How we naturalists describe canids, and other organisms, depends on our conceptual framework

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Dear reader, please see this engraving, made in the 1840's before the advent of photography, and meant to be Lupulella mesomelas: https://retrieverman.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/cape-thous.jpg.

I have previously implied, in various Posts, that we cannot really begin to describe the colouration of mammals, such as canids, without some idea - even if this is subconscious - of how colouration functions adaptively.

In principle, it would be good if taxonomists, and the writers of field-guides, could describe colouration objectively. However, in reality, subjectivity always creeps in.

The real question is whether the implicit interpretations are educated or uneducated.
 
I will use L. mesomelas (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1210966-Lupulella-mesomelas), the topic of my several most recent Posts, as an example, once again.
 
The engraving above was presumably done in good faith, by a scientifically-minded person in the mid-nineteenth century. I assume that it was done from a study skin (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fur_skin_of_the_Black-backed_Jackal_%28Canis_mesomelas%29.jpg and https://www.deviantart.com/dr00lz0ddz/art/Black-backed-jackal-pelt-910997649 and https://www.deviantart.com/featheroes/art/Black-backed-jackal-pelt-SOLD-519276648).

It should be obvious to readers how, with no intent at deception, the result is quite misleading.

The main reason why it is misleading is not that it is a poor work of scientific illustration. The main reason is that the artist had no idea how to frame his subject, in terms of how it really appears in life.
 
To elaborate my point, I can lead you through the following thought-experiment.
 
Suppose that in reality L. mesomelas had gone extinct shortly after its discovery, much as the Falkland islands wolf did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_wolf). Let us view its brief documentation by scientists, just before its extinction, in two parallel universes.
 
Before the extinction of L. mesomelas, in one universe the only attempt to record its appearance was the colour-painting of a study skin, later destroyed in a fire.
 
In the alternative universe, what happened was that Charles Darwin, or someone of comparable background and curiosity, had the good fortune to observe a specimen for some time in the field, and then, immediately on returning to his tent, sketched what he saw as accurately as possible, but just in black-and-white.
 
In the first case, the one-and-only record of L. mesomelas - and all we would have to go on today - might be something like the picture above.
 
In the second case, what our observant naturalist-cum-artist might have sketched, without colour, would be unrecognisably different.

In this second case, the sketch would show

• the ‘grey’ (mid-tone) of the flank extending far higher up the flank, and getting paler the higher the ‘grey’ went;
• an area of black-and-white area on the back, not rumple-mantling the animal as shown above, but sitting high on the back; and
• a blackish band along the flanks, that does not merely border the saddle (as shown above), but emerges as the single most important striking, and novel, aspect of the colouration of this mystery canid.

What we would see, if we dusted off the browning field-sketch of our naturalist, would be the closest thing to a ‘walking flag’ in all the Carnivora. A figure apparently representing ‘a wolf in gazelle’s clothes’.

And, although that is surely a caricature of the real appearance of L. mesomelas, it would have been closer to the truth than what we find above: an animal with some sort of ‘saddle’ that defies relation to the adaptive colouration of any other known mammal. 
 
I have used the approach of reductio-ad-absurdum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) to make my point. However, do you see how much our interpretive framework colours our descriptions, and how important this can be in animals that show a particular adaptive strategy of colouration?

And how, more specifically, the continued description of L. mesomelas to this day, as having a ‘saddle’, continues to miss the observable effects of the overall colouration of this species?
 
An obvious implication is that the photos we naturalists choose to take are likely to reflect our level of thoughtfulness about the organisms in question.

What all of this means:

In taxonomic descriptions on in field guide-books, it  would be no less scientific and objective to describe L. mesomelas in terms of having ‘flank-banding’ or having ‘flag-like colouration’, than it would be to keep referring to a ‘saddle’.

However, the former approach might, I argue, be more informative, and place our animal more usefully in context, than the latter approach.

To extend the thought-experiment even further:

Can you imagine how remote from reality the engraving would have been if Lupulella adusta were the subject, given that we naturalists find its appearance confusing even in the light of hundreds of photos? (see https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/milewski/55016-why-lupulella-adusta-could-be-called-the-baffledog#).

Posted on 07 de setembro de 2022, 05:28 AM by milewski