Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Today we have part 3 of Tony Eales’s safari to Botswana (see parts 1 and 2 here and here, and we have one more to go: from Victoria Falls). Tony’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Safari Part III
Ok, enough elephants and hippos. We all know what WEIT fans are here for: cats and owls.
The first cats were ones that worked at the Sedia Riverside Hotel. One specialised in breakfast clean up, the other in small bird control.
But of course, what you go to Africa for are the big cats. and the first and most wonderful we saw was an adult female leopard (Panthera pardus):
We found out about her position from another safari car and when we got to her position there were at least half a dozen other cars all trying to get a position to see her. She had taken an impala kill into a thick bush and was eating part of it:
When she had had her fill, she came out and lay in the grass and cleaned herself. We were a bit annoyed with one particular safari company that had many cars there and seemed to be coming in far too close and blocking other peoples’ views. Despite all this the leopard acted as if the cars didn’t exist only occasionally looking up briefly when a car restarted its engine. All the cats, leopards and lions, that we saw treated the cars as beneath their concern, unworthy of any attention:
We got the story from some other guides that they believed that this leopard had cubs hidden somewhere. Because our camp was very close by we were able to stay after all the other cars had left and got some great views before she wandered off after sunset, presumably to see her cubs or get water.
The next day we came back early and saw a hyena, presumably attracted by the kill, run off. we went to the thicket but the impala was gone. Then we heard jackals yelping nearby:
We followed their gaze and found the female eating again, this time in high grass. As more cars turned up we decided to head off:
We came back in the afternoon and found a different scene. Now the adult female was laying out on a high mound near a tree. And in that tree was a young male:
The story we gleaned from others was that this male was her cub from last year. He had come to participate in the meal and she had chased him up the tree. He was no longer going to get handouts now that she had new cub. If he moved at all she growled and ran at the tree climbing halfway up the trunk to keep him in place. It was hard not to anthropomorphise his expression as confused and sad as he watched her with fixed gaze as she eventually wandered off:
The next cats we saw was a small pride of lions (Panthera leo), a female, two young male brothers and two cubs. we were the first to spot them and got wonderful views of them playing and interacting:
In the end we saw approximately 30 lions in the trip both in Momei and Chobe and I can’t put up all the shots I got this nice one of a young male in Chobe:
There isn’t much wildlife in these photos by Athayde Tonhasca Júnior, but a lot of history and travel, so they qualify as “wildlife”. His notes are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
Phoenicians, Greeks, and Minoans (Cretans) were very fond of octopuses. This 1500-1450 BC vase is one of many pieces of octopus-themed pottery in the Cyprus Museum (Nicosia) and museums from all over the Aegean region. Scholars have offered countless explanations for this Octopoda-fixation.
Today’s rich and famous stuff their homes with art objects, but the Romans had mosaics as symbols of status. They were created by artisans specialised in assembling tesserae (a tessera is a small tile made of ceramic, stone or glass). The Mosaics of Paphos from 3rd-4th century AD were discovered in 1962 when a farmer accidentally unearthed one of them while ploughing his field. They are part of Paphos archaeological complex, an UNESCO World Heritage site.
This mosaic depicts the duel between Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of Crete. Theseus is holding a club and grabbing a horn of the Minotaur, who has fallen to his knees. The scene is framed by successive decorative zones that symbolize the Labyrinth.
Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, is not particularly photogenic. But many houses have lovely, old-fashioned porticos.
This street divides Lefkoşa (North Nicosia, on the left) and Lefkosia (South Nicosia), both surrounded by Venetian walls. Nicosia was the capital of the unified island until 1974, when Turkey invaded Cyprus. Now Lefkoşa is the capital of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), a ‘country’ recognised by nobody except Turkey, and Lefkosia is the capital of the Cyprus republic. The pillboxes on the right side are pocked by bullet marks, reminders of the vicious fighting in 1974.
The United Nations Buffer Zone, known as The Green Line. This 180 km-long no man’s land divides Cyprus from the Turkish occupied area. The Green Line is patrolled by a UN force and an army of mangy cats.
Cyprus version of Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie: you show your passport to a bored Cypriot guard, walk 50 m past dilapidated & empty buildings, show your passport to a bored Turkish guard, and officially leave Europe. The Turkish side is jam-packed with shoppers with an eye for bargain luxury-branded merchandise, possibly genuine handbags, shoes, clothes and assorted tat. There’s no need to change currency: traders are more than happy to take Euros instead of the ailing Turkish Lira.
The Green Line is not a Berlin Wall reincarnation, but it saw its share of activists arrested or shot. Today the Line’s greater danger is being shouted at by a UN soldier for the illegal act of photographing their shabby military installations. Notice the white-and-blue Greek colours, which are meant to rub the Turks the wrong way.
The Liberty Monument to celebrate independence from Britain in 1960. Liberty stands above two members of EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) opening the prison gates to free rebels, civilians and the clergy. Unfortunately there was no room in the monument for remembering the hundreds of Turkish-Cypriots murdered by EOKA, whose war cry was ‘first the British and then the Turks’. About 90 EOKA members were killed during the insurgency (a few were tortured in prison by the British forces), while nearly 500 British & Turkish-Cypriots, including policemen, medics and civilians, were murdered. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.
The Liberty monument was erected in 1973, one year before the Turkish invasion. The bullet impressions above the heads of these statues are mementos of those turbulent times. It all started when the right-wing military usurped power in Greece, and the humourless, moustachioed colonels winked the go-ahead to the Greek-Cypriots dreaming of enosis (union with the Greek motherland). Union happened in Crete, but Turkish-Cypriots were not keen on pan-Hellenism. Turkey moved in to defend its brethren, thousands were killed, and many thousands living on the wrong side of the island were displaced.
You see more Greek flags than Cypriot flags in the streets of Nicosia. The enosis aspiration may not have died, which will keep the Turks wary of Cyprus’ reunification.
What did the British ever do for Cyprus? A decent postal service, for one thing. To disguise their colonial past, the traditional red pillar-boxes were painted yellow. But the Royal Cypher (George Rex) was kindly preserved.
Sign in a Nicosia restaurant: One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors—Plato.
A Gothic church from 1360 in Gazimağusa (Famagusta) on the Turkish-occupied northern coast. Converted to a mosque in 1572, the Brits finally put the building to good use by changing it to a wheat warehouse. Famagusta was established during the Byzantine era by refugees from the island of Salamis (in today’s Greece) fleeing Arab raiders. The city prospered under the Lusignans (French crusaders who ruled Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia at various times between 12th and 15th c.), and reached its zenith with the influx of Christian merchants and craftsmen after the fall of Acre to the Saracens in 1291. The Catholic Church ban on economic ties with the infidel was an even better windfall: Famagusta, strategically positioned to face the Middle East, became a major commercial hub for the whole eastern Mediterranean. And you thought modern international relations were complex.
The Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot flags over the Venetian walls surrounding Famagusta. The town was blocked by the Ottomans in 1570, but the vastly outnumbered Venetian defenders held out for ten months. Their commander, Marcantonio Bragadin, agreed to surrender after being promised that civilians could leave the city and his soldiers could sail for Crete. But when the Ottoman commander Mustafa Paşa learned his opponents were so few, he lost his rag. He ordered the killing of several Venetian officers and the remaining Christians. Bragadin had his ears and nose cut off, and after several weeks of’ imprisonment, he was flayed alive. His skin was stuffed with straw and sent to the sultan in Constantinople. The treatment of Bragadin supposedly motivated the Venetians to victory at the Battle of Lepanto, which stopped Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean. Eventually a Venetian pinched Bragadin’s skin and smuggled it to Venice, where it rests in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo. The tall buildings in the distance are in the ghost town of Varosha. Once the heart of Famagusta’s tourism, the town was evacuated and fenced off after the 1974 Turkish invasion.
Severios Library’s inspiring front (Nicosia).
No boring “High Street” or “Station Road” in Cyprus or Greece.
Another charming portico in Nicosia.
From Jerry: Since it’s Caturday, I want to add that Cypress may be the site where we have the first evidence of domesticated cats (9,500 years ago). Here’s the Wikipedia entry:
Historians previously accounted Egypt as the earliest site of cat domestication due to the clear depictions of house cats in ancient Egyptian paintings about 3,600 years old. However, in 2004, a Neolithic grave was excavated in Shillourokambos, Cyprus that contained skeletons, laid close to one another, of both a human and a cat. The grave is estimated to be 9,500 years old, pushing back the earliest known feline-human association significantly. The cat specimen is large and closely resembles the African wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica), rather than present-day domestic cats.
Here’s a photo of the site and a reconstruction from National Geographic (captions are theirs). I put the arrow to show the cat skeleton. Text from Nat. Geo.:
The complete body of the animal was buried in a small pit at about twenty centimeters from the human grave. The tomb, particularly rich in offerings in comparison to other graves known from this period in Cyprus, suggests that the individual had a special social status. Τhis grave certainly bears witness to relationships between humans and cats in the 8th millennium B.C., not restricted to the material benefit of humans but also involved in spiritual links.
The cat is buried together with its “master”, 3D reconstruction of the Early Aceramic Neolithic grave of Shillourokambos.
Today we have photos from Africa from reader Susan Hoffman. Her ID’s and intro are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
To help charge the tank, here are some pics taken over just the last few days by my husband, Richard Beck, in Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya.
Hippo (Hippopotamus amphibius) feeding next to Lake Nakuru:
Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) behind Lake Nakuru lodge [JAC: This is often deemed to be the closest living relative to the elephant, though there’s some controversy about it.]:
Here we have Messi the Russian pet cougar getting BAFFTIME! He got himself all muddy, and thus has to go into the shower with one of his staff. The YouTube notes:
Sasha cleaned the terrace near the pool, and Messi decided that now was the time to crawl on his belly under it and pick up all the dirt! No persuasion could stop him and we had to give the cat a bath. He asked for it, the little hooligan)) #puma#messi#pumames
Messi doesn’t seem to mind too much. I think that loud thundering noise is Messi purring, but I can’t be sure. Even his tail gets washed, and he gets dried off with nice clean towels.
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Sadly, I can’t show the film of the famous trick-performing rescue cat Pudgie Wudgie (you can pay to see it) but I can show a bit of video and some of his story from the Pittsburgh Tribune (click on screenshot below to read):
The ashes, in an engraved metal urn, rest on a bed in a home in the East Oakmont neighborhood in Plum.
They are a constant reminder to 84-year-old Frank Furko of his late, loyal companion Pudgie-Wudgie.
Pudgie-Wudgie was a trained house cat, bedecked in countless custom-made costumes. He made numerous television appearances and performed in live shows in the late 1980s and 1990s.
The 23-pound cat and Furko traveled with across the country wowing audiences and bringing smiles to the faces of anyone who met the dynamic duo.
Pudgie-Wudgie was 14 years old when he crossed the rainbow bridge in 2001, but his memory lives on in the documentary “Frank & The Wondercat.” It’s an amusing tale that follows the Pittsburgh native as he reminisces about his beloved cat. The film was created in 2015 by Pablo Alvarez-Mesa and Tony Massil.
Pudgie-Wudgie did tricks. His act went viral and was featured on the Maury Povich and David Letterman shows, as well as on the cover of magazines and newspapers. He entertained children in schools, senior citizens in nursing homes and patients in hospitals. There is a photo of him in a Steelers outfit from an exhibit at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District. There is a picture of the cat sitting on one of the boats at the former Kennywood Log Jammer amusement ride.
“He did whatever I asked him to do, to please me,” says Furko, who continues to preserve the cat’s bedroom. Yes, Pudgie had his own room to sleep in with everything a human has from a bed to dresser and a mirror. “I saved him, and he knew that. He would ride in a car and even a helicopter. As long as I was with him, he was good.”
Drivers on the Pennsylvania Turnpike can see a mural entitled Frank and the Wondercat at mile marker 49 westbound and those who drive past Furko’s house know which one it is by the World Famous Cat Crossing sign outside.
“When I die, he goes with me,” Furko says. “I will be holding the box of ashes in my hand.”
Here’s a trailer of the film from Vimeo. Note that Pudgie and his staff seem to be Republicans. . .
And some photos from the Trib article about Furko and his tribute to the late departed moggie (captions from paper):
Let’s face it: the guy was obdsessed:
Furko died in 2019, but it’s not clear whether he was buried holding Pudgie Wudgie’s ashes.
Here’s a news report on the 23-pound moggie and his staff:
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This NYT story is about cats who wear Go-Pro or other video cameras on their collars. The story gives links to the videos. Here are some excerpts and I’ve embedded some videos
In one video, the athlete pauses, assesses the height and leaps. He tries to free-climb up the side of a building, before jumping back to the ground. In another, he leaps across a roof, his shadow stretching out long in front of him.
This gymnast, though, is a cat. Specifically, he’s Gonzo of @gonzoisacat. He has more than 607,000 followers on TikTok and 178,000 on Instagram.
Gonzo is the star — and the director — of his own shorts. Rather than his owners filming his stunts, Gonzo can capture them himself with the help of a tiny camera that attaches to his collar. The result is an extreme sports cinéma vérité-style documentary from a cat’s perspective. And it’s catching on online.
In Norway, a GoPro-wearing cat roams across snowy meadows or climbs on a roof. One in China also recorded under-the-chin videos. Another catfluencer named Mr. Kitters has 1.5 million followers on TikTok and nearly one million on Instagram, where viewers can watch him meow at a bird or chase a squirrel.
Here’s a ten-minute video of the Norwegian Go-Pro wearing cat, showing a typical day in the life:
. . .The rise of wearable camera technology, though more often used by surfers or snowboarders than pets, has led to another niche style of cat content. Like viewers of extreme sports videos, cat video fans regularly note the thrill they feel when their feline stars leap or scamper.
“A lot of the comments are: ‘I kind of wish I were a cat,’” said Scott Irwin, Mr. Kitters’s human. “It’s a way for them to escape for 15 seconds at a time.”
Mr. Kitters, who lives in Indiana, does more sponsored content, posting videos about a pet-grooming vacuum or the camera itself. He started the account in August, and has gotten some free cat-related products, too.
My colleague Jon Losos, an evolutionary ecologist at Washington University who works on lizards but also has three cats, has written the kind of book I’d always wanted to write: an exploration of the evolutionary roots of the housecat and an evolution-based analysis of its behaviors. Given Losos’s line of work, it’s also imbued with ecology. The book came out today, and you can order it on Amazon by clicking on the screenshot below:
Knowing of the book’s existence since it is published by Viking/Penguin (my own publisher), I asked the Washington Post if they wanted me to review it. They said “yes” and the link to my review below is taken from today’s newspaper. Click on the screenshot to see it, and, if it’s paywalled, perhaps judicious inquiry will yield a copy.
I’ll just give a short excerpt since you should read it on the site. (It will be in the paper edition of the Post on Sunday.)
The review is positive, so if you want to learn about cats, you should read the book. I couldn’t resist a dig at d*gs at the outset, just to liven things up:
My view, and that of many other die-hard cat lovers, is that the internet exists primarily to circulate pictures and videos of cats. Dogs, you may be surprised to learn, can also be found on the internet but curiously tend to remain stuck in remote corners of cyberspace. Cats fuel wildly viral memes; dogs seldom get beyond that family vacation picture on Facebook (with just three likes, all from elderly relatives). Both cats and dogs — especially the younger versions of both — have fuzzy, big-eyed appeal, but dogs apparently lack what it takes to snare a global audience. As the New York Times contended, cat pictures are “that essential building block of the Internet.”
One prominent theory to explain this cat/dog disparity suggests that it’s the residual wildness of cats that makes them so special. This accounts for their infinite capacity for aloofness. Cats were domesticated rather recently — about 10,000 years ago when humans were busy inventing agriculture. And DNA tells us that the ancestor of all house cats is the African wildcat Felis silvestris lybica, which looks much like a domestic tabby.
. . . It’s appropriate, then, that an evolutionary biologist should write the definitive book on the biology, ecology and evolution of the house cat. That would be Jonathan Losos, who, although best known for his studies of lizards, also owns three cats. Those cats, he found, were every bit as interesting as his lizards but had a marked advantage over the reptiles: Losos didn’t have to leave his home to carry out field work. The result, “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa,” is a readable and informed exploration of the wildcat that lurks within Fluffy.
. . . Many mysteries remain. Did meows (emitted only by domestic cats) really evolve, as has been seriously suggested, to resemble the cries of a distressed infant, to convert a hardwired human response — “I must take care of an unhappy baby” — into an ingenious ploy to get tuna? What is the real difference in the average life span between a cat allowed to roam outdoors and one kept inside? The traditional answer is five vs. 17 years respectively, but as Losos notes, “I have not been able to find the basis for this claim, and the discrepancy seems extreme to me.”
And we remain abysmally ignorant about my two most pressing cat questions: why they wiggle their butts right before they pounce on prey, and why they “chatter” when they see birds. All they seem to be doing in each case is alerting their potential meal to its hazardous situation, surely not a good idea. One of the lessons of the book, in fact, is that mysteries abound in cat science. One of the largest is how many times cats were domesticated in the Middle East. Did house cats evolve in a single location, or in several places around the same time? We don’t know, and the genetic data is ambiguous.
Like all good scientists, Losos admits that are many questions that will keep cat research active for years to come. Writing as a confirmed, and long-standing, cat lover, I look forward to an ever-expanding understanding of catness and to luxuriating, in quiet moments, in the joys of an infinite supply of online images, memes and videos of that most charismatic and beguiling of all domestic animals.
Did you spot the cougar in this morning’s photo sent by reader Pradeep? I bet many of you found it quickly. Here’s the reveal, with an enlargement of the cat:
We’re referring to the feline brand of cougars here. The picture below, sent by reader Pradeep, contains a cougar (Puma concolor). Can you spot it? If you do, don’t give its location away in the comments; just say that you found it.
