| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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EDITORIAL Bird Song And Beyond On November 3rd the Academy will be presenting a symposium in memory and in honor of Luis Felipe Baptista, who was the Curator of Birds and Mammals here from 1980 until his unexpected death last year. Entitled “Nature’s Music: The Science of Bird Song,” the symposium will gather together leading researchers on the physiology, purpose, learning, and memory of bird songs. It will demonstrate Baptista’s enormous contribution to the field and will present speakers who are pursuing this surprisingly rich area of research. Much of this issue of California Wild focuses on Baptista’s roles as researcher, writer, and perhaps greatest of all, passionate motivator. Baptista’s own account, “Feathered Gems: The Song and Dance of Hummingbirds,” exemplifies his powers of observation, enthusiasm, and sense of wonder. It is followed by a tribute from Peter Marler, professor emeritus of biological sciences at the University of California at Davis and co-organizer of the upcoming symposium. He traces the origins and evolution of Baptista’s lifelong love affair with songbirds. Interspersed are reminiscences from colleagues who ventured into the field and had unforgettable experiences with this remarkable scientist.Elsewhere in the issue, entomologist Andrei Sourakov describes the rather gruesome tale of parasitism among insects in “Lunch on the Host.” The horrors of the first “Alien” movie are everyday occurrences in the insect world, where caterpillars frequently weave their cocoons to develop into butterflies or moths, but what emerges are wasps or flies who had spent their youth consuming their hosts from the inside. Jay Withgott explains another unexpected natural phenomenon with overtones from science fiction. Without the planet Jupiter, humans probably would never have evolved at all. This hefty planet first tossed water-laden comets our way, and then played defense, enabling our delicate planet to carry the ball—life—without being battered by space debris. Who would have imagined, other than our superstitious ancestors, the critical importance of that tiny dot in the sky? And “Habitats” returns with an extraordinary twist to the constant campaign waged between Big Oil and environmentalists. Offshore oil rigs have proven quite appealing to marine life, particularly in waters such as the Gulf of Mexico where the sandy substrate offers little to attract fishes. The subsurface structures of oil rigs off California have also become hubs for wildlife, and now that the oil reservoirs they pumped have begun to run dry, there are suggestions that they do more good than harm. But as Stephanie Greenman points out in “Rockfish to Rig Fish,” all is not as it seems. If you like what you read in these pages, now would be a good time to consider who among your friends might appreciate a seasonal infusion of California Wild through a gift subscription. While many readers include California Wild among their favorite magazines, many Californians, even those with an avid interest in the natural world, are not familiar with this publication. So it might come as a surprise for them, too. Buy a subscription and give a yearlong gift of discovery, of scientific horizons and environmental habitats, to your friends and colleagues. Keith K. Howell is Editor of California Wild. |