X-Message-Number: 4553
Date: 26 Jun 95 01:24:46 EDT
From: "Clifton  G. Clue Jr" <>
Subject: Re: Dogs and Humans

Thomas Donaldson writes:

>As I understand it, the way humans can run down other animals is simple, 
but
>requires cooperation. That is, they work in shifts. And even if the 
>individual human is not able to do as well as an individual dog, a group
>can quickly overwork almost any animal.

As Jim Davidson's excellent post on the same subject points out, DOGS DO 
THE SAME THING.  Dogs and people were made for each other! (BTW Jim, what 
is your background? You obviously know a lot about evolutionary biology).

It is interesting to note that lifespan is tightly correlated with survival 
time (i.e., how long the animal will survive in its natural environment 
before accident, marco- or micro- predation kills it).  Mice live very 
short times.  Shrews in areas with predators of small animals live even 
shorter lives, whereas shrews in areas with NO predators live MUCH longer.

Dogs (wolves)  live a pretty long time, as do lions and other 
high-up-on-the-food-chain creatures like people.  People of course, have 
big brains which they use to lord  over everyone else with. BUT, I would 
point out that big complex brains, despite our  pride in them, alas are 
still not the winners in the animal (as opposed to plant) survival 
sweepstakes.  Birds have VERY thin skulls and rather small brains,  they 
have metabolic rates which are FAR higher than humans (and speaking of 
enduance, geese in migratory flight have been instrumented and they make 
the enduance of ANY mammal I know of look pathetic by comparison).  They 
also live inordinately long periods of time, particularly when you consider 
their BMR.

I keep finches: they live about 8-10 years.  They run a core temperature 
that would fry me in a minute and they are extremely active.  Even a plain 
old budgee (parakeet for us Yanks) can live 15 to 20 years!  Mice live 
about 2 years and have roughly the same biomass (I'm guessing) and a LOWER 
BMR.  Think about the repair capabilities evolution invested in budgees!

Birds however, are not very bright on average (although there are African 
Gray Parrots who can speak with vocabularies in the hundreds of words, 
speak appropriately (i.e., intelligently), and even do simple arithmetic 
and sort like objects (such as by color, shape etc.).  Some have scored 
above 80 on the Standford-Binet IQ test (100 is the human average, Koko the 
gorilla scored about 80). Always keep this in mind: fully half the human 
population has an IQ BELOW that of 100, and the curve is *bell shaped*.  
The take home message here is that there are apparently a lot of birds and 
gorillas that are as smart or smarter than fully half of 2.5 billion humans 
in the world. (also keep in mind that fully 3/4ths of the other half of 
humans, i.e., those with IQs above 100, are assholes, which cancels out any 
advantages their big brains give them).

Why are birds, despite their small brains, high BMRs and "fragility" so 
well invested with long lives?  Some speculate that the average lifespan 
for the large avian raptors like the American Bald Eagle is in the 120 year 
range?  Why?  Because so far, anyway, wings have proved better than brains.

I have always loved birds, even as a child, long before I knew anything 
about evolution, biology, or lifespan.  And I had birds most of my 
childhood (chickens, pigeons, starlings, canaries and budgees).  Now that I 
am an adult and have only an indulgent lover to deal with, rather than a 
stern mother (the latter of whom loathes birds and reptiles) I am able to 
indulge myself.  I have ducks, chickens, peafowl (my peacock is a spectacle 
of color and cacophony of noise right now), pheasants, a pigeon (rescued 
from a cat's jaws when it barely had pin feathers), and two recently 
acquired, and very formidable African Grey Geese.  It is sometimes shocking 
to me to realize that some of these animals may well outlive me.  Indeed, a 
neighbor's Mynah bird which we "babysat"  when I was a child (while its 
middle aged owners took a vacation) has long outlived its owners. We are 
told by their grandchildren that every once in a while still calls out 
Michaaaaeeeelll! in a perfect imitation of my mother calling me home to 
dinner!  The bird is over 30 years old!

My geese are surprisingly smart and tough.  And when a bird ages, it does 
so with great grace: they do not grow old and wrinkled like humans do or 
get gnarled joints (domestic turkeys being an exception: they have been 
bred only for fast weight gain and they age and die quite rapidly and 
frequently develop arthritis and feather "alopecia" near the end of their 
lives) but rather, shortly before they die, "go light"; simply loose body 
mass and die, often without obvious pathology. (Of course pneumonia and 
infectious disease, as well increased susceptibility to predation with 
aging certainly cause most wild birds to die long before this happens).

My animals have taught me a great deal: 

Dogs look up to men.
Cats look down on men.
Pigs (of which I have one) consider men their equals.
And birds, birds are above them all.

Masters of longevity.

Wings are still better than brains.  But then, the story is not over 
yet...the "contest" not yet  finished....

Mike Darwin

PS: See what being confined to walker and armchair will do to me!: you have 
to suffer my philosophical musings *and* my irritable rants.

MD


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