On Fri, 16 Mar 2001, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
> A friend took a look and announced that if it wasn't for the tail he
> would say its a vampire bat... somehow appropriate
Vampire bats are very cooperative and sharing. Indeed, the now classic
paper[1] that introduced the notion of "reciprocal altruism" among non-kin
included a study of vampire bats. I think that that is extremely
appropriate for the workings of the exim community. And it would be more
appropriat than the stickleback which was also discussed in the same
paper.
But a marmoset (as someone has already reported) is also nice. I was
right about living in trees, but not so right about diet (I did say that
that was a mostly wild guess).
Anyway here are some excerpts from the extremely informative
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/reclinata/
Callitrichids' natural diet consists of fruit and flowers, as well as
frogs, snails, and lizards. They also feast on a variety of insects.
Plant exudates and gums are also consummed, the marmost has dentition
adapted for gouging holes in plants in order to get to the gum. [...]
Marmosets live in pairs or family groups in which only the dominant pair
breeds. The fathers participate in the rearing of the offspring and help
by carrying the youngsters about and returning them to their mother for
feeding. This way the mother can have a break. Territory is marked by
rubbing glands located either on their chest or anogenital region against
an object.
[...]
In addition to the father helping raise the young, the older siblings
also assist in the care of the newborns, primarily in transporting them
about. In this way older offspring learn to care for their own young in
the future. As with all primate species, parental ability is a learned
behaviour and therefore this experience is important.
[...]
Marmsets communicate with a variety of high pitched vocalisations. Their
alarm call is described as being bird-like chirrups done together with
different grimaces and squeals of "gee-gee-gee-gee". Thier mating call is
a short "uistiti-uistiti". Antoher common form of communication is
scent-marking.
[...]
Marmosets are very teritorial and will defend home ranges which will vary
in size according to food availability and distribution. Approximatley
1/3 of their teritory is travelled every day, and should neighbouring groups
come into contact, vocalising, chasing, pilo erection (erection of body
hair) and tongue flicking takes place.
which strikes me as perfectly appropriate (if unproductive) responses to
RFC violations or spamming, I just don't see how it could be implemented.
Notes:
[1]
@Article{Trivers71,
Author = {Robert L. Trivers},
Title = {The evolution of reciprocal altruism},
Year = 1971,
Journal = {Quarterly Review of Biology},
Volume = 46,
Pages = {35--57}
}
--
Jeffrey Goldberg
I have recently moved, see
http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/contact.html
Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
