The other night, whilst reading through the introduction to the Britain’s Mammals; A Field Guide to the Mammals of Britain and Ireland by Messrs. Couzens, Swash, Still, & Dunn (more on that book soon…) I was struck by their explanation of just how much more it takes to make mammals mammals than simply the possession of mammary glands. However as their introduction was simply meant to be just that – an introduction – I began to contemplate the question in a larger frame of reference.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” So wrote Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in her 1878 novel “Molly Bawn.” But what about those eyes? Does it change matters if the eyes of one beholder don’t see things the same way as another? If they see colors differently – or perhaps see fewer or more subtle divisions in these colors? Perhaps they see into portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that others can’t perceive, which allows them to see patterns that are invisible to those lacking such perceptual capabilities?
The Meganisoptera, the taxonomic order of remarkably large but now extinct odonates that thrived during the Carboniferous period, included species with wingspans measuring up to 75 cm. Arthropleura, a now extinct genus of Carboniferous period arthropods related to modern millipedes, included members that could reach two and a half meters in length. So why aren’t there any arthropods of such great sizes any longer?
You know the phrase. When you’ve been particularly embarrassed and feel particularly vulnerable, or perhaps when the stresses of job, family life, or the world in general have simply become overwhelming and you just can’t cope any longer, from your lips, perhaps quietly, emerges “I just want to crawl in a hole and die.”