Along with immigration bans and Mexican border walls, oil pipelines have come up frequently in the news lately. The Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) has sparked protests among the Standing Rock Sioux community, who fear the completion of the pipeline could harm both their drinking water supply and their sacred burial grounds. Meanwhile, the Keystone XL pipeline has long troubled environmentalists, who argue that such oil-friendly projects should be rejected in favor of clean energy technologies. Both pipelines had previously been stalled by President Obama, but the new administration recently vowed to revive their development.
In the wake of this announcement, fresh anxiety at Standing Rock highlights questions about the risks involved in such a project. Foremost among the hazards of any pipeline, of course, are spills. While supporters of DAPL argue that leaks are rare, the potential damage of even a small spill might outweigh its relative unlikelihood. Back in December, reporters at Undark published a thoughtful and revealing breakdown of this topic, including an interactive visualization of all 1,300 spills that have occurred throughout the U.S. since 2010.
In a lesser known parallel to the Standing Rock resistance, the Keystone XL project has also encountered strongoppositionfrom indigenous communities. The origin of the pipeline is located in Alberta, Canada, where lands long inhabited by several First Nations tribes have been compromised in order to expand the so-called tar sands, a type of mine rich in tarlike oil known as bitumen.
The graphics below, from a July 2013 article in Scientific American, show where the tar sands are located and how they are mined for oil, at significant cost to the environment. (It’s worth noting that, while tar sands expansion and mining are already ongoing, they could be stalled if Keystone XL ultimately fails.)
If the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines do proceed, the extent of their impact, both locally and globally, will become clear over time. But while their completion looms, it is important for both public officials and private citizens to be as informed as possible about the potential costs, both environmental and social, of these ambitious projects.
We all have times of day when we are not at our best. For me, before 10am, and between 2-4pm, it’s as though my brain just doesn’t work the way it should. I labor to come up with names, struggle to keep my train of thought, and my eloquence drops to the level expected of an eight-year-old.
In an effort to blame my brain for this, rather than my motivation, I reached out to a researcher in the area of sleep and circadian neuroscience. Andrea Smit, a PhD student working with Professors John McDonald and Ralph Mistlberger at Simon Fraser University in Canada, was happy to help me find excuses for why my memory is so terribly unreliable at certain times of day.
Your Chronotype matters
Humans have daily biological rhythms, called circadian rhythms, which affect almost everything that we do. They inform our bodies when it is time to eat and sleep, and they dictate our ability to remember things. According to Smit, “Chronotype, the degree to which someone is a “morning lark” or a “night owl,” is a manifestation of circadian rhythms.
In a recent study, Smit used EEG, a type of brain scan, to study the interaction between chronotypes and memory. “Testing extreme chronotypes at multiple times of day allowed us to compare attentional abilities and visual short term memory between morning larks and night owls. Night owls were worse at suppressing distracting visual information and had a worse visual short term memory in the morning as compared with the afternoon,” she says. “Our research shows that circadian rhythms interact with memories even at very early stages of processing within the brain.”
As a self-identified night owl, this is exactly what I want to hear. When someone next asks why I am being unproductive; I can say that I’m not being lazy, it’s just that my brain is having trouble suppressing distracting information.
Why you need to sleep more
On top of being a night owl, I need so much sleep. I nap as if it’s going out of style, and if left alarm-less I can easily turn a night’s sleep into a steady 12-hour dream-a-thon.
Luckily, Smit can help with excuses here too; “Research has reliably shown that memory performance is best following an episode of sleep, and that sleep deprivation disrupts the transfer of information into long-term memory.” This transfer of information into long-term memories is a process called memory consolidation (a process which I discuss at some length in my book on memory).
Smit says that this means that particularly people who need to remember information for tests or presentations “will retain more information if they get a good night’s sleep.” She says that this applies particularly to teenagers, opining that “school start times are too early for adolescents (who are more likely to be night owls) which negatively affects their school performance.”
As a bonus high-five to sleep, Smit says that “sleep is also important for clearing away waste from the brain, including proteins whose buildup has been linked with Alzheimer’s.”
Being ridiculed for sleeping in? Just say something to the effect of “I didn’t oversleep. I consolidated, optimized my brain for this presentation, and cleared additional waste from my brain thereby preventing the onset of Alzheimer’s. What did you do this morning?” BAM.
Be careful with big schedule shifts
Watch out, however, for big changes in your sleep schedule. Disruptions to your schedule are bad news, says Smit. While many of us experience small changes to our bedtime, and some mornings we need to get up earlier than others, it’s big shifts in our schedule that we need to worry about.
Shifts like those resulting from long-distance travel or shift-work. “Research suggests that circadian disruption, such as jetlag, accelerates memory loss. Chronic jetlag has been found to decrease cell proliferation and neurogenesis (the creation of new brain cells), and cause memory deficits like retrograde amnesia that last longer than the jetlag itself.”
If you fancy yourself a world traveler, just make sure you get enough sleep and try not to shift your sleep schedule too many hours at a time or too often.
Research like Smit’s is valuable not just to scare us into a regular schedule, but to allow us to optimize our brains. Understanding our chronotype allows us to harness times of day when we are programmed to be most efficient, and encourage us to overcome our limits (coffee!) when we need to perform at sub-optimal times of day.
Understanding the role of chronotype and sleep in memory formation also allows us to cultivate compassion for ourselves and others. It’s ok that you don’t like mornings. If possible, try to shift more brain-draining work to times of day when you know your brain is going to be at its best. The quality of your work and your work enjoyment will thank you.
Hyenas have watched our entire history. It was easy given that they had a few million years' head start on us. The earliest of their kind evolved from civet-like ancestors over 15 million years ago, while our earliest human ancestors didn’t break away from other apes until about 6 million years ago. Hyenas were loping around long before humans tried to hit the ground running. And of all the hyenas that ever lived, there’s one species whose paw had quite an influence shaping our past. It was the largest bone-crusher ever known,Pachycrocuta brevirostris.
Follow our ancestor’s fossil trail and you’ll run into the lion-sized hyena at various spots through the Old World. About 1.3 million years ago, in southeastern Spain, humans and Pachycrocutajockeyed for possession of a delectable elephant carcass. The humans of China’s Dragon Bone Hill didn’t fare quite so well. Most of the Homo erectus scraped up from the 750,000 – 400,000 year old cave sediments show how the local Pachycroctua busted up their bodies. But whether as rivals or prey, our fate was tied to theirs for an immense span of time. For hundreds of thousands of years after humans left Africa, paleontologist Joan Madurell-Malapeira and colleagues concluded in a recent paper, our forebears competed with Pachycrocuta for rights to meaty megafaunal carcasses.
Prehistoric people didn’t set out to pick fights with giant hyenas. At least, such a foolhardy scheme has never shown up in the fossil record. (Then again, maybe there wouldn't be any bones left.) It was more of a matter that we were all after the same thing. Even an adult elephant carcass can be completely stripped of flesh within the space of two weeks. If you want meat, you have to move fast. Hyenas evolved to handle such a task, and, through our Stone Age culture, we were trying to imitate them. We held our own, but evolution had naturally given Pachycrocuta an edge.
Paleontologist Paul Palmqvist and colleagues outlined the destructive capabilities of Pachycrocuta in a 2011 study that looked at both the table scraps and biomechanics of the beast. Pachycrocuta was not a hyena quite like the ones we known today. Adult Pachycrocuta brevirostris had skulls about as large as those of an adult male lions, yet their shoulder height was not much above that of today’s spotted hyenas. Pachycrocuta was stockier, in other words, slung lower to the ground despite being 20% larger than its modern, cackling cousins. Pachycrocuta was not a speedy hyena that chased down prey, but had the build of a habitual scavenger adapted to hauling off large chunks of carcasses back to the den.
One such hyena home, found in the 1.5 million year old strata of Guadix-Baza basin, Spain, acted as the focal point for the study by Palmqvist and coauthors. Over 5,800 bones belonging to 21 taxa of large animals have been excavated here, but these bones were not washed in or accumulated by the elements. Pachycrocuta brought them there, leaving their mark on busted and gnawed bones. In particular, the giant hyenas frequently broke open the humeri and tibiae of the deer, bovid, and horse carcasses they brought back, probably because these were both easier to crack and had more delicious fatty marrow inside. The pattern resembles what’s seen in the dens of striped hyenas, who get much of their meat from scavenging.
But how much of the Pachycrocuta diet was carrion? Hyenas are still dogged by a reputation as filthy scavengers, even though the smallest – the aardwolf – is an insect specialist and spotted hyenas are dedicated hunters who are often robbed by lions. Only the striped and brown hyenas could truly labeled as scavengers, and, even then, they supplement their diet with small prey and fruit. What, then, to make of a burly, lion-sized hyena with powerful jaws? Did Pachycrocuta rely on luck and stealing what it could from kills made by sabercats and other carnivores?
In answer, Pachycrocuta offers a paradox. Striped and brown hyenas often scavenge, Palmqvist and colleagues note, but they are more lightly built than spotted hyenas. That’s because seeking out rotted meat ready to eat requires traversing great distances and a significant time investment. Being heavy isn’t an advantage when you’re often on the move. Not to mention that big carnivores today are primarily hunters who supplement their diets with carrion rather than the other way around. Pachycrocuta looks like a hyena easily able to reduce a carcass to splinters, yet is almost too big for the job.
But Pachycrocuta didn’t live in our world. This hyena prowled during a time when there was a much more diverse guild of carnivores, Palmqvist and coauthors wrote, including sabertoothed cats who have often been interpreted as leaving meaty, messy kills. Maybe Pachycrocuta was a very dedicated kleptoparasite, watching for carrion birds or following the cats to steal what the felines took down. This might explain why the Guadix-Baza den represents a wide array of herbivores rather than the narrowed range of menu options expected of a predator suited to certain habitats or prey types. Maybe Pachycrocuta took whatever it could get.
To the consternation paleontologists, early humans did not immortalize Pachycrocuta in art for us to know how this giant really behaved. The beast died out before we got around to inventing symbolism. We were more concerned with meat. Whether the huge hyenas hunted alone or in packs, relied on robbing other kills or hunted their own protein, or were striped, spotted, or wore a different pattern altogether are all questions that currently have no answers. But I can’t help but wonder how they shaped our past. You can’t live in the shadow of such an impressive carnivore for over a million years and remain unchanged.
John Turner is a research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he has worked since 1979. Credit: Dennis Schroeder NREL
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed a “better way” to make hydrogen using renewable energy according to a paper published this month inNature Energy.
Hydrogen has many potential applications and is already used to upgradecrude oil for fuel production and in the synthesis of ammonia (which is critical in food production). Today, this hydrogen is commonly producedusing steam reformation processes that rely on natural gas. But, scientists have been working on ways to swap out this fossil fuel for renewable energy sources.
One such method includes the use of photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices that can absorb sunlight and use it directly to split water molecules. Broadly speaking, these devices can convert the energy in sunlight into hydrogen and oxygen without the need for natural gas and at potentially higher efficiencies than electrolysis.
These PEC devices have significant promise but scientists have struggled to produce a design that is durable enough to become commercially viable. However, according to the new paper, researchers have made a significant stride in improving the durability of PEC devices, bringing them one step closer to commercialization.
Their new method is based on research produced 18 years ago by John Turner, a research fellow at NREL who has been with the labs since 1979. In his earlier work, Turner designed a tandem solar cell comprised of several layers of gallium indium phosphide (GaInP2) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductors. These layers absorb sunlight and produce enough power to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
Turner’s device held the record for the highest solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency until 2015. But, despite this high efficiency the device struggled to make sense commercially as it degraded quickly.
In their new design, researchers have improved on Turner’s design by inserting a protective layer – comprised of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and molybdenum sulfide (MoSx) – to defend the GaInP2 layers from the negative effects of the acidic solution to which they are exposed. In turn, they have been able to increase the longevity of this PEC device.
This research effort was led by Jing Gu, a postdoc researcher who worked with John Turner before becoming an assistant professor at San Diego State University. The other co-authors are all based at NREL and include (in addition to Turner) Jing Gu, Jeffery A. Aguiar, Suzanne Ferrere, Xerxes Steirer, Yong Yan, Chuanxiao Xiao, James L. Young, Mowafak Al-Jassim, and Nathan R. Neale.
Reference: Gu, J., Aguiar, J. A., Ferrere, S., Steirer, K. X., Yan, Y., Xiao, C., Young, J. L., Al-Jassim, M., Neale, N. R. and Turner, J. A. (2017) ‘A graded catalytic–protective layer for an efficient and stable water-splitting photocathode’, Nature Energy. Nature Publishing Group, 2, p. 16192. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.192.
The Old Guard at the Sikhote-Alin Reserve in Primorye—the Soviet biologists now dead or retired—were seriously tough individuals. They lived in the isolated village of Ternei before it could be reached by road: a human enclave besieged by mountain, forest, and sea. Their workplace—the reserve itself—was a true wilderness where, over the years, these men and women endured harrowing experiences as a matter of routine. One of these aging biologists recounted to me once how he killed a charging Asiatic black bear with a hatchet.
A hatchet.
So, when one of the Old Guard began recalling his encounter with a Eurasian wolf decades prior, I sat forward. I knew this was going to be good.
It was winter. The fellow was in the forest far from Ternei, and had just wrapped up a long day counting animal tracks in the snow, part of an annual animal survey conducted in the reserve since 1962. The winter sun was not long for the sky and, as the tired man trudged east toward town his eyes caught movement on the tree line then settled on an animal. It was a wolf, watching him from the understory.
In the Russian Far East, tigers seem intolerant of wolves, meaning that where there are tigers there are no wolves, and the wolves that do show up in tiger habitat are quickly chased away or killed by their striped aggressors. So, a wolf here in the heart of the Sikhote-Alin—a bastion of Amur tigers—was a thrilling sight.
It was also a blood-chilling one. Despite their rarity, wolves are feared throughout Russia. This is an ancient dread dating to the medieval period and fueled by a mid-20th century wave of well-publicized wolf attacks that left more than twenty children dead.
The animal shrunk back into the brush and out of sight under the biologist’s scrutiny. As the man continued home he looked over his shoulder occasionally to see if the wolf would reappear. Every once in a while he saw it: always in the distance, always obscured, but always there.
The man was being tracked.
The biologist’s heart sunk in concert with the sun. By now he was still a good ten kilometers from Ternei, the snow was deep, and it would soon be night. The thought of being alone in a dark forest with a curious predator brought him no comfort.
He decided his only recourse was to eliminate the threat, and unslung his rifle. When the wolf presented enough of itself for a clear shot the biologist pivoted, aimed, and fired. The beast collapsed dead.
The scientist was relieved—his unpleasant death had been averted—but he also felt guilt for the kill and didn’t want this rare specimen to go to waste. As penance he resolved to carry the wolf to Ternei where a mammologist from the reserve could study the carcass and learn more about the ecology of this exceptional predator here. He hoisted the large animal over his shoulders and continued the long journey home, a task harder now with the extra weight pushing his skis deeper into the snow.
It was well past midnight when the biologist arrived in Ternei. He left the wolf carcass on his porch knowing that the freezing cold would keep the animal preserved, lit a fire in his woodstove, and succumbed to sleep.
A persistent banging on the front door woke him the next morning. On the other side he found a local hunter, both enraged and baffled, shouting questions about why the biologist had shot and killed his lost hunting dog, and why he had then gone through the trouble to carry a dog carcass all the way back to town.
The darkness and solitude had tricked the exhausted biologist, he conceded sadly these decades later, into seeing a large dog cast a wolf’s shadow. He recognized now that the animal may have felt as alone as he, and possibly clung to the biologist’s tracks as company home through the forest; this wilderness filled with dangerous beasts.
A Russian translation of this post is available, and a condensed version of this story first appeared on the author’spersonal blog. For tweets about birds, tigers, and Russia, follow Jonathan Slaght on Twitter.
This is the eleventh post in an ongoing series, “East of Siberia,” in which Dr. Jonathan C. Slaght of WCS writes about owls, tigers, and fieldwork in the Russian Far East. Here are the previous entries:
The skeleton of the new ichthyosaur from Svalbard. Credit: Delsett et al. 2017
Impressive as they are, whales are evolutionary copycats. The great tale of how they went from landlubbers to leviathans had already been played out long before, starting 250 million years ago. Mammals hadn't even evolved by that time, of course, so it was reptiles who were sliding back into the seas.
Just as with whales, the ancestors of ichthyosaurs used to live on land. They explored the ocean during the earliest days of the Triassic and stayed there, truly living up to the name "fish lizard." Some of them even resembled reptilian whales and dolphins, albeit swishing their tails from side-to-side rather than up-and down. Dragging tails turned to propulsive organs and front flippers turned into steering paddles. But what about those back legs? A newly-named ichthyosaur from Svalbard, Norway adds a little more context to the story.
Named by paleontologist Lene Liebe Delsett and colleagues, Keilhauia nui is represented by a partial, articulated skeleton. What makes it remarkable, however, is the fact that this 144 million year old ichthyosaur is preserved with much of its hips. While earlier, Triassic ichthyosaurs are regularly found with complete hips, Jurassic and Cretaceous forms often lack these parts. Keilhauia, along with several other ichthyosaurs found in the same site, help illustrate what was going on with the ichthyosaur pelvis of these full-time ocean swimmers.
Viewed together, Delsett and coauthors write, Keilhauia and other ichthyosaurs found in the fossil rich layers leading across the end of the Jurassic to the earliest Cretaceous show a variety of pelvis sizes and anatomies. There was not a straightforward or rapid reduction in size as seen in whales. Ichthyosaurs, the paleontologists point out, retained their hips and remnants of their hindlinbs throughout their 100-million-year-plus history. The question is why. The answer might have something to do with steering or the way ichthyosaurs might have gripped each other while mating, Delsett and colleagues suggest, but, for now, only the ichthyosaurs would know if paleontologists are on the right track.
It’s a well known and oft-repeated ‘rule’ that new animal species have to be based on actual physical specimens, preferably on preserved remains that are accessioned in a recognised biological institute, most typically a museum. The specimen associated with the new species name is termed the type or holotype: it is most often a body (or, the better part of the body) but can be any part of one, or – theoretically – a tissue sample of any kind.
A notorious photo used in the description of a claimed new species. I won't discuss it here - follow the links below if you need to hear the story. Credit: Bousfield & LeBlond 1995.
However, what may not be well known outside of zoology is that this ‘rule’ is not as strict and clear as generally thought, and that there is actually some disagreement as to what, exactly, can be accepted as a type specimen. What if you record a new species (via photographic evidence) and decide to declare a live individual as a type specimen? And what if you have a photo of a seeming new species and want to use that as the basis of a new species?
These positions are not purely theoretical. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (or ICZN) is actually somewhat vague on how hard the concept of ‘the holotype’ really is (Dubois & Nemésio 2007, Donegan 2008), several claimed living animal species have been named on the basis of photographic evidence alone, and some experts argue that we should consider or even favour the use of photographic data over the collection of dead bodies (Minteer et al. 2014, Marshall & Evenhuis 2015). No, the species concerned are not universally accepted and most – if not all – are of controversial status. Let’s look at some of them. Naturally, the thoughts here concern tetrapods alone…
One of the most controversial papers ever published on a small Vietnamese snake. Published in 1994, not 1992! Credit: Wallach & Jones 1994.
Cryptophidion anamense is a controversial Vietnamese snake, named in 1994 (not 1992, as stated by virtually everyone*) on the basis of three photos of a single deceased specimen, taken during the Vietnam War by the United States Naval Medical Research Unit. The specimen itself is of unknown whereabouts but there were plans to donate it to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (Wallach & Jones 1994). The publication of this claimed new species in the journal Cryptozoology was seen by at least some people interested in research on mystery animals as a good sign: after all, this is good, honest, analytical zoology, right? Alas, it did not take too long for the status of Cryptophidion – sometimes called the Vietnamese sharp-nosed snake – to come under critical scrutiny. Wallach & Jones (1994) argued that Cryptophidion did not match any recognised snake species, and they listed eight characters that seemed to support its distinction. In contrast, Pauwels & Meirte (1996) wrote of their immediate impression that Cryptophidion might actually be the familiar Sunbeam snake Xenopeltis unicolor and went through all of the supposedly diagnostic features listed by Wallach & Jones (1994), arguing that each one could be explained away somehow.
* The journal issue is dated 1992 on its front, but it was published in April 1994. It even says so on the inside cover.
Xenopeltis, the wonderful sunbeam snake. Was Cryptophidion merely a misidentified specimen of this taxon? Image by Bernard Dupont, CC BY-SA 2.0. Credit: Bernard Dupont, wikipedia.
Case closed? No. This reidentification was challenged by Lazell (1996) and Wallach & Jones (1996), all of whom argued that the specimen was substantially and obviously distinct from Xenopeltis, and that such a proposal was a bit insulting to the expertise of the original authors. Today, most interested parties are aware of Pauwels & Meirte’s (1996) argument that Cryptophidion is synonymous with Xenopeltis, and a consensus view seems to have emerged that Cryptophidion was merely a misidentified Xenopeltis. I have to wonder, however, if the people who follow this have read the Wallach & Jones (1996) response. I’m not a snake specialist but it looks pretty compelling to me. Cryptophidion is not Xenopeltis.
At left, the Cryptophidion holotype as interpreted by Wallach & Jones (1994). They provided another reconstruction since the animal was also photographed from a slightly different angle. At right, the specimen's lower jaw and throat scalation, as figured by Wallach & Jones (1996). This is not a sunbeam snake. Credits: Wallach & Jones 1994, Wallach & Jones 1996.
Galápagos pink land iguana Conolophus marthae. Ever since 1986, visitors to Volcan Wolf on Isla Isabela have reported the presence of a seemingly new kind of Galápagos iguana endemic to that volcano, and notable for its remarkable pinkish hue (Gentile et al. 2009). By 2009, sufficient data had been collected for Gentile & Snell (2009) to name it as the new species Conolophus marthae. Not only is the population unusual anatomically, it is the sister taxon to the clade containing all other Galápagos land iguanas, and in fact preserves genetic evidence for one of the oldest evolutionary splits yet reported in endemic Galápagos animals. Predictably enough, the discovery received substantial coverage in the popular media.
In describing this species, the authors used a free-roaming male, captured and analysed in 2006, as their holotype: they did not retain a deceased specimen. The animal concerned was branded and tagged with an internally inserted transponder (the plan being to find and retrieve the animal’s corpse after death). And, also predictably enough, this decision was soon criticised, Nemésio (2009) arguing that the methods and procedures used by Gabrile and colleagues should not be followed. It should be noted, however, that the species is not quite in the same ballpark as most of the others discussed here since genetic data was collected: C. marthae was not published on the basis of photos alone.
Yellow-necked parrotlet Forpus flavicollis. In 2010, Bertagnolio & Racheli (2010) proposed the existence of a new species of parrotlet, ‘discovered’ in online photos, taken in Colombia, and depicting captive animals. Their choice of publication venue – Avicultural Magazine – does not seem appropriate for the naming of a new species. Extensive online debate surrounded this proposal, the primary conclusion being that the naming was not valid in the absence of collected specimens.
Yellow-necked parrots in captivity as published by Bertagnolio & Racheli (2010). Credit: Bertagnolio & Racheli 2010.
Furthermore, the key diagnostic feature of the proposed species – a yellow neck band – might, some proposed, result from the sort of feather-dying already known to be an issue with some Forpus parrotlet specimens from Colombia (Donegan et al. 2011). On the basis of this information, a formal decision to regard the species as not valid was passed by the South American Classification Committee of the American Ornithologists’ Union. Notton (2011) also examined the case; he concluded that the name is technically available, though this does not mean that the entity termed F. flavicollis should be accepted as a real species.
Kipunji Rungwecebus kipunji. During the early years of the 21st century, two different groups of primatologists observed an unusual, long-furred, mangabey-like monkey in Tanzania. This was eventually named as the Highland mangabey or Kipunji, a species originally regarded as part of the mangabey genus Lophocebus (Jones et al. 2005) but later found to belong elsewhere on the family tree and to be worthy of its own generic moniker.
Artwork depicting Kipunji in life. Image by Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation; image in public domain. Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation, wikipedia.
The big deal about this paper for the purposes of our discussion here is that no holotype was collected, an “Adult male in photograph (Fig. 2)” serving that role. The conservation status of the species was stated as their reason for not collecting a deceased specimen (Jones et al. 2005). None of this went unnoticed and some correspondence followed (Landry 2005, Moser 2005, Polaszek et al. 2005, Timm et al. 2005), certain authors arguing that the taxon should not have been named in the absence of a type specimen. In keeping with what I said above, others contested this, saying that the ICZN does not strictly require a physical type specimen (Polaszek et al. 2005). Others then contested this (Moser 2005). In this particular case, the controversial status of the original naming event is now moot, since deceased specimens have been obtained. I’ve written about this case at length before; see the links below.
Arunachal macaque Macaca munzala. Ever since the late 1990s, a large, robust, dark, short-tailed macaque endemic to Arunachal Province in the far north-east of India was suspected of being a new taxon. This hypothesis was finally stated in detail by Sinha et al. (2005) who named the macaques as the new species M. munzala. Without discussion, their naming was based on photographs alone, and they regarded a photographed individual – still very much alive and living wild – as the holotype (Sinha et al. 2005). Dead specimens (shot by hunters) were procured since the original paper was published. In contrast to virtually all of the other cases discussed here, the publication of M. munzala did not appear to result in debate or discussion in the literature (though it might have; I can’t pretend to keep up with all of the literature).
However, Biswas et al. (2011) collected and compared data on numerous southern Asian macaque populations and did not support distinction of M. munzala relative to the Assamese macaque M. assamensis. The unusual features of the Arunachal population seem to reflect adaptation to a cool, montane environment; it may be an incipient subspecies or species (Biswas et al. 2011).
Blonde capuchin in captivity. Photo by Miguelrangeljr, CC BY-SA 3.0. Credit: Miguelrangeljr, wikipedia.
Blond (or Blonde) capuchin ‘Cebus queirozi’. Numerous new South American monkey species have been named in recent years, both as a consequence of physical discovery in the field and of taxonomic revisions and splits. Among the many is Cebus queirozi, a new capuchin from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil named by Mendes Pontes et al. (2006) (actually, the species name is attributed to Mendes Pontes and Malta alone, two of the three authors… I do wish authors wouldn’t do this. The describers of the Kipunji did the same thing). Mendes Pontes et al. (2006) explained how the new monkey is known from a single social group, comprising 18 individuals, discovered, isolated, in an area dominated by sugar-cane plantations. On the basis of the new species’ “rarity and susceptibility” (they regarded it as “at the very brink of extinction”), they opted not to collect (the euphemism for kill and retain) a specimen, but to photograph a living individual, designate it the holotype, and release it. Indeed they actually cited papers published in the wake of the Kipunji’s description when discussing this decision. End of discussion? Err, no.
The specimen regarded by Mendes Pontes et al. (2006) as the holotype of the ostensible new taxon Cebus queirozi. Credit: Mendes Pontes et al. 2006.
2006 also saw the publication of a paper in which a different set of authors (de Oliveira & Langguth 2006) elected to formally recognise a capuchin species that had long been known but was lacking a formally elected type specimen, namely the Caitaia C. flavius, a monkey known to European naturalists of the 1600s. It is now generally agreed that C. flavius and C. queirozi are the same species, with C. flavius having priority. The original claim that C. queirozi was both novel and persisting as but a tiny relict population are, therefore, no longer correct, though note that the species is still critically endangered. Recent taxonomic revisions have provided support for the idea that the capuchin group that includes this species should be separated from Cebus and recognised as the distinct genus Sapajus.
Two of the Golden-crowned langur specimens discovered and discussed by Nardelli (2015). Credit: Nardelli 2015.
Golden-crowned langur Presbytis johnaspinalli. One of the most curious cases discussed here concerns the captive monkeys, originally ‘discovered’ in photos online, and named as a new species by Nardelli (2015). Nardelli (2015) argued that these animals – seemingly originating from Sumatra, and discovered in various animal collections – do not match any recognised species, and have a form and pelage consistent with inclusion in the monkey genus Presbytis, the surilis. Thus a new species was named on photos alone.
Once again, it did not take long for this proposal to be challenged. Nijman (2015) argued that the animals were not Presbytis monkeys, but instead have features (most notably an anteriorly directed fringe of head hair) more typical of Trachypithecus, the lutungs. Furthermore, their unusual colouration more plausibly resulted from the deliberate bleaching performed by unscrupulous animal dealers aiming to increase the value of their wares. Furthermore, the monkeys, Nijman argued, can be identified as Ebony langurs T. auratus from Java. It should also be noted that – as excellent and respected as International Zoo News is as a publication – it is really not the appropriate venue for the naming of a new species.
Are specimens of the 'Golden-crowned langur' (at left) really just bleached specimens of the Ebony langur? Such has been argued by Nijman (2015). Credit: Nijman 2015.
White-cheeked macaque Macaca leucogenys. Yes, another macaque, and another claimed species from the same general region as that inhabited by the Arunachal macaque. M. leucogenys was named by Li et al. (2015) for specimens observed and captured in southeastern Tibet, and regarded as distinct on the basis of various features of pelage, skin colour and penis shape. Again, this naming was done on the basis of photographic evidence and a physical specimen was not collected; the authors noted “ethical concerns” as goes the killing of a specimen, and they cited the naming of M. munzala and the Kipunji as precedents. At the time of writing, I’m not aware of published criticisms of this still very new study.
White-cheeked macaque specimen photography via camera-trap. Image from Li et al. (2015). Credit: Li et al. 2015.
Worth noting is that Li et al. (2015) regarded M. munzala as a valid species: they noted Biswas et al.’s (2011) argument that the macaques of the region actually represent anatomically variable, evolving populations of the Assamese macaque M. assamensis, but merely said how this study indicated the existence of unresolved taxonomic issues.
This list of species is far from complete – I may discuss other relevant cases in another article. But a few things stand out even from the handful discussed so far. It’s not a coincidence that most of the animals discussed here are primates. More than any other group of animals, those who work on them strive not to kill the animals they study, for obvious reasons (by which I mean those involving ethics and empathy).
Note also that the decision to name a species without collecting a holotype or from photographic evidence alone has, all too often, been problematic. The validity of the species concerned itself forms the subject of extensive discussion, issues of anatomical distinction that ideally need resolution via access to physical specimens become paramount, and issues concerning low standards and even fraud and trickery are sometimes raised.
And yet – I agree with those who argue that photography can sometimes be sufficient in such cases, and indeed might even be necessary. For that to work – and it’s something that’s being discussed more and more (e.g., Minteer et al. 2014, Marshall & Evenhuis 2015, Ceriaco et al. 2016) – we need high standards. Fuzzy shots of animals photographed at distance will not do.
For previous Tet Zoo articles relevant to the issues mentioned here, see...
Bertagnolio, P. & Racheli, L. 2010. A new parrotlet from Colombia, Forpus flavicollis. Avicultural Magazine 116, 128-133.
Biswas, J., Borah, D. K., Das, A., Das, J., Bhattacharjee, P. C., Mohnot, S. M. & Horwich, R. H. 2011. The enigmatic Arunachal macaque: its biogeography, biology and taxonomy in northeastern India. American Journal of Primatology 73, 1-16.
Ceriaco, L. M. P., Gutierrez, E. E. & Dubios, A. 2016. Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences. Zootaxa 4196, 435-445.
de Oliveira, M. M. & Langguth, A. 2006. Rediscovery of Marcgrave’s capuchin monkey and designation of a neotype for Simia flavia Schreber, 1774 (Primates, Cebidae). Boletim do Museu Nacional: Nova Série: Zoologia 523, 1-16.
Donegan, T. M. 2008. New species and subspecies descriptions do not and should not always require a dead type specimen. Zootaxa 1761, 37-48.
Donegan, T. M., Quevedo, A., McMullan, M. & Salaman, P. 2011. Revision of the status of bird species occurring or reported in Colombia 2011. Conservación Colombiana 15, 4-21.
Dubois, A. & Nemésio, A. 2007. Does nomenclatural availability of nomina of new species or subspecies require the deposition of vouchers in collections? Zootaxa 1409, 1-22.
Gentile, G., Fabiani, A., Marquez, C., Snell, H. L., Snell, H. M., Tapia, W. & Sbordoni, V. 2009. An overlooked pink species of land iguana in the Galápagos. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, 507-511.
Jones, T., Ehardt, C. L., Butynski, T. M., Davenport, T. R. B., Mpunga, N. E., Machaga, S. J. & De Luca, D. W. 2005. The Highland mangabey Lophocebus kipunji: a new species of African monkey. Science 308, 1161-1164.
Landry, S. O. 2005. What constitutes a proper description? Science 309, 2164.
Lazell, J. D. 1996 (for 1993). Cryptophidion is not Xenopeltis (response to Pauwels & Meitre). Cryptozoology 12, 101-102.
Marshall, S. A. & Evenhuis, N. L. 2015. New species without dead bodies: a case for photo-based descriptions, illustrated by a striking new species of Marleyimyia Hesse (Diptera, Bombyliidae) from South Africa. ZooKeys 525, 117-127.
Nardelli, F. 2015. A new Colobinae from the Sundiac region: the Golden-crowned langur Presbytis johnaspinalli, sp. nov. International Zoo News 62, 323-336.
Nijman, V. 2015. Rebuttal to Presbytis johnaspinalli. International Zoo News 62, 403-406.
Notton, D. G. 2011. The availability and validity of the name Forpus flavicollis (Bertagnolio and Racheli 2010), for a parrotlet from Columbia. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 131, 221-224.
Pauwels, O. & Meirte, D. 1996 (for 1993). The status of Cryptophidion annamense. Cryptozoology 12, 95-101.
Polaszek, A., Grubb, P., Groves, C., Ehardt, C. L. & Butynski, T. M. 2005. What constitutes a proper description? Response. Science 309, 2164-2166.
Timm, R. M., Ramey, R. R. & The Nomenclature Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. 2005. What constitutes a proper description? Science 309, 2163-2166.
Wallach, V. & Jones, G. S. 1994 (for 1992). Cryptophidion annamense, a new genus and species of cryptozoic snake from Vietnam (Reptilia: Serpentes). Cryptozoology 11, 1-37.
Wallach, V. & Jones, G. S. 1996 (for 1993). Cryptophidion is a valid taxon (response to Pauwels & Meitre). Cryptozoology 12, 102-113.
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