Comments on: Darwin Days: Tuco-Tucos Six Ways (Ctenomys spp.)

By: Jennifer Rae Atkins

Jennifer Rae Atkins — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:11:00 +0000

Calimecita, thanks for stopping by! I’m relieved to hear my tuco-tuco drawing isn’t terribly inaccurate. I find the convergent evolution of various subterranean rodents very interesting, and then there are the moles that fit in the picture, too, and other critters.

By: Calimecita

Calimecita — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Very nice article! I’m part of a research group that studies the morphological adaptations and the evolution of tucotucos.
Our local species are C. talarum (which looks a lot like your depiction of it) and C. australis (superficially similar to C. flamarioni).
Evolution is essential to our understanding of how tucotucos are similar and yet diverse, and convergent with other subterranean rodents around the world.
Great comments by Neil too :-)

By: Neil

Neil — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:14:00 +0000

That's actually a very fortuitous convergence! Darwin was talking about the blind cave salamander known as the Olm. Ironically, olms are neotenous (they don't transform fully to an adult form) so they are actually less "protean" than other salamanders. Go figure!

By: Jennifer Rae Atkins

Jennifer Rae Atkins — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Oh. Well, now I have to ask, what’s Proteus in this context? I assumed it was the mythological figure who could change shape (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus).

By: Neil

Neil — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Aspalax is an old name for Spalax the Eurasian blind mole-rats, not to be confused with the African naked mole rats!

By: Jennifer Rae Atkins

Jennifer Rae Atkins — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:13:00 +0000

Hey, cool, Neil! Thanks! Proteus I know, but who/what is Aspalax? Do you know?

I had the same thoughts about the common names. Walker's lists no common names, but it is very conservative about using them, I think.

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:57:00 +0000

Yay tuco-tucos. I love the common names wikipedia has in the Tuco-tuco article: "Strong Tuco-tuco", "Silky
Tuco-tuco", "Furtive Tuco-tuco", "Tiny Tuco-tuco", "Robust Tuco-tuco" I wonder how many of them are really in wide use.

Darwin wrote, rather cryptically, about visual degeneration in Tuco-tucos in Chapter 3 of the Voyage of the Beagle published 20 years before The Origin:

"In the tucu-tuco, which I believe never comes to the surface of the ground, the eye is rather larger, but often rendered blind and useless, though without apparently causing any inconvenience to the animal; no doubt Lamarck would have said that the tucu-tuco is now passing into the state of the Aspalax and Proteus."

That's Darwin writing about evolution 20 years before publicly admitting that he believed in it!