And another trifecta to round off the day, this one of stories about the historical remains of agrobiodiversity, in a broad sense.
We start with an article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph about a genetic study of the skulls of a couple of lions from the menagerie which medieval royalty maintained in the Tower of London. It turns out they were Barbary lions from North Africa, now sadly extinct. Ok, they’re not strictly speaking agricultural biodiversity, but it’s a fun story and I couldn’t resist it.
Next there’s news of an excavation in Egypt which revealed the buried remain of donkeys. I think we actually nibbled this a few days ago in another guise, but the NY Times article is worth reading. The find is interesting because although the donkeys were definitely used as pack animals (the evidence is wear and tear on the bones), they didn’t look any different from wild asses — at least as far as their bones are concerned. Certainly they were no smaller, and a rapid reduction in size has been seen as a marker of animal domestication — the domestication syndrome. So, time for a rethink there.
And, finally, the Boston Globe has a piece on an exhibition of Jewish mosaics from Roman North Africa, entitled “Tree of Paradise” because of its depictions of nature’s bounty. Ancient representations of plants and animals are fascinating, because they are really the only way we can know the external phenotype of old, extinct breeds and varieties. There are unfortunately no pictures in the article, and the exhibition website only has one. Pity.