Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Kong Mirrors Real Evolutionary Paths

Posted by Zonk on from the big-tiny-animals dept.

CNN has an article pointing out that, though King Kong may be a little extreme, evolutionary gigantism is not out of the question on remote islands. From the article: "There are many examples of what biologists term 'gigantism' on islands. These include the Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards which can be 10 feet long or more and weigh up to 500 pounds. Found on a few small Indonesian islands, the Komodo -- a recorded man-eater -- is in many ways as chilling as anything from Jackson's fertile imagination."

12 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Hype time already? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "King Kong," which is reigning at the North American box office this holiday season...

    CNN should label these articles as advertisements. There's little science in the story, and certainly nothing new.

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  2. Jackson's imagination?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uhhh, I hate to nitpick, but which creatures did Jackson imagine in this remake?

    Not to say that the man isn't creative or imaginative, but he certainly didn't invent King Kong...or the brachiosaurus or the T-Rex or the Velociraptor or or or....

    1. Re:Jackson's imagination?? by thparker · · Score: 4, Informative
      Not to mention the enormous spiders and insects on the island.

      Which were not imagined by Jackson either. But his film does a great job of re-imagining them.

      There were two instances of lost footage from the original King Kong. One was the lost spider pit footage. As in Jackson's version, this scene would have occurred after the crewmen were tossed from the log. The surviving crewmen were attacked and killed by spider and crab like creatures.

      It's not certain how much of this scene was filmed, but some pre-production drawings were definitely done. If it was filmed, it's likely that Merian Cooper destroyed the footage since he felt it broke the momentum of the film.

      The other footage was the material that was censored in 1938. About 4 1/2 minutes were cut, some of which is replicated in Jackson's film. Kong drops a woman from a building after finding it's not Ann Darrow, pulls off some of Darrow's clothing, grinds a native into the ground with his foot and a little more of the same. This footage was later found in an uncensored print from the UK and restored.

      The new 2-disc DVD has the restored 1933 version and includes some pretty cool extras -- apparently, Jackson decided to do a little side project while making Kong. He shot some stop-motion footage to recreate the techniques used to animate Kong, as well as recreating the lost spider pit scene. The extras show this recreation in detail, including Jackson's trip to the hospital to x-ray his original dinosaur puppet from the 1933 film so they can recreate the armature for it. It's worth a look if you're a fan of the original film.

  3. Jackson's imagination? by LarsWestergren · · Score: 4, Informative

    If anyone should get the credits for inventing King Kong, shouldn't it be Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace? Not to mention previous works by Jules Verne and others...

    --

    Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

  4. Not 'evolved' just better fed. by baryon351 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One point in the article seems incorrect to me.

    The house mice -- believed to have made their way to Gough decades ago on sealing and whaling ships -- have evolved to about three times their normal size.

    I have raised a couple of generations of house mice from a captured pair at my parent's place, and while that original pair were the same size as any other house mouse, about an inch and a half from nose to the base of their tail, their offspring raised in my tank and fed well (ok, overfed :) were every bit as big as fancy mice, four inches or more long from nose to tail base. Going by volume they were well over three times the size of their parents, probably closer to 5. All it took was a regular diet of pet mouse grains, crickets and burger mince.

    They were certainly fatter, but also MUCH larger at a base level.

    1. Re:Not 'evolved' just better fed. by arose · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's all very nice, but did they taste better?

      --
      Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
  5. Side note on Kodomo dragons by JanneM · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Corante had a intersting piece on the origins of reptile venoms last fall:

    http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/11/21/wh ich_came_first_the_snake_or_the_venom.php/

    My choice quote - at the very end, and the only tenuous link to the present subject:

    And if you do happen to get bit by a Komodo dragon, you'll be able to be distracted from the effects of its venom by the fact that your arm is missing.
    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  6. I propose a new term! by Anakron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Content free article (or has that already been proposed?)
    Being the cool dudes we are, let's shorten that to CFA. There's nothing even mildly interesting in the linked article. It reads like an advertisement for King Kong.

    --
    There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
  7. Fluff piece by ljhiller · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This reads like a story invented in a Reuters reporter's head, with out-of-context quotes from scientists to support his clever idea. Anybody that followed the homo floresiensis story knows that large mammals tend to become dwarves on islands.

  8. Gigantism by Solokron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Coconut crabs (Birgus Latro) are pretty huge. They co-exist only with birds that are non-threatening on small tropical islands. It is probably the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world. http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/invertebrates_te rrestrial_and_freshwater/Birgus_latro/

    --
    30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
  9. Re:King Kong is about human behaviours, not evolut by Stalyn · · Score: 5, Funny

    you totally missed the point of king kong

    --
    The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
  10. Foster's Rule by Cyberllama · · Score: 4, Informative

    If anyone's interested, the principal described in the article is a special case of something called Foster's rule -- which you can google if interested.

    In my opinion, more interesting than the giant species are pgymy species also created by the same effect. Pygmy Mammoths likely survived far longer than their gigantic counterparts before going extinct, as there is evidence of them being alive as recently as 5000 years ago on a few select islands. In fact, if I recall correctly, there is an egyptian painting which many suggest appears to be the pharoah or some lesser ruler recieving one as a gift. My details on this are a bit sketchy, so those genuinely interested should take their queries to google . . .

    Some of you may also remember the somewhat controversial discovery of a species of pygmy hominid described as "hobbit-like" that was discussed on Slashdot about a year back -- those fossils were also from a rather isolated island . . .