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mallorys_cameraI'd made no plans for my last morning in Albuquerque, and there was nothing I had to do.
So I went to the zoo.
The Albuquerque Zoo is kind of weirdly placed. No surrounding park, instead it's plopped smack in the middle of a nest of old brown bungalows, just a few blocks away from the tired downtown. So you get this rather odd effect: just beyond the bars of the zebra enclosure, for example, you see humans going about their daily business, and because you see them through bars, it's kind of like looking at another animal species in the zoo.
I was practically the only person visiting the zoo that day. The sky was gray and overcast. Inevitably a mood of great detachment fell over me, and I began to see the dramas of my own human life in terms of animal behavior.
Mammals are hard-wired in certain ways; it has to do with their prolonged infancy and the fact that most of their survival strategies are not instinctual, mediated by brain chemistry alone, but rather learned behaviors where repetition synchronizes with neuronal transmitters.
Even within the same order, not all mammals are hard-wired for sociability. Take cats, for example: lions are sociable; they live in prides. Tigers, on the other hand, do not. (Of course taxonomic nomenclature is not based on behavior at all but rather on morphology and dentition.)
What's the essential difference between lions and tigers?
It has to do with what they eat. Which is determined by where they live.
In the parts of Africa where lions lived, enormous game herds – veritable schmorgasbords of prey – roamed the veldt, minimizing the need for competition. Lions did not have to vie with one another for sustenance. In fact, there was more sustenance if they cooperated.
Tigers, on the other hand, lived in more forested areas where there were no herds.
So, it may be there's an advantage to sociability when you're stalking the herd; a disadvantage when you're going after individual prey.
Connect the dots…
In other news, New York City has refused to name a street after Jerry Orbach, which is a slap in the face to Law & Order fans everywhere and we're not gonna take it sitting down!
So I went to the zoo.
The Albuquerque Zoo is kind of weirdly placed. No surrounding park, instead it's plopped smack in the middle of a nest of old brown bungalows, just a few blocks away from the tired downtown. So you get this rather odd effect: just beyond the bars of the zebra enclosure, for example, you see humans going about their daily business, and because you see them through bars, it's kind of like looking at another animal species in the zoo.
I was practically the only person visiting the zoo that day. The sky was gray and overcast. Inevitably a mood of great detachment fell over me, and I began to see the dramas of my own human life in terms of animal behavior.
Mammals are hard-wired in certain ways; it has to do with their prolonged infancy and the fact that most of their survival strategies are not instinctual, mediated by brain chemistry alone, but rather learned behaviors where repetition synchronizes with neuronal transmitters.
Even within the same order, not all mammals are hard-wired for sociability. Take cats, for example: lions are sociable; they live in prides. Tigers, on the other hand, do not. (Of course taxonomic nomenclature is not based on behavior at all but rather on morphology and dentition.)
What's the essential difference between lions and tigers?
It has to do with what they eat. Which is determined by where they live.
In the parts of Africa where lions lived, enormous game herds – veritable schmorgasbords of prey – roamed the veldt, minimizing the need for competition. Lions did not have to vie with one another for sustenance. In fact, there was more sustenance if they cooperated.
Tigers, on the other hand, lived in more forested areas where there were no herds.
So, it may be there's an advantage to sociability when you're stalking the herd; a disadvantage when you're going after individual prey.
Connect the dots…
In other news, New York City has refused to name a street after Jerry Orbach, which is a slap in the face to Law & Order fans everywhere and we're not gonna take it sitting down!
