Het flinke koffietafelformaat boek is er eentje om van echt papier te hebben, dus bij uitzondering lees ik het niet digitaal. Lezen en ook kijken, want wat een fraaie tekeningen staan er in van vee, duiven, parkieten, katten en wat mensen al niet meer fokken. Voor dit log heb ik foto´s gemaakt van spanieltekeningen.
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| By financing special prizes for toy spaniels of the "old type" at Crufts, Roswell Eldridge was instrumental in the creation of a new breed, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Both the King Charles (left) and Cavalier King Charles (right) now excist side by side - two twigs springing from the samen evlutionary branch. |
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| A comparison between the skulls of the "old type" of toy spaniel (above) with the Cavalier King Charles spaniel (below) shows how successfully breeders re-created the all-important head structure of the original. Genetic diseases associated with the breed are more likely due to the reduced gene pool after World War II than to physical changes in the skull shape. |
Katrina van Grouw schrijft over haar boek in het voorwoord:
"This is a book about selective breeding.
Although that's something that happens to captive animals, including domesticated ones, it's not the same as domestication. Domestication is what happens first - the transition of wild animals to self-sustaining populations of tame ones. This book is what happens after that: the continuous metamorphosis of those tame populations into more beautiful, more useful, more productive, more efficient, or simple different versions of their former selves. Most of all, this book is about selective breeding on a much, much bigger scale that includes transformations in all wild animals (and plants too). We'd call it evolution."
