Cockatoos Opening Trash Bins
Jul. 25th, 2021 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithCockatoos in Sidney, Australia are teaching each other how to open trash bins. The techniques are spreading through social learning as the birds develop different cultures in different areas.
What fascinates me as a xenobiologist is that it's not a single-point phenomenon. There are multiple cockatoo super-genii in Sidney who are independently inventing the big-box dinner. Any species can throw one super-genius. Homo ergaster is kind of infamous for having done that ... and then everyone copied that sophisticated hand ax for over a million years, rather than expanding the repertoire with more tools. What marks the potential for advancement is the repetition of genii and the ability of those around them to copy and modify their inventions.
This is the second species I've seen doing this. The first is the Japanese macaque or snow monkey. Imo famously invented the sand-free sweet potato and the quick-rice snack, but they were already using hot springs, and some snow monkeys ride deer.
With two species throwing multiple super-genii, this is not a fluke. This is Gaia auditioning replacements for the dominant species, with an eye toward sentience given the developmental stage of the biosphere. With that in mind, I'm keeping an eye out for other species showing exceptional behavior. Helpfully, both cockatoos and macaques have some tolerance for human spaces, which would assist them in surviving a post-human world. It is possible that other species are also auditioning, but humans are most likely to notice those in closest proximity.
All the more extraordinary, with cockatoos entering the game, dinosaurs have an almost-unheard-of opportunity to regain lost planetary supremacy. That almost never happens. Gosh, I don't think I've seen seen the beginning of it before, although I know it can happen. Brewing in eggshells! Hee! Sorry, Homo saps, but I'm rooting for the dinosaurs.
As depressing as climate change is from the perspective of current species, it's also incredibly exciting if you know that every major extinction has brought astounding advances in new! improved! lifeforms. So I'm watching for candidates.
I think jellyfish, which are thriving to an exceptional degree in the new conditions, have a good shot at flipping the planet from single-organism dominant to communal-organism dominant. The seeds are in place, they just need an opportunity to grow, and that can't happen in a stable system, only in mass chaos.
The recent flooding got me thinking about how much harder it is for species to survive in a chaotic environment, like alternating floods and droughts. But then I remembered that some planets have mobile rather than sessile plants, which pretty much always starts because of a hostile, unpredictable environment. Earth already has fast plant motion, which is the hard part to develop. From there it's just a matter of figuring out that you can do all kinds of new things if you can move. Even more encouraging, a large and diverse group of fast-motion plants -- the carnivorous plants -- tend to live in marshy areas that will become much less predictable as the climate changes. So the question is whether they'll get the idea that they can move to a better location, and then whether they can evolve fast enough to survive. The downside is a lot of them are pretty delicate, sensitive things. The upside is they've already figured out how to live in very marginal, nutrient-poor habitats. The parallel with early lungfish is really pretty close.
We live in interesting times. The misery of coping with climate change is a lot like the misery of slogging through a rainforest. If you want to do research, you have to put up with pesky environments.
What fascinates me as a xenobiologist is that it's not a single-point phenomenon. There are multiple cockatoo super-genii in Sidney who are independently inventing the big-box dinner. Any species can throw one super-genius. Homo ergaster is kind of infamous for having done that ... and then everyone copied that sophisticated hand ax for over a million years, rather than expanding the repertoire with more tools. What marks the potential for advancement is the repetition of genii and the ability of those around them to copy and modify their inventions.
This is the second species I've seen doing this. The first is the Japanese macaque or snow monkey. Imo famously invented the sand-free sweet potato and the quick-rice snack, but they were already using hot springs, and some snow monkeys ride deer.
With two species throwing multiple super-genii, this is not a fluke. This is Gaia auditioning replacements for the dominant species, with an eye toward sentience given the developmental stage of the biosphere. With that in mind, I'm keeping an eye out for other species showing exceptional behavior. Helpfully, both cockatoos and macaques have some tolerance for human spaces, which would assist them in surviving a post-human world. It is possible that other species are also auditioning, but humans are most likely to notice those in closest proximity.
All the more extraordinary, with cockatoos entering the game, dinosaurs have an almost-unheard-of opportunity to regain lost planetary supremacy. That almost never happens. Gosh, I don't think I've seen seen the beginning of it before, although I know it can happen. Brewing in eggshells! Hee! Sorry, Homo saps, but I'm rooting for the dinosaurs.
As depressing as climate change is from the perspective of current species, it's also incredibly exciting if you know that every major extinction has brought astounding advances in new! improved! lifeforms. So I'm watching for candidates.
I think jellyfish, which are thriving to an exceptional degree in the new conditions, have a good shot at flipping the planet from single-organism dominant to communal-organism dominant. The seeds are in place, they just need an opportunity to grow, and that can't happen in a stable system, only in mass chaos.
The recent flooding got me thinking about how much harder it is for species to survive in a chaotic environment, like alternating floods and droughts. But then I remembered that some planets have mobile rather than sessile plants, which pretty much always starts because of a hostile, unpredictable environment. Earth already has fast plant motion, which is the hard part to develop. From there it's just a matter of figuring out that you can do all kinds of new things if you can move. Even more encouraging, a large and diverse group of fast-motion plants -- the carnivorous plants -- tend to live in marshy areas that will become much less predictable as the climate changes. So the question is whether they'll get the idea that they can move to a better location, and then whether they can evolve fast enough to survive. The downside is a lot of them are pretty delicate, sensitive things. The upside is they've already figured out how to live in very marginal, nutrient-poor habitats. The parallel with early lungfish is really pretty close.
We live in interesting times. The misery of coping with climate change is a lot like the misery of slogging through a rainforest. If you want to do research, you have to put up with pesky environments.
Yes ...
Date: 2021-07-26 01:03 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-07-26 01:22 am (UTC)Well, Scottish wildcats are considered a separate species, but they interbreed with domestic cats [which is kind of a problem]. In point of fact, most small [and not so small] wild cat species can interbreed with domestic cats.
What that says about cat genetics however...
Hemingway cats have a stable form of polydactyly mutation, they breed true [although not dominant with regular cats] They've certainly started to develop functional thumbs, and have crossed the boundary that they could be considered a new species. I suspect that they won't be classified as such though, it would make people uncomfortable.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-07-26 05:00 am (UTC)It's true that they can. Without human intervention, though, mostly they don't. A majority of hybrids come from breeding programs to produce new breeds like the Bengal and the Savanna Cat.
>> Hemingway cats have a stable form of polydactyly mutation, they breed true [although not dominant with regular cats] They've certainly started to develop functional thumbs, and have crossed the boundary that they could be considered a new species. I suspect that they won't be classified as such though, it would make people uncomfortable.<<
The strongest marker for species division is inability to produce fertile offspring with the closest relative(s). However, it's not a requirement. Another very common division is that they could interbreed, but they don't do so, either for cultural differences (e.g. grouses with different mating dances), geographical distance, or some other reason. Morphological differences -- as in the Hemingway thumbs -- can also be an indicator of species differences.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-07-26 05:23 am (UTC)...incidentally, if extra thumbs pose such an advantage why have no humans (or other primates) evolved a 'mirror thumb' opposite the regular one? (I.e. six fingers?) I've heard of individual cases, but not of it being passed down as an inheritable trait...
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2021-07-26 06:46 am (UTC)Also, some people use a prosthetic extra thumb called a shucking peg. They come in many styles and can be worn in different directions, sometimes close to the thumb or on the palm, but other people like them pointed them other way.