Single Mom, Only Child the New 2006 Forester.® Fits Nicely with the Rest of Your Life
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7/05 Single Mom, Only Child The new 2006 Forester.® Fits nicely with the rest of your life. Think. Feel. Drive.' You finally found it. The redesigned Subaru Forester with Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive standard. The vehicle that earned the highest rating in all crash tests done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety now has even more to offer. Like an available 230-horsepower, turbocharged boxer engine, refined suspension and a sleek, new exterior. Not to mention an exclusive LL.Bean"" Edition. Consider the picture completed, subaru.com SUBARUd Based on a rating of "Good" in a 40-niph (ronlal offset test. 31 -mph side impact test and 5-mpti bumper test. The ABC's of Safety: Air bags. Buckle up, Children in backseat. JULY/AUGUST 2005 VOLUME 114 NUMBER 6 FEATURES 26 COLD FIRE In Antarctica's Dry Valleys, the deep chambers and conduits that poured hot lava onto the surface are exposed as nowhere else on Earth. EDMOND A. MATHEZ 32 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT An assassin hug's sensory journey GRACIELA FLORES 38 UNHAPPY TRAILS Forensic examination of ancient remains sheds new light on the emergence of Florida's Seminole Indians. CHRISTOPHER M. STOJANOWSKI ON THE COVER: Mother African elephant and her calf mm DEPARTMENTS 4 THE NATURAL MOMENT Down the Hatch Photograph by Solvin ZankI 6 UP FRONT Editor's Notebook 46 THIS LAND 8 CONTRIBUTORS Sand Trap Robert H. Mohlenbrock 10 LETTERS 48 BOOKSHELF 12 SAMPLINGS Laurence A . Marschall News from Nature 53 nature.net 16 UNIVERSE ChiU Out Heading Out Robert Anderson Neil deGmsse Tyson COVER STORY 22 NATURALISTS AT LARGE Comeback Kids Delia and Mark Owens 55 OUT THERE Not Dead Yet Charles Liu 59 THE SKY IN JULY AND AUGUST Joe Rao 60 AT THE MUSEUM 64 ENDPAPER Messing About Dru Clarke PICTURE CREDITS: Page 8 Visit our Web site at www.naturalhistorymag.com A "\ Has Evolution Made A Monkey Out df You? J Ape To Man \ The Rev^ution in Evolution. August 7th 9pm/8c THE HISTORY CHANNEL History.com u X Ul N to DC o O) LU 2005 4, — —— THE NATURAL MOMENT UP FRONT See preceding two pages reat In- Epilogue G agua, the southernmost island in the Smart. Gregarious. Long-lived. Gentle when treated well. Bahamas, hosts Dangerous when angered. No, not people; I'm talking about a massive col- elephants. Our cover story by Deha and Mark Owens, about ony of wild the aftermath of many years of elephant poaching in Zambia's North West Indian Luangwa National Park ("Comeback Kids," page 22), tells of another flamingos striking likeness between our species and elephants, revealed only in (Phoeiiicoptems times of desperation. Elephants from ravaged famihes act just like kids ruber ruber). The resident birds firom broken homes. Young males form gangs and raise heU. Adoles- about 50,000 of them—nest cent females get pregnant. The focus of social hfe shrinks from the around the salty flats of Lake extended family to the single mom and her only calf The lore of Rosa, a reservoir ringed by man- elephant society, vested in elders, dies with them. The good news is grove trees. Photographer Solvin that, thanks to the efforts of the authors and others, poaching has been Zankl chose one of the man- all but ehminated in the park. The bad news is that the consequences groves as a "hide." To minimize of poaching Hve on. the disruption, he installed him- Graciela Flores has a different perspective on consequences; afiier years self and his camera at the end of of careful scientific work, she doesn't see many. Flores smdied heat- the breeding season, when only sensing in the blood-sucking "assassin bug" of Latin America, the insect ten pairs of nesting flamingos vector of Chagas' disease ("In the Heat of the Night," page 32). The were still mouth-feeding their ultimate goal of her research was to control a protozoan infection that newborn chicks. afflicts soine 20 irdUion people in the region. But the substantial scien- Parent flamingos usually have tific knowledge of the assassin bug's behavior rarely seems to translate one ofispring each year, which into actions that could sharply reduce its impact. Money for fighting they nurture jointly. Rather than Chagas' disease is tight: although it may count Charles Darwin among regurgitating food for it, both its illustrious victims, the disease, Flores notes, has been mostly an afflic- mom and dad secrete a bright tion of the poor. Research remains the province of a few dedicated sci- red, nutritious liquid in their entists. The thatch-roofed houses where the insects thrive remain home crop called "flamingo milk." The to 120 iniUion people—all at risk of a malady that can kiU or debilitate, color of the milk—and the rose virtually without warning. Flores has now traded the lab bench for a hue of the adults' feathers career in science journalism (she is an editor-at-large for this magazine). comes from high levels of hydro- carbon pigments (alpha- and be- ta-carotenes) in their diet. Fly Edmond A. Mathez presents another kind of epilogue, in his story of larvae and other microgoodies geological discovery in a remote corner of Antarctica ("Cold Fire," are the birds' main fare, filtered page 26). Long before it was covered with ice, Antarctica was part of a out fi-om lake water through the supercontinent geologists call Gondwana. One hundred eighty million flamingo's pumplike beak. years ago, parts of what was to become the frozen continent were Unlike the baby pictured wracked with violent volcanism, the surface repeatedly covered with here—a two-day-old hatchling hot lava, the underlying rock layers repeatedly pried apart by intruding most of the chicks Zankl ob- magma. Fast-forward in time, and a series of uplifts and deep cuts by ser\'ed were born a month earlier. ancient rivers exposed the underground "plumbing" of the molten Zankl fondly recalls the day rock. Miraculously, some of that plumbing occurs in valleys so dry they several thousand chicks waddled harbor bare rock for all to see. past his hide, creating an incredi- Mathez and his colleagues reached this obscure Antarctic landscape ble splashing sound. "One chick as travelers from an unimaginably distant time (our present), to try to could not keep up with the make sense of the aftermath. Mathez's story encompasses hundreds of group and decided to stay be- millions of years and a continent-size portion of the Earth's surface. !imd, between my tripod and But it begins in camp, where he and his twenty-tour companions toast my feet." After two hours, the their collective good fortune with Scotch whiskey splashed over straggler finally rejoined the rau- 18,000-year-old glacial ice. Who says natural science is dry? cous group. —Erin Espelie —Peter Brown 6 NATURAL HISTORY July/August 2005 You Have an Important Engagement with Honduras The Honduras Institute of Tourism, through its innovative —SAVE strategy, seeks to engage Scientific, Academic, Volunteer and Educational travelers in conserving and enhancing the country's diverse natu- ral and cultural attractions. Scientists and academics can orient their research toward conservation goals, and help us build our knowledge base, the better to interpret our unique resources to our visitors. Active engagement of SAVE travelers with our communities will provide invaluable opportunities to develop our human resources. Honduras has much to offer SAVE travelers. Our system of parks is extensive and diverse, including world-class coral reefs, old-growth mangrove wetlands, vast tropical rain forests and cloud forests. Nine cultural groups speak nearly as many languages. Copan is the artistic capital of the Maya world, and an important collection of non-Maya sites awaits discovery. Friendly and gracious, the Honduran people are eager to share perspectives on the myriad ways we humans adapt and thrive in this diverse world. If you are interested in this unique Honduran initiative, contact the Honduras SAVE Program: Honduras SAVE Program Honduras Institute of Tourism HONDURAS 011-504-222-2124 Scieiifijk -Academe Vohmieer hducalional Tourim E-mail: [email protected] Nature's laboratory, culture's library. www.FundacionSAVE.com www.LetsGoHonduras.com CONTRIBUTORS Before embarking on a career as a freelance photographer, SOLVIN ZANKL ("The Natural Moment," page 4) studied marine biolo- mm Peter Brown Editor-m-Chief gy at the University of Kiel in Germany. His scientific interests Mary Beth Aberlin Steven R. Black are evident in his focus on photographic essays featuring wild- Exemlive Editor Art Director life behavior. Zankl's work has been widely pubUshed, both in Board of Editors books and in such nature magazines as GEO and BBC Wildlife. Espelie, T. Kelleher, Erin J. Mary Knight, More of his award-winning wildlife images can be seen at his Avis Lang, Vittorio Maestro Michel DeMatteis Associate Managing Web site (www.solvinzankl.com). Editor Thomas Rosinski Associate Art Director Hannah Black, Assistant Art Director A geologist and curator in the department of earth and planetary Graciela Flores Editor-at-Large Liz Donohue, Rebecca Kessler, Kazmira Pytlak Interns sciences at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, EDMOND A. MATHEZ ("Cold Fire," page 26) studies Contributing Editors Robert Anderson, Charles Liu, Laurence A, Marschall, the geochemistry of the volatile elements. His research interests Richard Milner, Robert H. Mohlenbrock, Joe Rao, include the soUdification of large magma bodies, the origins of Stephan Reebs, Adam Summers, Neil deGrasse Tyson platinum deposits, the electrical properties of rocks, and the ear- ly Earth. He has done fieldwork in many parts of the world, from Charles E. Harris Publisher the platinum mines of South Africa to the ancient rock-strewn mountains of Edgar L.