Kong Mirrors Real Evolutionary Paths

CNN has an article pointing out that, though King Kong may be a little extreme, evolutionary gigantism is not out of the question on remote islands. From the article: "There are many examples of what biologists term 'gigantism' on islands. These include the Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards which can be 10 feet long or more and weigh up to 500 pounds. Found on a few small Indonesian islands, the Komodo -- a recorded man-eater -- is in many ways as chilling as anything from Jackson's fertile imagination."

Not 'evolved' just better fed.

[baryon351]

One point in the article seems incorrect to me.

The house mice -- believed to have made their way to Gough decades ago on sealing and whaling ships -- have evolved to about three times their normal size.

I have raised a couple of generations of house mice from a captured pair at my parent's place, and while that original pair were the same size as any other house mouse, about an inch and a half from nose to the base of their tail, their offspring raised in my tank and fed well (ok, overfed :) were every bit as big as fancy mice, four inches or more long from nose to tail base. Going by volume they were well over three times the size of their parents, probably closer to 5. All it took was a regular diet of pet mouse grains, crickets and burger mince.

They were certainly fatter, but also MUCH larger at a base level.

Side note on Kodomo dragons

[JanneM]

Corante had a intersting piece on the origins of reptile venoms last fall:

http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/11/21/wh ich_came_first_the_snake_or_the_venom.php/ [corante.com]

My choice quote - at the very end, and the only tenuous link to the present subject:

And if you do happen to get bit by a Komodo dragon, you'll be able to be distracted from the effects of its venom by the fact that your arm is missing.

I propose a new term!

[Anakron]

Content free article (or has that already been proposed?)
Being the cool dudes we are, let's shorten that to CFA. There's nothing even mildly interesting in the linked article. It reads like an advertisement for King Kong.

Anyone actually see the movie?

[inflex]

Over here (Australia) it seems very much to have flopped. I myself haven't even the slightest inclination of going to see it - did they stuff up the marketing here or is it just a dead movie?

King Kong is about human behaviours, not evolution

[CarpetShark]

Agreed. Although, having said that, I was suprised by the new King Kong film. It really does try to do something new with an old film, rather than just watering it down and selling it as a basic adventure or feel-good movie.

King Kong isn't really about big creatures or evolution, though. It's about how humans are sacrificing nature on the altar of concrete monuments to our own "achievements".

Gigantism in People

[mr.henry]

This guy [stevequayle.com] has been on Coast to Coast AM a couple times to speak about gigantism in people. He has a pretty extensive website [stevequayle.com]. From the intro:

Stretch your mind back to childhood. What giants do you remember? Jack and the Beanstalk? Hercules? Paul Bunyan? Goliath? What were you told and what did you read? With the exception of Goliath and an occasional ornery cyclops, legends emphasized their innate goodness, eye-popping feats accomplished with unparalleled strength, victories over the bad guys and all performed by "gentle giants". What if it were all a lie? What if the truth were something much MUCH more sinister?

Yup...

[manavendra]

...the new human species, Homo floriensis, observes quite the opposite of the evolutionary path - standing at under 1meter tall

What's more, it is thought they spent most of their time in trees :

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/10 27_041027_homo_floresiensis.html [nationalgeographic.com]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3948165.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Gigantism

[Solokron]

Coconut crabs (Birgus Latro) are pretty huge. They co-exist only with birds that are non-threatening on small tropical islands. It is probably the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world. http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/invertebrates_te rrestrial_and_freshwater/Birgus_latro/ [arkive.org]

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Re:Gigantism in People

[Decaff]

This guy has been on Coast to Coast AM a couple times to speak about gigantism in people. He has a pretty extensive website. From the intro:

When a website contains a phrase like this:

"I have invested over 30 years researching the vast history of giants. It has, for the most part, been kept from the public. Proof of giants' existence - their skeletal remains - has been quickly secreted away in obscure museums, when not destroyed."

You know it is not worth reading. Yet more pseudoscience combined with conspiracy theories...... how boring.

Re:Hype time already?

[Tanktalus]

Most readers probably only got as far as "You shouldn't blame CNN" before sighing with relief (that CNN isn't a bad guy) and moving on to the next post. You need to get your point across in succinct sound bites.

"CNN good. Society Bad."

Guns, Germs & Steel

[eldavojohn]

I recently reread Guns, Germs & Steel [barnesandnoble.com] by Jared Diamond. In it, he describes the extinction of many large species that grew up on remote islands.

We're all familiar with the dodo bird which was a fairly large species but there were also appearant extinctions of other large animals in the Polynesian Islands.

The reason for their extinction is that they grew up without modern man on their islands. Now, animals that live in Africa like the giraffe, wildebeest, hippo, etc were exposed to the evolution of man. Our initial stone weapons didn't kill all the targets but gave them time to adjust genetically and grow wary and eventually instinctively fear humans.

Those that didn't were killed.

Once the remote island mega fauna became exposed to humans and their advanced iron or steel weapons, they did not have the time to adjust to fear us. And our weapons rarely didn't kill them ... in most cases, not even leaving a generation to try to adapt to our presence. For this reason, they were quickly killed without fearing us.

A supposed Kong would invariably never fear humans unless their were a race of Kongs and we adapted our 1920's technology to be able to kill them more efficiently.

If you haven't read that book, do so.