Author: Lori Jia
How old is the Grand Canyon? One answer is easy: a lot older than a few thousand years. A more precise answer is harder to get at, however. You have to climb into the caves of the Grand Canyon and read the geological clocks hidden there. For more, read my latest “Dissection” commentary at Wired.
Photo: Luca Galluzi at Galuzzi.it [via Wikipedia]
Originally published March 6, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
The New York Times, March 4, 2008
For the past two decades, Kay Holekamp has been chronicling the lives of spotted hyenas on the savannas of southern Kenya. She has watched cubs emerge from their dens and take their place in the hyena hierarchy; she has seen alliances form and collapse. She has observed clan wars, in which dozens of hyenas have joined together to defend their hunting grounds against invaders.
“It’s like following a soap opera,” said Holekamp, a professor at Michigan State University.
Continue reading “Watching hyenas’ social lives to understand intelligence”
The New York Times, March 4, 2008
For the past two decades, Dr. Kay Holekamp has been chronicling the lives of spotted hyenas on the savannas of southern Kenya. She has watched cubs emerge from their dens and take their place in the hyena hierarchy; she has seen alliances form and collapse. She has observed clan wars, in which dozens of hyenas have joined together to defend their hunting grounds against invaders.
“It’s like following a soap opera,” said Holekamp, a professor at Michigan State University.
My talk last week at Carleton University in Ottawa went well–here’s an interview with the university’s magazine, and here’s a report from someone in the audience.
More talks are coming up–
Next week: The evolution of whales at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.
Next month: Soul Made Flesh at the University of Denver.
And plenty more coming in May and June…
Hyenas are fascinating in many ways, such as the way female spotted hyenas are equipped with a penis of sorts (pdf). In tomorrow’s New York Times, I look at a new kind of fascination: hyena brains. Hyenas have a remarkably complex social life, and it appears to have altered the shape and size of their brains. The same social forces were at work in our own ancestors. Humans and hyenas, in other words, have been rolling on parallel evolutionary tracks.
For further details, check out the densely packed web site of Kay Holekamp, the biologist who has been investigating the social hyena brain. And don’t miss the slide show the Times has put together for my article.
