On Sunday, Wisconsin Public Radio’s “To The Best of Our Knowledge” aired an interesting episode called The Bestiary, about cryptozoology, strange biology, and mythology. You can stream it on the website.
I found the handling of the Archaea a bit awkward, as sometimes happens in mainstream science journalism, but I was fascinated by Tim Friend’s suggestion that the microbe-rich rust coating the hull of the Titanic constitutes a novel ecosystem and perhaps a novel communal lifeform. This is not so farfetched, when you consider that each of our bodies contains more bacterial cells than human cells. We are a carefully balanced melange of person and germ.
And Nicholas Christopher’s fictional take on historical bestiaries (more reviews from his site) sounds like the perfect late-summer cafe reading. Here’s a memorable sound-byte from Christopher:
In the 18th century, one species disappeared every four years. In the nineteenth century, it’s about one species per year. By 1975, it was one thousand species per year. And in 2000, it’s 40,000 per year, in other words, 110 per day. . . .I found this mind-boggling, the idea that, you know, at the end of this day, 110 creatures will have disappeared. . .
I realized after a while that animals that you and I might have known or have seen or known of as children, your children will know of only as stories, and children beyond them will know of really as myths, and in a way some of these books really did chronicle animals that have come and gone.
Via Endicott Redux
If you’d like to browse a classic medieval version, I’ve found this bestiary website quite entertaining:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/bestiary.hti
Before I checked it out, I had no idea that a bestiary would include stones and trees (as well as an awful lot on “man”).
Good idea to add that link. There is almost no discussion of authentic bestiaries in the WPR program – I think they just liked the title of Christopher’s book. “Bestiary” will probably become the next drastically overused, out-of-context framing concept, like “wonder cabinet.”
“We are a carefully balanced melange of person and germ.”
I love that description !
Now, about the comment on how many species disappear every year nowadays as compared to the XVIIIth or XIXth century … I really find it hard to believe in the quantitative value of such estimations. Intensive agriculture in Europe started way before the industrial revolution, and I really doubt that the precise impact of such human activities on animal species can be traced that far back in time, especially when it comes to (at the time) unreferenced species like most insects. There is no doubt that the rate of disappearance is tremendously higher now due to human activity, but to quote precise figures about what it was 200 ago … I think this is pure wishful thinking.
I can appreciate your skepticism. Christopher didn’t cite his sources in the interview, so your guess is as good as mine how those numbers were modeled. He did mention that he also found them unbelievable and had them fact-checked, so they must have some basis in research, but how solid that basis is, I’m sure I have no idea.