peachy01

Most of Stephen Jay Gould’s books are collections of his essays he wrote for years (until his untimely and unfortunate death in 2002) that appeared in “Natural History” magazine. “The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History” is the fourth such collection. Gould was a prominent paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and astute historian of science, who spent most of his career teaching at Harvard. His essays are a mix of science and history. I'll take my lead from Dr. Gould. This book’s curious title comes from the very first essay to appear. A flamingo's smile is almost as enigmatic as Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa's. Why? In this essay, Gould explores the theme of form follows function and the question of just why do pink flamingos have upside-down smiles? Gould writes: “In most birds (and mammals including us), the upper jaw fuses to the skull; chewing, biting, and shouting move the mobile lower jaw against this stable brace. If reversed feeding has converted the flamingo’s upper jaw into a working lower jaw in size and shape, then we must predict that, contrary to all anatomical custom, this upper beak moves up and down against a rigid lower jaw. The flamingo, in short, should feed by raising and lowering its upper jaw.” Which, by the way, it does. Flamingos are filter feeders that feed with their heads upside down, submerged in water. So, for a practical purpose, in nature, the jaw that is actually on the bottom during feeding is the movable one. Most curious. Most curious, indeed.

2022-10-21 05:40