The Elusive Monarch Butterfly and Issues of Proof

Yesterday, the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies returned to my purple milkweed. And there was much rejoicing!

Great Spangled Fritallary Butterflies on my Purple Milkweed

They were here last year at about this time, and now they were back.

I would have liked to get closer to get a better picture, but two factors were at play to keep me from doing so: the purple milkweed is surrounded by poison ivy plants, and butterflies -- even the Great Spangled Fritillary -- are flighty. They will seldom sit around posing for pictures if you insist on getting close. Not like bumblebees, who will let you come in for a tight shot and let you film them for hours.

In this rather long video starring a bumblebee, even a dragonfly makes a brief guest appearance. But no, that was not the guest I was longing to see.

Happy as I am to be reunited with the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies, and to see  the bumblebees and the honey bees and all the many other insects enjoying the milkweed, there was one guest that  I especially longed to have take refreshment on the milkweed. But every time I went to check what was going on there, I saw many other insects, and not that special one.

I was able to stick my head in between the fence boards to get really close to the bumblebee.

But still there was no Monarch butterfly, the guest for whom all this milkweed is supposed to serve as a special incubator. I went for  a walk after seeing the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies, and I actually managed to locate the lost Common Milkweed that I thought had been eradicated. It was pushed up right against the fence, and its buds were looking underdeveloped.

My Common Milkweed Yesterday

Because it was surrounded by poison ivy and honeysuckle, the plant had somehow sprung up right against the wooden fence to the pasture.

The Common Milkweed is pushed up against the fence and late to bloom

But this could not account for the failure of the Monarch butterfly to show up. All these conservationists have been telling us for years: "Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed, and the caterpillars only eat milkweed." (Source: http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/monarch-conservation.html) So whether the plant ever flowers or not should not be the issue for Monarch propagation, as long as the leaves and stems are there. Where had all the Monarch butterflies gone? Didn't they like my milkweed? I was disappointed.

And then, across the pasture, I spotted what looked remarkably like a Monarch butterfly. It flew in my direction, and I started filming it, but even though it was very close, it kept flying around, dancing circles around me at high speed, and when I looked at the video, all I could see was that I had been moving the camera erratically -- but no butterfly visible! It was as if the butterfly had been taunting me, offering evidence of its existence that only I could see! Watch the video above at normal speed, and you will probably come to the conclusion that I was imagining the whole thing!

If you stop the video at this spot, you can catch a glimpse of the Monarch butterfly

Just like the rabbits on my land, the Monarch butterfly was showing itself to me, while using highly evolved evasive maneuvers to ensure I could never catch it. To see how very fast it was going, we need to take account that in the above still from the video I had my camera pointed at an easterly angle. But a few seconds later, the Monarch appears in a shot aimed due south.

The Monarch by the ripened service berries

 Even though I was facing south now and it had just come in from the east,  already the Monarch had reversed its direction and was heading back the way it came.

A few seconds later, I caught a glimpse of it with my camera facing north, but the butterfly was already  headed east. This is what flying around in circles at high speed looks like! In between these relatively clear shots, the butterfly was moving faster than my camera could follow. If I had not thought to pause the video on my computer and take screenshots,  I would probably have ended up discarding this video, like many previous attempts to film fast moving butterflies.

So yes, there was a Monarch butterfly on my property all along, but it would not stop and pose for me on the purple milkweed, like my more cooperative guests, the Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies and the bumblebee. Sometimes the speed of a subject will prevent us from seeing what is going on right before our very eyes. We had the same problem with Bow before he started using our hands as a pointing device. Our intern Carrie Stengel discusses the problem in the video below.

I have been characterized by some people who read this blog as "an innocent" with a rich "inner life", implying that I imagine everything that goes on with Bow, and in particular his ability to spell words. But did you know that the first time Bow spelled out what he wanted, instead of pointing at lexigrams, it was not with me?

Eden and Bow
Source: http://www.pubwages.com/07/chimpanzee-developement-age-three-through-five

 It was with our new Project Bow intern, Eden Michaelov.

It was Eden who decided to put the letters up on the glass that day. And it was with Eden that Bow first spelled.

When I realized that Bow would not point on his own, and that this was going to be characterized as a Clever Hans effect by anyone who saw it, I could have given up. It would have been the smart thing to do, because there is no profit in what I am doing now. I could just pretend I did not see the pretty butterfly, and all would be well with the social world. I could maybe have gotten a job doing something else. That's what Herbert Terrace did the moment his funding ran out. But the kind of madness that I suffer from is that when I see a butterfly that no one else can see, I keep trying to think of ways to make them see it. The facts do not change, just because people cannot see.(And in fact, others have seen what I saw: everyone who worked with Bow since 2007 has seen him spell.)

It is not a crime against society to fail to fall into line with the current consensus. The greater crime is to recant under pressure, like Joan of Arc or Galileo. Rather than being an innocent who sees visions that are not there, I am a scientist who has an open mind to the existence of  uncooperative butterflies.

A Skype Meeting for Bow

Yesterday, I started to take action with regard to my long term plan to help Bow become acquainted with other chimpanzees. I contacted some other chimpanzee owners, and I spoke to them about introducing our chimps to each other via Skype. There are no immediate results from this, but at least they didn't say "No." Which is a lot better than what I get when I suggest this idea to primatologists with institutional employers or zoo people.

Perhaps I myself have been guilty of the same sort of prejudice against other chimp owners that some institutional primatologists have against me. After all, I am doing research with Bow into his linguistic abilities. I am not "playing Tarzan." In a way, up until now, even though I knew there were other chimpanzee owners, I tried to distance myself from them. I was more "legitimate" in my own eyes. But that is a bunch of nonsense, isn't it? There is no such thing as legitimacy. It's all a matter of attitude. I and the other chimpanzee owners are leading a lonely existence with strong forces fighting us and trying to drive us into giving up. If we don't help each other, who will help us?  

Of course, it would be dangerous to try to introduce adult and adolescent chimpanzees to each other in person.  They could unwittingly transmit diseases to each other, and any new chimpanzee in an institution has to be quarantined and tested and very slowly and carefully introduced to each of the others alone, before being introduced to the group. All this has to be done in order to avoid real physical danger. But I'm not suggesting that we do that. I'm suggesting that we let them talk to each other via Skype. Skype is free. It costs nothing to talk on Skype. And yet certain  zoos have told me they could not do this,  because they don't have a budget for it! I wonder, do they have a budget for email?

Anyway, a chimp is a chimp. I don't need the cooperation of zoo people or institutional primatologists to get access to another chimp online. Privately owned chimps may actually be more fluent in English than their zoo-jailed counterparts. So letting Bow try to talk vocally to private chimps seems like a better experiment.  I don't know why I've waited this long.

"Give me a wife," Bow said this morning at breakfast. "A pretty one."

"What if there isn't a pretty one?" I asked. "Would you settle for an ugly one?"

"Get the prettiest there is," he replied.

I smiled. They say that among chimpanzees, there are no old maids. No chimpanzee female goes to  her death a virgin. The old maids of our Western culture are a symptom of monogamy. No female is too ugly if you don't have to settle for her as your only mate! I read that in a primatology book, so it must be true!

The important thing to remember is: if one door is closed, another may open. I'm keeping an open mind about communicating with other chimpanzees on-line.

Chimp on Chimp Violence: How to Avoid Bloodshed

When they carted Sally Boysen's chimps away to the sanctuary without consulting her, two reasons were given. One: she had failed to secure funding to pay the overhead of keeping the chimpanzees. Two: having too many male chimps creates a danger of "chimp on chimp" violence. They made it sound as if they were taking the chimps away to protect them from themselves and each other. They made it sound as if their concern was "humanitarian." Never mind that it resulted in the death of the males. But is there any speck of truth in this pretext?

Well, as with all stereotypes, there is some truth behind the generalization. For instance, see what happens sometimes in zoos, here.

If chimpanzees were always better off with their own kind, this kind of thing would never happen. But the explanation that this sort of thing happens because they are, after all, "wild animals" also does not hold much water. Every time some third world dictator is killed by a usurper, is that because human beings are, after all, wild animals? Or is this the universal will to power?

I'm going to get Bow a bride, not a male rival, but even in this, we will have to exercise extreme caution, and I hope to adopt his bride when she is still  a very young infant, so that I can enculturate her, too. I also plan  for them to know each other well in advance of being able to mate. If I introduced Bow to an adult female who  is a complete stranger, it might very well result in violence.

At the outset, there will be no males to rival Bow within his family  group. But  Bow once told me he wants to have seven sons. If he has even one son, what are the odds that the younger male will one day make a power play that will leave the Oedipus story as a pale imitation of life in comparison?  To the extent that we instill different values in Bow and his bride, that is the extent to which it is possible to nullify the Oedipal prophecy. Just remember, the Oedipus story is the story of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Aren't all prophecies like that?

Why Segregate?

Is segregation ever good? Most people will agree that segregation by race is a bad idea. But how about by species?  What if somebody said to you: "Dogs belong with other dogs, not humans. It's inhumane to deprive a dog of the society of his own kind." Would you agree, disagree,  or partially agree and partially disagree?

We have two dogs in our household at the moment. I do think that Teyman, even though she was initially very hostile to Brownie, is much happier now that she has another dog to associate with in the back yard, when we humans and chimps are busy doing other things. But every time both dogs come into the house, they both want to cuddle with me and Sword. Sometimes they try to push one another aside, to get a better position with the humans.

What about segregation by age? Do the elderly prefer the companionship of other elderly people?Are they better off in an old folks' home rather than as part of a family with people of many different ages? The same issue presents itself with small children and adolescents. Are they better off when they are segregated by age and sent off to school with their same age peers? Is it better for them to model themselves after the behavior of other children or of adults?

Today I came across an essay by Paul Graham entitled "Why Nerds are Unpopular". There he argues that we segregate children by age in school because it makes it easier for a few adults to watch them, while all the other adults are busy doing something productive. Because of the specialization in our industrialized society, Graham argues, an adolescent who might have served as an apprentice in pre-industrial society is completely useless, and has to be watched in order to keep him from getting out of hand. Schools are merely prisons where children are kept, and because they are segregated by age, and the adults are mere wardens, they set up their own savage societies after the model of Lord of the Flies. This is why bullying is so prevalent among adolescents, and also why so many adolescents are seriously depressed and have thoughts about suicide. It's enforced idleness and segregation by age and not being allowed to make a meaningful contribution that accounts for teenaged behavior, not a surge of hormones.

So, what about chimpanzees? I once had a discussion  with an Israeli volunteer with the Jane Goodall  Foundation's Shoots and Roots who argued that Bow would better off in a society of chimpanzees. Yes, I should be allowed to visit him, but the other chimps should be the ones to make the rules under which he should live. I argued that as Bow's mother, I should be his primary caretaker, though he should  be allowed to play with other chimpanzees. Just as my daughter was socializing with other children her age, but still lived at home with  her family, I wanted the same thing for Bow.

"No," the Israeli Shoots & Roots volunteer insisted, "everyone is better off with their own kind. Even autistics should live with autistics in an institution, though they can visit with their family occasionally."

Do you think that autistics should live a segregated life? I don't. Do you think dogs should always be parts of wild dog packs? I don't. Do you think that adolescents are better off in a society of their own, without adult models for appropriate behavior? I don't.

Segregation is usually not a good thing. It is better to be part of a society where we interact with all kinds of people than to form a ghetto of people who superficially resemble us along one point of comparison. Even in the jungle, there are many animals living in an ecosystem. It's usually being too similar that makes us incompatible, not being too different. Two different groups of chimpanzees may fight over the same territory. But think of all the other animals that can occupy that territory, as long as they are not fighting over the same ecological niche. There may be only one alpha male to a group, but think of all the different ages, sexes and dispositions that are tolerated within the same group. Segregation by age, sex, or species is unnatural. It happens only in industrialized human societies. Everywhere else, coexistence of those not fighting over the same niche is the norm.