Dodos on a Diet

Have you ever thought a photograph made you look fat? Well spare a thought for the Dodo. According to French researchers, portraits of Dodos (Raphus cucullatus) painted by seventeenth century artists may have added quite a few kilos. In fact, some seventeenth century estimates may have doubled the birds’ weight!

A seventeenth century image of a Dodo, painted by an unknown artist.

Using measurements taken from preserved Dodo skeletons, the French team estimated the average weight of an adult Dodo at 10.2kg. In comparison, seventeenth century eyewitnesses suggested the birds weighed as much as 22.7kg (or 50lb). Contemporary paintings often show the birds as large, rotund animals, but the French researchers suggest that this was either because they were exaggerated by the artists, pictures of overfed birds, or the birds were puffing out their feathers in a display of some kind.

To derive their svelt estimate, the researchers measured the lengths of the Dodo skeletons’ femur, tibiotarsus and tarsometatarsus bones. The result was lower than other modern attempts to gauge the mass of the Dodo.

As we’ve seen many times on Hypothesis Now, using preserved remains and fossils to investigate extinct animals can only tell us so much. Given some commentators believe the Earth is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, this just reinforces the urgent need for conservation of species and entire ecosystems. Once they’re gone, we lose vital information about our world, and there’s no way to get it back.

Incidentally, the researchers here aren’t the only ones that thinks the Dodo could lose a few kilos. A new gallery opening on the 21st January at the Natural History Museum in London will show a seventeenth century painting next to a modern image painted by one of the palaeontologists at the museum. You can find further details of the exhibition here.

Paper reference: Angst, D., Buffetaut, E., & Abourachid, A. (2011) The end of the fat dodo? A new mass estimate for Raphus cucullatus. Naturwissenschaften. On-line first 15th January 2011. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0759-7

Economy shrinking? Restoring the environment might help

Pristine tropical forest - for now...

As the world starts to emerge from the grip of recession, governments are looking for ways to grow their shattered economies. New research suggests that investing in the environment can provide both an economic and ecological boost.

The research, published in the journal Science, has shown that by fixing ecosystems damaged by human activity we restore vital “ecosystem services”.

Ecosystem services are those things that we depend on the natural world to supply, such as the air we breathe, clean drinking water and even somewhere green and pleasant to visit on holiday. Improved ecosystem services can boost the economy of an area as it becomes a more attractive place to live. A clean, healthy environment also supports businesses founded on tourism and recreation as more people will visit and spend money locally.

The team of Spanish and British researchers analysed 89 studies of ecosystems that had been restored. They found that restoration boosted biodiversity – the number of different plant and animal species – by around 44%, and this correlated with a 25% improvement in ecosystem services. It seems as though restoring the environment, despite being costly in the short-term, can provide a long-term benefit to the economy.

But a word of caution: the researchers also found that restored ecosystems were less beneficial than pristine ones, which had never been damaged in the first place. By protecting the remaining pristine environments around the world we can ensure a steady supply of ecosystem services such as new pharmaceuticals from natural sources, food and clothing, and even carbon capture and storage, that can support high-tech, high-value industries. These are just what we need, in fact, to support the economy in future.

For once, the goals of government, industry, and the environmental lobbyists might all point in the same direction!

Mosquitoes threaten unique Galapagos wildlife

Disease-carrying mosquitoes are threatening the unique animal inhabitants of the Galapagos Islands, according to research carried out by the University of Leeds in the UK.

Galapagos species have evolved in isolation for so long that they’ve lost their immune defences, leaving them vulnerable to infections carried by the newly-arrived mosquitoes.

Researchers found mosquito stowaways on many of the recently-arrived tourist flights to the islands. Although the mosquitoes don’t arrive in great numbers they are able to survive and breed with native mosquitoes. It is this mingling of populations, brought about by the increasing Galapagos tourist trade, that could introduce new diseases to the Galapagos.

Tourism undoubtedly brings benefits to the human inhabitants of the Galapagos, but it also brings many risks. Rats arriving on cruise ships are eating their way through the eggs of native birds, including ground-nesting Galapagos penguins; introduced pigs destroy turtle and iguana nests; and goats chomp their way through much of the specialised native plant-life. Now regular introduction of mosquitoes threatens to bring new diseases to blight the islands.

The animals that inhabit the Galapagos Islands in the South Pacific have evolved into unique forms during their long isolation from the mainland: nowhere else on the planet can you find the bizarre marine iguanas or the varied Galapagos mockingbirds that inspired Darwin! Unfortunately, the isolated conditions also led to the animal’s greatest weakness – their vulnerability to introduced diseases and predators.

The Galapagos Islands have a special place in the history of science as one of the places that helped Charles Darwin to develop the theory of evolution. It would be a tragic loss if the unique animals the islands harbour were destroyed through our carelessness. Sadly, it may only be a matter of time.

Marine iguanas: probably the weirdest lizards on Earth...

Image credit: flickr/putneymark. Used under this license

Swine flu in the UK – whatever happened to containment?

One of the most interesting things to arise from my recent interview with Bekey was the inside view of the National Health Service (NHS) response to suspected swine flu cases.

Bekey spends her days travelling between local schools as a music teacher, and we’ve all seen reports of schools closing after cases of swine flu were confirmed in pupils. So did Bekey’s infection result in the closure of several schools? As Bekey told HN:

Bekey: No. None of my schools have closed at all […]One of my schools this week had thirty or forty of the kids off, but they stayed open, because if you’ve got it it’s a bit late to close.

Remember, this happened two weeks ago, whilst the government said they were trying to contain the virus. But this doesn’t seem like containment to me. The only people who became seriously concerned with Bekey’s infection were the hospital where Bekey’s sister and house-mate, Amy, works. Once Amy herself started to show symptoms:

Bekey: They immediately put all her close colleagues on Tamiflu and sent somebody home as they’d come in with a bit of a sniffle.

Understandable, really, as they need to protect seriously ill patients from any sort of infection.

The mention of Tamiflu also raises a couple of questions. Was Bekey offered the anti-viral drugs? Were her close contacts?

Bekey: When the doctor came round [to do the initial swab] he said they were only giving anti-virals to people at risk: those with diabetes, heart condition or weak kidneys or lungs. Anything that might be aggravated by having flu.

However, when a different doctor came round a week later to test Amy for swine flu:

Bekey: The doctor brought a prescription round for Amy as they were now being advised to give out anti-virals to anyone who has been in contact with the swine flu.

But they were doing this at the start of the outbreak earlier this year. So what was going on?

I don’t know, and it seems not to matter now as the UK government has changed its policy to one of treatment, not containment. In my view, a containment strategy was never going to work for long, as the flu spreads very easily. The other problem with the containment strategy is that giving low doses of Tamiflu to huge numbers of people will only encourage the swine flu virus to develop resistance (as has been seen elsewhere). Using large quantities of Tamiflu could also have a detrimental impact on the environment.

My final thought on swine flu in the UK is this: news coverage of the NHS is often fairly negative. In this case, by acting sensibly and ignoring government containment advice, health workers have probably saved the cash-strapped NHS many thousands of pounds that can now be used to treat life-threatening illnesses.

Swine flu in the UK – a patient’s tale

The UK government are now focussed on treating people with swine flu. This means they can no longer contain the virus, and have accepted it will reach most of us. They also tell us it is a “mild” illness, but is this true?

Hypothesis Now (HN) is in the position to shed some light on the effects of swine flu. Recently, I talked to Bekey, a recovered swine flu patient, music teacher for several local schools and regular HN reader, about her experience of swine flu.

We began with how Bekey found out she had swine flu.

HN: So what happened?

Bekey: A few weeks ago, on the Sunday, I was sneezing. But given I have hay fever and at the time was mowing the lawn this did not strike me as being unusual. So I went to work on Monday.

Over the next few days Bekey started feeling worse, and on the Wednesday she contacted her doctor:

Bekey: He became convinced there was a chance it was swine flu, and asked if I wanted to be swabbed. […] I said I wasn’t bothered either way. I asked if it would it make a difference to how I would be treated or how I should act? The doctor said no, whatever kind of flu it is, you stay at home; you take it easy; you drink plenty of fluids.

HN: The swabbing isn’t standard procedure if you have the flu at the moment?

Bekey: No. I’ve actually gathered from one of my schools since that they’ve had a lot of kids off sick with flu-like symptoms but the local doctor was refusing to swab them. There’s no point. They probably have [swine flu] but they just have the week off and stay in bed to get over it.

This means the swine flu virus is probably much more widespread than government statistics suggest. It also means the death rate (e.g. number of deaths per 1000 patients) is almost certainly much lower than suggested by news reports. As I chatted to Bekey, the reason for this seeming lack of concern amongst health officials soon became obvious:

Bekey: I’ve had normal flu and felt far worse. [Swine flu] really is very mild. I had aches and pains in my knees and hips and I had a temperature on Wednesday morning. By Friday evening I didn’t have a temperature.

At the end of the interview I asked if Bekey had anything else to add; any final swine flu advice for Hypothesis Now readers?

Bekey: People do not need to panic! It is quite a mild form of flu.

So there you have it, a patient’s perspective on swine flu, and as illnesses go it isn’t that bad! Like any other case of flu, it takes about a week to run its course. Doctors are happy for schools to remain open, obviously not judging it to be a major public health threat at the moment.

I therefore have one question: why is it still headline news?