Yesterday I started reading Ian Tattersall's The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack. Tattersall is an accomplished paleoanthropologist and the title refers to the initial judgment on the identity of the first discovered Neanderthal skeleton. He writes personally and personably here.
The introduction relates a trip he took to the Comoro Islands. Due to a historical quirk, the Comoros is the only place to see lemurs in the wild other than Madagascar. Just a couple of species, but if you can't get to Madagascar it's nice to have a backup.
As it happens, though, the islands were in the hands of a very ad hoc revolutionary group. Armed teenagers representing this group greeted him when he first got off the boat. Let's just say that you learn something new every day, and Tattersall's lesson was a little more vivid than mine.
2 comments:
My curiosity was most definitely piqued by this little review, so much so that I went to Amazon to have a look at the book and to check out what else Prof. Tattersall might have written. What should I see when I clicked on his name but a photo of the good doctor and a very beautiful lemur. A little further investigation (google image search) identified the animal as 'propithicus tattersalli', the golden-crowned sifaka lemur that was named after Dr. Tattersall.
Anyhow, the book being too expensive to purchase, you'll be pleased to know I finally made use of my library card. It's on order so I'll soon get to know what happened when he met the armed teenage revolutionaries.
I've read some other stuff by Prof. Tattersall, I think including at least one neanderthal-focused book. As we discussed on the phone, some of it is pretty dry and technical, but overall I think he's got a good perspective to convey to the lay reader. The lemur you mentioned is also known as the "golden-crowned sifaka." I'm sure the naming was a thrill for him.
Libraries are a resource I appreciate having around. The ones around here are a little tomblike, of course. I'm hoping that situation doesn't last too long.
Bet Tattersall's digestion wasn't very happy on that island.
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