals are impressive, with typical glides of 50 to 300 feet and flight. The flight performance of these times of 30 seconds. The fish can reach altitudes of 20 feet. There are accounts of them landing on the decks of ships.

Experts hypothesize that the fish can increase distance and time aloft by using updrafts from the windward face of waves. One study claimed that when flying into the wind a fish could travel over a quarter of a mile! flying fish is a flat arc, like that of some missiles. The French Exocet (the word means “flying fish” in French) is a missile that skims just above the water surface before striking its target, usually a ship.

Such a sea-skimming weapon caught the world’s attention in 1982 when the British ship HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet launched from an Argentinean naval aircraft. At the end of the glide when speed and altitude are decreasing, flying fish can either fold up their wings and fall back into the sea or drop their tail into the water and re accelerate for another flight.

This capacity for successive flights greatly increases the possibilities for air time. The record reported is 12 consecutive flights covering 1200 feet. The key to this version of touch-and-go is the unique design of the flying fishtail. The usual tail fin of a modem bony fish has equal upper and lower lobes. The tail of a flying fish has an extended lower fin lobe.

Except for flying fish, this type of fin is found only in the fossilized remains of ostracoderm, an early group of jawless fishes. The elongated lower lobe in flying fish lets the tail oscillations generate enough speed for flight without the entire body becoming submerged. The tail lobe works like an outboard motor powering a boat. why flying fish take wing. They may be escaping from predators.

By leaving the water, they may be fleeing the jaws of death and confusing pursuers by splashing down in unpredictable places. They may also be saving energy. By moving through the air, a less dense medium than water, they may be reducing the amount of energy they need for locomotion. Scientists think energy conservation may explain why We don’t understand very well dolphins leap from the water when swimming at high speed.

Flying fish can be divided into two morphologically distinct groups based on their wing design-Cypselurus and Exocoetus. The first group has long broad wings derived from the pectoral fins, the paired fins at the shoulder. Enlarged pelvic fins aid these pectoral fins, representing as much as 25 percent of the overall wing surface. The Exocoetus have narrower pectoral fins than those of Cypselurus, and the pelvic fins make up only about eight percent of the overall wing surface.

The difference in wing design between Cypselurus and Exocoetus has been understood since 1930 when one researcher compared Cypselurus to an advanced biplane with a main (pectoral) top wing and a staggered (pelvic) underwing and Exocoetus to a monoplane with long narrow main wings.

Aerodynamics

To understand how the wing design of flying fish affects flight performance, let’s examine the aerodynamics of gliding. As a glider moves through still air at a constant speed, it is acted upon by gravity and pulled downward by a force equal to its weight. That force, in turn, is resisted by an equal and opposite force directed upward. This upward aerodynamic force represents the balance between the “lift” force generated by the wings and the “drag” force resisting the movement of the body and wings through the air.

The balance of these forces is all-important in-flight dynamics. The proportion of lift relative to drag is called the glide ratio. If drag rises relative to lift, the rate at which a glider loses height-its sinking speed-will increase. A loss of almost all lift is called stall. Anyone who has ever watched a paper airplane stop in mid-air before plummeting to earth is aware of the stall. To study how wing design affects flight performance, the aerodynamic quantities of wing loading and aspect ratio, looking at the gliding ratio and the sinking speed.

Wing loading is the weight supported by the area of the wings. Large flying fish with high wing loading's must fly faster to remain aloft with the same rate of the sink as smaller fish with low wing loading's. The aspect ratio is the square of the wingspan divided by the wing area. A high aspect ratio means the wings are long and thin with high lift and low drag characteristics, wings that reduce sinking speed, like those of an albatross.

Low aspect ratio wings are short and broad with low lift and high drag, like those of a flying squirrel. Although Cypselurus and Exocoetus are similar in size, Cypselurus has a lower wing loading and aspect ratio. The four broad wings of Cypselurus help with increased lift at slow flight speeds. The underside of certain species is flattened, increasing the total lifting surface of the fish.

Exocoetus has two high aspect ratio wings, which means a substantial reduction of the drag on the wings for rapid flight. Although accurate flight speeds for the two groups are hard to come by it is difficult to make measurements at sea without a fixed frame of reference and with variants in wind direction and speed-Cypselurus can glide farther than Exocoetus.

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Sunday, 27 October 2019

Kennewick Man

Washington State’s Kennewick River, the skeleton of a most unusual murder victim was found in 1991. Since their discovery, his remains have been hotly contested between scientists anxious to study them and Indian rights activists, supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The man to whom they belonged to 90 centuries ago was Caucasian, and therein lies the controversy.

Until little more than 500 years ago, only the ancestors of Native Americans were believed to be the sole inhabitants of our continent. But this long-held assumption has been called into question by the mere existence of the anomalous stranger. He was probably not alone. In the October 2004 issue of Ancient American, James J. Daly highlighted some of the serious ramifications generated by this contentious find.

Media can influence public opinion and provide support for politicians in the form of established authority. If the experts have said it, then it must be true. In this light, it would be of interest to know how the controversy of the Kennewick Man has been presented in books, internet, newspapers, and educational documentaries. This review covers three such presentations: What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee, by Jonathan Marks, The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells, and a documentary film.

The Real Eve narrated by actor Danny Glover. All three mediums have misrepresented the evidence regarding the discovery of a skeleton in North America that does not conform to the physical features of indigenous peoples or Native Americans. There has been a great deal of reluctance by many in the soft sciences of anthropology, archeology, psychology, and sociology to accept this prima facia evidence of other people’s arriving in the NewWorld before the Paleo-Indians. The findings do not agree with their preconceived sociopolitical ideologies.

Some of these obstructive academics have been called radical scientists. The most important feature of radical scientists is that they support good science and oppose bad science. However, this support has nothing to do with the accuracy, precision, or repeatability of the science in question. Whether the science is “good” for the people? Their science is a wholly relative and subjective viewpoint and is much more sociopolitical than scientific.

Facts are not important; as the intention is. They know better than you as to what you should know. The best way to understand their approach to science is to quote Jack Nicholson’s famous line in the movie, “A Few Good Men”, “The truth? You can’t handle the truth. It was important to define the radical scientist viewpoint because it explains the position on Kennewick Man taken in the book written by Jonathan Marks, which is ostensibly about chimpanzees and humans.

Marks is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In his book, Marks criticizes the molecular genetics that has been used to make the case that we are the same as apes. His view “Apes” are not men and vice versa. But this critique is a smokescreen for other agendas in the book, including racism in science, genetic determinism, sociobiology, Human Genome Projects, and Kennewick Man.

Marks discusses the ape/human business inland out of the first 50 pages of the book, after which, he adds some-thing here and there about apes and humans. However, his strategy is that if you criticize molecular results and techniques in ape-human comparisons, then you can further extend this critique to the genetic studies regarding the diversity of populations or subdivisions of mankind. A question arises as to the motive for this book.

It almost seems that the main reason that Marks wrote this book may be for the 19 pages covering Kennewick Man to support the Native American claim on the ancient remains. The ape business might have been somewhat new and different, but it is only covered in about one-fourth of the book’s contents.

All the anti-race material is old news and can be found elsewhere, and is included in other publications, including those by Marks. He admits that he received a National Science Foundation grant to help with the formation of the book. From my own understanding of federal granting agencies, it is highly unusual that NSF would support the writing of a book that is only one person’s opinion and without new research data.

There is a suspicion here that some hidden hands were involved in helping to get this book out to create an “expert’s” view to be used in future legal battles, or to persuade the public to be sympathetic to the claims of the Native Americans. A further indication is that it’s badly written in places that make it look like it was rushed into print without much editorial input. The critical, balanced argument is lacking.

Topics such as human homosexuality drift in from nowhere. But from a literary standpoint, the worst offense is the often-puzzling metaphors and analogies that Marks sprinkles throughout his text. However, the chapter attacking the Great Apes Project and human rights for chimps is worthwhile reading. It is highly entertaining and from an animal rights perspective, is very politically incorrect.

Marks’ approach to Kennewick Man can be summarized by one of his chapter’s sub-titles: Give Back Kennewick Man. Marks also summarizes his findings by saying, “Kennewick Man has different significance for the two groups that want his remains, and his importance as a symbol to Native Americans, I would argue, out-weighs this importance to the scientists as a basis for thoughtless and irresponsible speculation. Kennewick Man lay at the crossroads of the sciences and the humanities. He represented a confrontation between the politics of identity and human rights, on the one hand, and an archaic and transgressive science on the other hand. “In other words, science should be subservient to personal feelings.

Marks does not consider it important in his treatment of the Kennewick Man that the skeleton does not resemble that of Native Americans. Just give it back. It’s the law. Something is being missed here. No one, not Marks, physical anthropologists, judges, or Native Americans, seems to realize that a case for human rights can be made for Kennewick Man, because it would be unjust to return his remains to the descendants of those who killed him.

One of Marks’ favorite ad hominess is to call someone who doesn’t agree with him a “pseudoscientist,” but it is he who may be the real pseudo scientist. In one paragraph, he almost gloats at the failure of one scientist to extract usable DNA from the remains, as though this was a triumph of no discovery. Intact DNA is almost impossible to extract from ancient remains.

That it was done in one case of a Neanderthal skeleton was remarkable. Marks’ worst anti-intellectual comment, however, was that it was only a single skeleton, and single skeletons don’t mean much. Marks were being disingenuous, or better yet, duplicitous. Finding a piece of skull, finger, tooth, humerus, or any part of ancient remains has often been hailed as monumental discoveries when unearthed in other parts of the world. What Marks fails to say is that finding a complete 9,000-year-old skeleton is a remarkable piece of good luck.

Then there is that inconvenient (for Marksists, anyway) Paleo-Indian spear point embedded in Kennewick Man’s pelvis. Being slightly droll, Marks makes it clear that he disdains those scientists who claim that races or distinct human populations don’t exist and then do research to find differences that prove otherwise. This would describe Spencer Wells per-featly. Wells has been searching for genetic markers that can identify and separate various groups of humans.

His excuse to avoid being called a “racist” is that the evolution and migrations of humans through-out unrecorded history can be traced through such markers, and such data is race-neutral (as long as you don’t call the differentiated groups “race”—Wells prefers the term “clans”). Wells, as has Marks, has become a collator and interpreter of other scientists’ data by writing books and producing documentaries, such as the one that inspired this current book.

In the Journey of Man, Wells has used the available genetic data to explain the journey of man. The genetic markers do tend to correlate with other evidence from anatomy, linguistics, and cultural artifacts. Wells is a molecular anthropologist, although he would probably more prefer the termolecular geneticist.

He would appear to be straightforward in his presentations, depending more on scientific facts then emotional outbursts. However, his background may still be somewhat suspect, because Wells was at Harvard, which is the epicenter of radical bioscience in the form of Leontine, Gould, and Montague. Wells did work later with Cavalli–Sforza at Stanford, who pioneered the field of genetic markers in diverse human groups. Such research now has the appellation of being politically incorrect, which explains Jonathan Marks’s crusty comment.

One needs to have a somewhat sophisticated grasp of the field of genetic diversity to recognize that Wells is also some-what of a radical scientist, although much more muted than Marks. Where Wells tips his hand is in the short (very short) discussion of the migrations into the New World by people other than Native Americans. Wells covers the presumed first two waves into North America as indicated by genetic and corroborative linguistic evidence, the latter being from exhaustive studies by Joseph Greenberg.

For Kennewick Man, however, he merely says, “Furthermore, because Siberians and Upper Paleolithic Europeans initially came from the same central Asian populations, they probably started out looking very similar to each other. Kennewick Man, as a likely descendant of the first migration from Siberia to the New World, may have retained his central Asian features which could be interpreted as ‘Caucasoid.’ In fact, many early American skulls look more European than those of today’s modern Native Americans, suggesting that their appearance has changed over time.

The more Mongoloid, or East Asian, the appearance of modern Native Americans may have originated in the second wave of migration, carrying M130 (a genetic marker) from East Asia. “A few caveats are in order here. First, the use of “probably,” likely,” “may have,” “could be,” and “suggesting,” means that the hypotheses presented are “just-so stories,” which may or may not have long-term validity. Second the emphasizing of “Caucasoid “indicates doubt about the physical description for Kennewick man.

At the beginning of the same paragraph Wells says, “As for other migrations, from Europe or Australia, there is no compelling evidence. “Unfortunately, if Kennewick Man had not been discovered, then any suggestion of “Caucasoid” being in the New World before Native Americans would have been even less than “compelling” to Wells. Also, because Europeans and central Asians were one and the same at that time, why not use a designation of “Euro-Asians?” Unless one should be trying to avoid using the term European in any fashion.

One has to wonder if Wells is of the “Anybody but Europeans” school. In any case, the real question is, who was in North America first: the Caucasoid or the Monoploids third caveat is that it must be understood that genetic markers differentiating diverse human groups are not easy to find. A good example relevant to this discussion can be found with breeds of dogs.

Would anyone doubt that an Irish wolfhound is different from a Chihuahua, or a dachshund from a bulldog, a bloodhound from a Saint Bernard? Nevertheless, it was not until 2003 that researchers were able to find markers that would differentiate breeds of dogs, and then only for a few breeds. Molecular genetics, in terms of markers, is still in its infancy. However, new techniques will undoubtedly comfort in the future that will clarify and expand existing information.

This is what the radical scientists are afraid of. So, as suggested by Marks, get rid of the evidence before these new techniques become available. Lastly, the comment that Native Americans may have changed their features because Kennewick Man sounds positively Lamarckian (or superficial) and deserves more speculative discussion as to how this may have occurred than what Wells was willing to give us.

In fairness, one does have to understand that Wells is speaking as a molecular geneticist, about genetic markers, and not as a physical or cultural anthropologist. But, as do his colleagues, he will cherry-pick data from other fields, when it suits him.

The last media example is a documentary called The Real Eve, narrated by Danny Glover. In this presentation, the history of the evolution of mankind and its spread over the earth is well documented and there appears to be little favoritism here, allowing one to agree or disagree, depending upon your own perspective, except for Kennewick Man. Kennewick Man is covered and his differences from Native Americans are mentioned as his earlier arrival in the New World. However, the graphic depiction of Kennewick Man’s death in a dynamic chase with Kennewick Man fleeing Native Americans was misleading.

The “Indians” were dressed as Plains Indians with warpaint, buckskin clothes, and feathers in their hair. I wondered how the advisors to this production knew that this was how “Indians “dressed 9,000 ago. Now, this may seem to be a small item, but when the cameras caught up to Kennewick Man, laying injured in the grass, on his back, he was dressed in the same fashion, and his face was that of a Native American. It would have been very easy for the producers to show differentiation. The skeletal remains of Kennewick Manure most closely related to the Ainu on the island of Hokkaido.

The Japanese call them the “Hairy Ones.” What distinguishes them from the less hirsute Japanese. Giving Kennewick Man a beard would have then identified him as being much different from his pursuers. It was obvious that the people making this documentary didn’t want to associate Native Americans with beating up on an unfortunate indigenous victim. Frankly, from the way the action was presented, I couldn’t tell the players without a scorecard. Another oddity, for which I am awaiting an answer, is the spear-point. In the documentary, the spear was thrown at Kennewick Man.

I have bow hunted and taught human anatomy. I find it difficult to believe that a thrown spear would have enough force to be embedded in the pelvic bone of the victim. A more reasonable scenario would be that his pursuers had caught up with him and stabbed him at close range, while he was lying down, hard enough to penetrate bone. If my “just-so story” has merit, it means that he was viciously finished off, on the spot, and had other more lethal soft-tissue wounds that probably killed him in the end. Those wounds would not necessarily be evident from the skeletal remains.

These two books and a documentary run the gamut from “Be nice, get rid of Kennewick Man,” to “We need more genetic data,” to “Kennewick Man exists, but what’s the real story?” Whatever the “experts” may conclude, the overall significance and importance of Kennewick Man can’t be denied. His discovery has not only revised the picture of populations coming into America but exposed the motives of radical scientists and other academic elites as being political and not scientific.

It has now put doubt into the minds of many people about the trust that can be given to some of these so-called “experts” to make fair and unbiased observations. Other claims about people entering the New World, before or after Kennewick Man, are now open to much more serious consideration than was previously given. Perhaps that is the best and final legacy of a 9,000-year-old Caucasoid, who might indeed have the last laugh in more ways than one.

Wednesday, 16 October 2019

The Venomous Blue-ringed Octopus

Blue-ringed Octopus Species

There are about at least ten species of the tiny blue-ringed octopus, which ironically for their size, are the deadliest of all cephalopods, but only four have been formally named. All these are inhabitants of Asian-pacific waters. The common name comes from bright blue rings that appear when they are alarmed or attacked. These four species are as below.

1. Greater blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) is restricted to the tropical western Pacific Ocean including Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

2. Southern blue-ringed octopus or lesser blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa) is Maximum size 20 cm across arms, body length 12 cm, found along the coastline of south Western Australia to eastern Victoria, including Tasmania.

3. Blue-lined octopus (Hapalochlaena fasciata) appear as lines, instead of rings on the body; occurs chiefly along the coastline of eastern Australia to Victoria.

4. Hapalochlaena nierstraszi

The rare occurrence of the Blue-ring Octopus apprises us about the importance of this Octopus in relation to its venomous nature and importance from the medical angle. Because the medical and psychological researchers are interested in the tetrodotoxin neurotoxin found in its venom for its aphrodisiac effect and its ability to block voltage-sodium channels.

Morphometric Characteristics and Habitats

The blue-ringed octopus is one of the jewels of the ocean. It has vivid blue rings visible over the body when hunting, courting or alarmed. They are normally grown at a length of 12 to 20 cm. They are considered as one of the world's most venomous marine animals.

When this octopus is agitated, the brown patches darken dramatically, and iridescent blue rings or clumps of rings appear and pulsate within the maculae. Typically, around 50 to 60 blue rings cover the dorsal and lateral surface of the mantle. They are frequently shallow rocky reefs in the intertidal and subtidal zones, avoiding surf conditions.

Diet

They eat small crabs, hermit crabs, and shrimp exoskeleton and may bite attackers including humans if provoked. They also take advantage of small injured fish and seizing it with its arms and pulling into the mouth. The octopus uses its beak to release its venom paralyzes the muscles essential for movement, which effectively kills the prey.

Blue-ringed Octopus Life Cycle

Blue-ringed octopus females lay only one clutch of 50 to 100 eggs in their whole life. The eggs are laid then they are incubated underneath are the female arms for approximately six months. Thus, during this process, she will not eat and dies after egg hatch. Although the small size and relatively docile in nature, its venom is powerful enough to kill anyone even human is not safe from him.

Most species of blue-ringed octopuses live less than two years, reaching sexual maturity at four months. The newly hatched juveniles feed on the yolk sac until about four weeks of age when as juveniles they begin attacking live crabs. Observational studies indicate that venom is active even at an early age.

The blue-ringed octopus spends much of its life cycle hiding camouflage patterns in cervices amongst the rocks, inside seashells, and discarded bottles, and stones in the shallow water. Moreover, like all octopuses, it can change its shape with no trouble. This helps it to squeeze into crevices much smaller than itself.

This is also helping in safeguarding the octopus from predators. In common with other octopus swims by expelling water from its funnel in a form of jet propulsion. If the blue-ringed Octopus loses an arm, that he can regenerate it within 6 weeks. Hence, it has regeneration power.

Poison

The powerful venom is a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin. It has also found him in pufferfish and is ten thousand more toxic than cyanide. It infected the toxin using its beak, causing motor paralysis and respiratory arrest within a minute and leading to cardiac arrest due to lack of oxygen.

It carries enough venom to kill 26 adult humans within a minute. Their bites though are tiny and often painless, with many victims not realizing that they have been envenomated until respiratory depression and paralyzing start to set in.

Clinical Symptoms of Blue-ringed Octopus Bite

The symptoms of a bite are respiratory arrest which can occur within a minute as the toxin blocks nerve transmission. Other symptoms include vomiting, muscle weakness, and paralysis of respiratory muscles. Victims are fully awake until a lack of oxygen, from the inability to breathe leads to unconsciousness.

Positive Values of Blue-ring Octopus venom:

Although another Octopodidae is used from biomedical research, behavioral research and as a gourmet food source, Hapalochlaena sp. Are too small and too dangerous for many of these uses.

Medical and psychological researchers are interested in the tetrodotoxin neurotoxin found in its venom for its aphrodisiac effect and its ability to block voltage-sodium channels.

So, an action potential in neurons is inhibited or reduced. They also have value as an unusual luxury item. As strange as it may seem an individual H. lunulate was sold at an expensive value.

Negative Values of Blue-ring Octopus venom:

Poison from Hepalochlacna sp. Has proven to be fatal to humans particularly for young children. There is no anti-venom for this poison. Of the several human fatalities attributed to this potent species. All have involved the animal being picked up. The bite itself may not even be felt. Five minutes or so later, however, the victim may complain of dizziness and increasing difficulty in breathing.

The powerful venom acts on the victim’s voluntary muscles, paralyzing the muscles, required for body movement and breathing. Artificial respiration is necessary to maintain life. The poison gradually wears off after 24 hours apparently leaving no side effects. Moreover, compression immobilization bandaging is used for envenomation’s where a large amount of venom is placed in one area. If any human survives the first 24 hours normally recover from potent venom.

To function as an aposematic warning display, the display colors must be within the limits of the visual system of the relevant predator species. Thus, the peak reflectance of the blue-ring lies within the range of mid and long wavelength. It is penetrating opsins of likely marine vertebrate and invertebrate predators, together with cetaceans, birds, pinnipeds, teleost fishes and cephalopods.

Besides, the blue-green part of the visible spectrum is the most protuberant ambient underwater light field. Hence the iridescence is spectrally well-tuned to be maximally visible. Also, the peak reflectance of the iridescence also resembles the spectral absorbance of some of the recognized cephalopod visual pigments.

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