Post 2/2
Anyway. On to the actual thing I wanted to post.
Something that seemed quite interesting for many reasons:
bbc.co.uk/nature/26736688
biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/14/70
(Journal article then continues at link)
It is the "great white christian hunter" - as the colonial brits used to call themselves and are still called - that killed off many lions and tigers in Africa and Asia. And before the colonial christian invaders, the insane islamaniacs killed off lots of giant herbivorous and large carnivorous animals in India for "sport" too (like islamics made "sport" out of playing polo with the bloody bodies of expiring Hindu POWs in Afghanistan).
While Africans had the ability to kill large predator species, they didn't actually do this often. E.g. even in a famous DA episode that I watched, the Leopard was revered as a special and magical animal by the Africans and they had created some rather beautiful and moving poetry about this sacred animal of their world. They admired it and learnt from it.
Just like DA's discussion of wolves showed how native Americans respected wolves as their brother and teacher (the wolf is a totem animal!), and when some rare wolves came over from Canada to the US where they had been nearly extincted by the "great white christian settler hunters" of the US, local North American native Americans offered up even the much diminished lands of their reservations to house their animal brothers, the wolf. They interviewed a native American repeating for the record what he had said to the first wolf released back there: he looked into its eyes, referred to it as brother, and welcomed it and its kind back to their home, by offering to share the land with them as they had done afore.
Now, if I did something like that, nothing would happen and the wolf would think I was just another human moron. But traditional native Americans have a deep connection with their animals - and indeed all animals: they were able to communicate with horses, the way Europeans never could except with N-American's help*, despite horses not being native to the Americas. In this sacred skill of communicating with animals too, native Americans are like a Hindoo I knew once.
* Even today, the most famous "dog-whisperer" in the UK had to go all the way to America and learn directly from Native Americans how to commune with dogs. Then, after practising, the Brit wrote a book on it.
Having said that, I think David Attenborough himself - the best or among the best of the British - has a bond with other animals. Even if it's largely a one-way bond (from his direction to the animals), his sincerity and true appreciation of animals is endearing. And it is because of this appreciation that he recognises and values heathen populations' positive and close relationships with animals when he discusses this. Of course, the first thing one notices when one looks at DA is that he's a mammal that is keenly aware of being one, and so is happy to be a part of the animal world - which comes naturally to him as it does to heathens - rather than apart from it. (He doesn't think he's better, he doesn't feel more entitled.) I think this, more than anything else, proves that at some deep subconscious level DA is a heathen/has heathen tendencies himself.
He's a natural historian and an evolutionary biologist, with extensive field knowledge. In his case, it's his reverence for nature that spurred him to learn what he could unravel about it, and understand it and the creatures that are part of it (including his own kind) better. In a way, knowing the intricacies of the natural world was his means to forge a direct connection with nature. I think he's a pantheist in his way, that loves and wants to preserve nature by understanding it as best as he can. When he speaks in interviews, he is ... reverential - I really can't think of another word that fits as well - which I didn't quite expect. (I expected straightforward bio, which can be respectful and appreciative too, but not quite to his degree. He is dazzled by nature and protective of it too. And not for any selfish reasons but in its own right. It is close to his heart.) Watching him is like watching an animal (or heathens): produces the same response in me. Even the way he talks to animals - what he says to them - as he pets them (e.g. Rhinos), the very manner of his interaction, is very similar to the manner many elderly Hindoos interact with animals. Uni-directional or not, DA genuinely cares. I like that about him.
Anyway. On to the actual thing I wanted to post.
Something that seemed quite interesting for many reasons:
bbc.co.uk/nature/26736688
Quote:2 April 2014 Last updated at 01:22
Modern lions' origin revealed by genetic analysis
By Matt Walker
Editor, BBC Nature
[image caption:] Not all lions are equal
Unravelling the history of the lion has been difficult. Animals living in tropical areas tend to leave fewer fossilised remains behind.
Lions have also been persecuted during their recent history, with whole populations being wiped out by human activity.
Such gaps in the fossil record, and in the distribution of lions, makes it difficult to reconstruct their past.
So an international team of scientists turned to the ancient DNA within lion specimens held in collections and museums around the world.
Led by Dr Ross Barnett of Durham University, UK, the team sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum-held specimens, including from different subspecies, including the extinct Barbary lion of North Africa, the extinct Iranian lion, and lions from Central and West Africa.
The researchers compared these with genetic sequences drawn from other lions living in Asia, and across other parts of Africa, and then worked out how the different subspecies of lion evolved.
The study revealed that the single species of lion that persists today, Panthera leo, first appeared in Eastern-Southern Africa, supporting the conclusions of earlier research.
Around 124,000 years ago, in the Late Pleistocene, different subspecies began to evolve.
Around that time, tropical rainforests expanded across equatorial Africa, and the Sahara region turned to savannah.
Lions living in the south and east of the continent became separated from, and began to diverge from, those living in the west and north.
The genetic differences between these two groups of lions remain today.
[color="#0000FF"]Around 51,000 years ago, the continent dried and the Sahara expanded, cutting off lions in the west from those in the north.
At the same time, lions in the west expanded their range into Central Africa, which became more inhabitable.
Since then, Africa's great rivers, including the Nile and Niger, have helped keep these lions apart.
Another detail only revealed by the study of ancient DNA in specimens, is that modern lions began their exodus out of Africa just 21,000 years ago.
At the end of the Pleistocene, lions left North Africa, eventually reaching as far as India.[/color]
[color="#800080"][Refresher from wackypedia: "The Pleistocene (symbol PS[1]) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated glaciations."
whereas we're living in the subsequent, current, interglacial period:
"The Holocene /ÃËhÃâlõsiÃÂn/ is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene[1] (at 11,700 calendar years BP) [2] and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words á½â¦Ã»Ã¿Ãâ (holos, whole or entire) and úñùýÃÅÃâ (kainos, new), meaning "entirely recent".[3] It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1 and based on that past evidence, can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age."][/color]
[color="#0000FF"]Much later, just around 5,000 years ago, another group of lions left the continent, reaching what is today Iran, in the Middle East. These lions are now extinct.[/color]
[color="#800080"](So having wandered all the way to India from Africa, some more wandered all the way to Iran from Africa again thousands of years later. But then, it's not like humans were the first to ever make such large treks. We just marvel at ours more.)[/color]
These discoveries may have important implications for the conservation of modern lions.
[color="#0000FF"]Fewer than 400 Asian lions (P. leo persica) survive, living on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India, with the subspecies listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.[/color]
[color="#800080"](Did notice long ago that Indian lions look different - esp in terms of skull structure - to the usual kind of African lions I've seen in docos.)[/color]
[color="#0000FF"]"Lion populations in West Africa and Central Africa, which have drastically declined over the past few decades, are actually more closely related to the Indian lion than to lions in, say, Somalia or Botswana," Dr Barnett told BBC Nature.[/color]
Despite the large geographical distances between them, these lions also seem closely related to Iranian lions and the Barbary lions of North Africa.
"I was most surprised by the incredibly close relationship between the extinct Barbary lion from North Africa and the extant Asian lion from India," said Dr Barnett.
[color="#800080"]image caption:[/color] A possible Barbary lion once living in Leipzig Zoo, Germany.
The Barbary lion is one of the most enigmatic of all large predators, both due to its impressive appearance and uncertainty over its fate.
Once numerous across North Africa, the Barbary lion was the most physically distinctive type of lion, including those living elsewhere in Africa and Asia.
It had an extensive mane, and differences in the shape of its head included a more pointed crown and narrow muzzle. People at the time also talked of it being larger, with different coloured eyes to other lions, though it is unclear whether either difference was real.
It remains uncertain whether any Barbary lions exist today, and conservationists have talked of resurrecting the subspecies.
Circumstantial evidence suggested some may have survived in captivity, as part of a collection held by the royal family of Morocco.
But previous research and that by Dr Barnett's team suggests there were not in fact true Barbary lions.
If so, and Barbary lions are in fact extinct, then the new study suggests that closely-related Indian lions could be reintroduced to their habitat, as a way to best restore lions to North Africa.
"This has implications for any future attempts to reintroduce lions into North Africa," said Dr Barnett. "They could probably be re-seeded with Indian lions."
[color="#800080"](Hey, no kidnapping Indian lions to transplant them to Africa. Indian lions are rare themselves and need to be preserved/grow in numbers in their own homeland.)[/color]
Around a third of African lions are thought have disappeared in the past 20 years.
Of special concern, say Dr Barnett and colleagues, are West and Central African lions, which may be close to extinction in the wild, with around 400-800 and 900 lions living in each region respectively.
Relatively few lions of these subspecies are held within zoos for conservation.
"If you think of lion diversity as two distinct branches then the regions where lions are doing ok, in Eastern and Southern Africa, reflect only half the total diversity," said Dr Barnett.
"The other half is represented by the diversity in India, West Africa, and Central Africa.
"If the West and Central African populations were to slip away, that whole branch would only survive in the tiny Indian lion population."
Quote:The lions of London
Two Barbary lions once held in Britain's Tower of London have helped reveal the origin of modern lions.
The skulls of these lions were discovered preserved in the Tower's moat.
Dated as living in the 14th and 15th Centuries, they are the earliest recorded lions in the British Isles since the extinction of the Pleistocene cave lion.
Around just a dozen confirmed Barbary lions skulls are known anywhere in the world.
DNA from the two skulls helped scientists establish the close link between Barbary lions and those living in India.
biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/14/70
Quote:Research article
Revealing the maternal demographic history of Panthera leo using ancient DNA and a spatially explicit genealogical analysis
Ross Barnett19*, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi2, Beth Shapiro3, Simon YW Ho4, Ian Barnes5, Richard Sabin6, Lars Werdelin7, Jacques Cuisin8 and Greger Larson1
* Corresponding author: Ross Barnett drrossbarnett@gmail.com
Abstract
Background
Understanding the demographic history of a population is critical to conservation and to our broader understanding of evolutionary processes. For many tropical large mammals, however, this aim is confounded by the absence of fossil material and by the misleading signal obtained from genetic data of recently fragmented and isolated populations. This is particularly true for the lion which as a consequence of millennia of human persecution, has large gaps in its natural distribution and several recently extinct populations.
Results
We sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum-preserved individuals, including the extinct Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo) and Iranian lion (P. l. persica), as well as lions from West and Central Africa. We added these to a broader sample of lion sequences, resulting in a data set spanning the historical range of lions. Our Bayesian phylogeographical analyses provide evidence for highly supported, reciprocally monophyletic lion clades. Using a molecular clock, we estimated that recent lion lineages began to diverge in the Late Pleistocene. Expanding equatorial rainforest probably separated lions in South and East Africa from other populations. West African lions then expanded into Central Africa during periods of rainforest contraction. Lastly, we found evidence of two separate incursions into Asia from North Africa, first into India and later into the Middle East.
Conclusions
We have identified deep, well-supported splits within the mitochondrial phylogeny of African lions, arguing for recognition of some regional populations as worthy of independent conservation. More morphological and nuclear DNA data are now needed to test these subdivisions.
Keywords: Barbary lion; Panthera leo; Extinction; Mitochondrial DNA; Ancient DNA; Phylogeography
(Journal article then continues at link)
It is the "great white christian hunter" - as the colonial brits used to call themselves and are still called - that killed off many lions and tigers in Africa and Asia. And before the colonial christian invaders, the insane islamaniacs killed off lots of giant herbivorous and large carnivorous animals in India for "sport" too (like islamics made "sport" out of playing polo with the bloody bodies of expiring Hindu POWs in Afghanistan).
While Africans had the ability to kill large predator species, they didn't actually do this often. E.g. even in a famous DA episode that I watched, the Leopard was revered as a special and magical animal by the Africans and they had created some rather beautiful and moving poetry about this sacred animal of their world. They admired it and learnt from it.
Just like DA's discussion of wolves showed how native Americans respected wolves as their brother and teacher (the wolf is a totem animal!), and when some rare wolves came over from Canada to the US where they had been nearly extincted by the "great white christian settler hunters" of the US, local North American native Americans offered up even the much diminished lands of their reservations to house their animal brothers, the wolf. They interviewed a native American repeating for the record what he had said to the first wolf released back there: he looked into its eyes, referred to it as brother, and welcomed it and its kind back to their home, by offering to share the land with them as they had done afore.
Now, if I did something like that, nothing would happen and the wolf would think I was just another human moron. But traditional native Americans have a deep connection with their animals - and indeed all animals: they were able to communicate with horses, the way Europeans never could except with N-American's help*, despite horses not being native to the Americas. In this sacred skill of communicating with animals too, native Americans are like a Hindoo I knew once.
* Even today, the most famous "dog-whisperer" in the UK had to go all the way to America and learn directly from Native Americans how to commune with dogs. Then, after practising, the Brit wrote a book on it.
Having said that, I think David Attenborough himself - the best or among the best of the British - has a bond with other animals. Even if it's largely a one-way bond (from his direction to the animals), his sincerity and true appreciation of animals is endearing. And it is because of this appreciation that he recognises and values heathen populations' positive and close relationships with animals when he discusses this. Of course, the first thing one notices when one looks at DA is that he's a mammal that is keenly aware of being one, and so is happy to be a part of the animal world - which comes naturally to him as it does to heathens - rather than apart from it. (He doesn't think he's better, he doesn't feel more entitled.) I think this, more than anything else, proves that at some deep subconscious level DA is a heathen/has heathen tendencies himself.
He's a natural historian and an evolutionary biologist, with extensive field knowledge. In his case, it's his reverence for nature that spurred him to learn what he could unravel about it, and understand it and the creatures that are part of it (including his own kind) better. In a way, knowing the intricacies of the natural world was his means to forge a direct connection with nature. I think he's a pantheist in his way, that loves and wants to preserve nature by understanding it as best as he can. When he speaks in interviews, he is ... reverential - I really can't think of another word that fits as well - which I didn't quite expect. (I expected straightforward bio, which can be respectful and appreciative too, but not quite to his degree. He is dazzled by nature and protective of it too. And not for any selfish reasons but in its own right. It is close to his heart.) Watching him is like watching an animal (or heathens): produces the same response in me. Even the way he talks to animals - what he says to them - as he pets them (e.g. Rhinos), the very manner of his interaction, is very similar to the manner many elderly Hindoos interact with animals. Uni-directional or not, DA genuinely cares. I like that about him.