Audiobook - Non Fiction Sample, Zoology
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
There is a label on a cage at a certain zoo that states simply, this animal is new to science. Inside the cage there sits a small squirrel. It has black feet and it comes from africa no black footed squirrel has ever been found in that continent before. Nothing is known about it. It has no name for the zoologist. It presents an immediate challenge. What is it about its way of life that has made it unique? How does it differ from the 366 other living species of squirrels already known and described somehow? At some point in the evolution of the squirrel family, the ancestors of this animal must have split off from the rest and established themselves as an independent breeding population. What was it in the environment that made possible their isolation as a new form of life? The new trend must have started out in a small way, with a group of squirrels in one area becoming slightly changed and better adapted to the particular conditions there, but at this stage they would still be able to interbreed with their relatives nearby. The new form would be at a slight advantage in its special region, but it would be no more than a race of the basic species and could be stamped out re absorbed into the mainstream. At any point if, as time passed, the new squirrels became more and more perfectly tuned in to their particular environment. The moment would eventually arrive when it would be advantageous for them to become isolated from possible contamination by their neighbors. At this stage, their social and sexual behavior would undergo special modifications, making interbreeding with other kinds of squirrels unlikely and eventually impossible. At first, their anatomy may have changed and become better at coping with the special food of the district, but later their mating calls and displays would also differ, ensuring that they attract only mates of the new type. At last, a new species would have evolved separate and discrete, a unique form of life. A 367th kind of squirrel. When we look at our unidentified squirrel in its zoo cage, we can only guess about these things. All we can be certain about is that the markings of its for its blackfeet indicate that it is a new form.