Q: "Why don't you get a life?  All of your rantings, while amusing on a
moronic level winds up boring and a waste of time to scan for anything
important as well as a waste of web space!"
 
A: But then who would bug you?
 
Actually, I have a quite invigorating life.  I have 4 children, two
biological and 2 adopted.  The adopted children were physically, mentally
and sexually abused for most of the ten years before I was blessed enough to
get them.  All four are my life, and everything else in the world takes a
back-seat to them.  In my spare time, I volunteer a evening a week with
youth counciling, work with the Boy Scouts, and even am a mentor for three
12-year-old boys in my community (to teach them how to read).  Add to this
my efforts in school attempting to get a PhD, the two books I am writing,
and the extra work I have taken on for some evolutionary studies of
mustelids, and its quite a plate full.  Oh, I do a few things with ferrets
as well.  You see, I have actually have a life, but its too busy to write
FML people and rudely tell them I don't like their posts, even if true.
 
Q: "How do you find the time to write so much stuff?  I can't even write a
letter to my brother....it is a hobby of my husband and myself to try and
find mistakes in your posts, but there just aren't many of them and you seem
to catch them yourself...How do you do it?"
 
A: I'm one of six clones. I'm the good looking but dumb one.
 
Actually, writing is like rock climbing.  It looks tough, but all you need
is a little balance, good leg strength and a stout rope.  The rope is to
hang yourself with.  Ok, the truth.  I carry a laptop computer and in those
minutes when I have nothing to do, I write.  I save people's questions in a
file, and when I get several of the same, I answer them.  The answers go
into another file, and when I get time, I post them.  I currently have
backlogged about 40 questions and answers, mostly because I got so far
behind things when I was having vision problems.
 
As for the mistakes, I make plenty of them, usually of the type that proves
my mind is beginning to slip.  But I have a huge data base at home, and
generally dig into it to confirm things before I post.  At the moment, I am
scanning important papers into a word format so each one can be searched for
content, but it takes awhile because even good OCR software makes a lot of
mistakes that need to be corrected.  I subscribe to 18 professional
journals, and a few of them are just starting to have electronic issues,
which helps considerably.  But in writing, I just remember what I once read,
write the post, confirm the info with my sources, correct it if needed, and
post it whenever I can.  No big deal, and anyone can do it once they learn
writing is nothing more than talking on paper (or the computer).
 
Q: "I've read you tell people ferrets where not domesticated in Egypt...do
you have ANY scientific sources to back up your opinions?"
 
A: Actually, my opinions back up science.  (Quick duck and run for cover)
 
Yes I do.  Check out: Kazimierz Kowalski and Barbara Rzebik-Kowalska 1991
"Mammals of Algeria" Polish Academy of Sciences; Warsaw.
 
Chapter 6: "Species erroneously recorded from Algeria." (pp. 300-305)
 
To save space, the portion regarding polecats states they were erroneously
reported by Loche in 1867 (who *never* actually saw one), and Loche's report
was repeated by Lataste in 1885, who could never find one.  The authors
state the *ONLY* member of the genus _Mustela_ that can be found throughout
north Africa is _Mustela nivalis_, a weasel which occurs near the coast (pp.
139-141).
 
pp. 302-303: "The ferret (_Mustela_putorius_furo_ Linnaeus, 1758) is a
domestic form of the polecat, bred since antiquity.  The Roman scholar
Strabo writes that ferrets originate from North Africa; this may, however,
be only a reference to the domestic stock bred in this part of the Roman
empire.  Loche (1867) mentioned that it was bred in Algeria as it was in
Europe, but was not found wild.  His specimen of polecat might have thus
been feral ferret."
 
Having read Strabo's reference, I agree he might have be talking about a
fitch farm rather than the original source of domestication.  In studies of
domestication, one of the first rules is "domestication takes place where
the wild species live." Polecats don't live in North Africa (including
Egypt) and there is no evidence they ever did.  No Egyptian mummies, no
paintings, no mention in the texts, no archaeological or palaenotological
specimens.  The ferret might have been brought to those places, as I have no
doubt they were, but saying ferrets were domesticated in Egypt because
Strabo says ferrets were in Libya is like saying cows were domesticated in
North America because Dodge found feral cattle in the 1840s.  Without
exception, in antiquity, an animal is domesticated within the boundaries of
its wild form's geographic distribution.
 
Where were ferrets domesticated?  My guess is at that place where both
polecats and rabbits abounded, probably in the southernly parts of East
Europe.  I think they found their way to the Mediteranean, were put on
Phoecian, Greek and Roman ships to control mice and rats, and spread from
there.  I hope to go to some museums in eastern Europe sometime in the next
two years, and search their archaeological specimens for ferrets.  In the
meantime, I am trying to find ways to tell the difference between wild
polecats, feral ferrets and domestic ferrets.  Its hard.
 
Bob C and 20 MO Mustelid Monkeys
[Posted in FML issue 2168]