Inspired by Beatrix Potter

The Morgan Library in New York is currently showing some fabulous letters and art by one of my greatest heros, Beatrix Potter. Potter was especially fond of rabbits, and two of her pets, Peter and Benjamin are the inspiration for her most famous story, "The Tale of Peter Rabbit".

As a testament to the power of artificial selection, rabbits like the Flemish giant can weigh up to 20kg (about 50 pounds).

Flemish Giant Rabbit

Beach mice are subspecies of oldfield mouse (Peromyscus polionotus) that have evolved pale fur to match the pale sand they live on. Hopi Hoekstra and her lab have worked out exactly which mutations in which genes are responsible for this adaptive colouration.

Choctawhatchee beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus allophrys)

As a Victorian, Potter wouldn't have seen these North American mice in the genus Peromyscus, but I think she would have liked them, with their enormous eyes and relatively infantile proportions.

Evolutionary tricks

The superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) is a diminutive Australian songbird with some evolutionary tricks that are even more spectacular that the male's plumage.

Male superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus)

Fairy-wrens are parasitised by cuckoos, so one would expect fairy-wren parents to have evolved ways to distinguish their own offspring from cuckoo chicks in the nest. One way fairy-wren mothers seem to do this, is to teach their chicks a special password before the chicks have hatched. Cuckoo eggs are laid later, so their chicks probably don't have time to learn this special password. At any rate, once they hatch, only the fairy-wren chicks are able to reproduce the password in their begging calls, so they get fed, while the cuckoo chicks are often rejected.

Another endearingly complex aspect of fairy-wren biology, is that in spite of their being socially monogamous, about 2/3 of a single clutch are fathered by males other than a female's social mate. What's more, males can be seen courting neighboring females with flowers, while females don't respond to these cuckolding attempts till just before dawn, when they sneak off for a spot of what biologists so fetchingly call "extra-pair copulation". Not surprisingly, sperm competition in these fairy-wrens is superbly high.

References

Colombelli-Negrel, D., Hauber, M. E., Robertson, J., Sulloway, F. J., Hoi, H., Griggio, M. & Kleindorfer, S. 2012. Embryonic Learning of Vocal Passwords in Superb Fairy-Wrens Reveals   Intruder Cuckoo Nestlings. Current Biology, 22, 2155–2160.

Rowley, I., and E. Russell. 1997. Fairy-Wrens and Grasswrens: Maluridae. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford.

Animal Acknowledgements

To all who helped, directly and indirectly in producing Dr. Tong, THANK YOU!

A subset of people are depicted below, sans surnames:

Turkey season

The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is essentially a very heavy New World chicken. Benjamin Franklin rather sweetly favoured the turkey as a national symbol, and a much more fitting representative of America than the cowardly bald eagle. Having been chased by turkey toms, I agree with the great man that these birds are not wanting in spirit.

Pre-Nancy, post-Nancy

These bizarre head ornaments on the tom turkey are the result of sexual selection, though why turkey hens find that fleshy growth over the beak (a snood), dangling in all its multicoloured splendor, is beyond me. The skin on a tom's head changes colour, depending on his mood, and accounting for its Japanese name,  shichimenchō (シチメンチョウ / 七面鳥), which means seven-faced bird.