On comets and canids

I thoroughly enjoyed the excerpt from Dale F. Lott's book on the American bison ["Plains Song," October 2002]. But it is clear that the author did not send his manuscript to your resident astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Had Mr. Lott done so, Tyson would surely have caught the error in the statement "A running cow attracts bulls, and a string of them are soon following her, just as a tail follows its comet."

Comet tails are pushed away from the head of a comet by the solar wind. As a comet moves about the Sun on the inbound segment of its orbit, the tail does indeed appear to follow the comet. But on the outbound segment the tail actually precedes the comet.

Darrel Hoff
Calmar, Iowa

In writing about the bison's "neighborhood," Dale Lott compares the hierarchy of the wolf pack to human despotism. As a wild-canid research behaviorist, I find that comparison laughable. When have human despots provided for, defended, or nurtured the young of their species?

Most packs I have studied are made up of the parent wolves and their yearlings or two-year-old offspring, as well as subordinate wolves. Unattached strangers seeking the security of pack life may be driven off and in some cases killed, but sometimes the pack assimilates them, albeit in a minor role. Yes, the alpha pair--male and female--eat the prey first: they are the ones that do the arduous and dangerous work of initiating the hunt and tackling the prey. And they are the first of the pack to provide protection and chase off any intruding mammals (such as bears) that would usurp the kill.

Skirmishes among wolves are rarely fatal, because the animals have evolved a complex set of facial expressions and body postures that make many domestic dogs look like dullards. By contrast, many breeds of the latter--whose appearance and behavioral characteristics have been genetically modified for hundreds of years to suit the whims and urges of humans--often continue to fight to the death, even when the losing dog surrenders.

Marvin J. Sheffield, D.V.M.
Pacific Grove, California

DALE F. LOTT REPLIES: Mr. Sheffield, pointing out that wolves nurture and protect their offspring, asks a question that is apparently intended to be rhetorical: "When have human despots provided for, defended, or nurtured the young of their species?"

My answer is that human despots almost always provide for, defend, and nurture their own offspring and close relatives, just as wolves do. Like most social systems, despotism is at bottom a reproductive strategy. At the same time, human despots, again like wolves, do not foster anything resembling social or political equality.

In spite of those similarities, as I note in the book from which the excerpt is drawn, judging wolves or any other animal by human standards of conduct is as wrongheaded as judging ourselves by their standards. They live as they must and can.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
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