The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin - Review
The attempt of Charles Darwin to explain the origin of species across plant, animal and other sections unknown to mankind, must be futile to say the least. A planet that’s existed for millions of years, the traces of evolution at best explained by the partial residue named fossils and many other aspects yet to be discovered by mankind, the attempt is never going to be a success by a single man’s effort. However, someone had to give us a head start and that’s exactly what the author presents. Let me present a few more interesting cases before I mark a conclusion.
Once a couple of years, Candor bird lays a single egg while the ostrich drops anywhere between 40 to 100 eggs in a year. Now, despite the enormity of numbers in favour of Ostrich, can the Candor breed outnumber the Ostrich breed in a given geographic boundary. Nature surprises us with a difference in character that makes the 15kg Candor breed score well over the 150 kg Ostrich breed. The question is how ?
Just 10% of the laid Ostrich eggs survive the 9 week incubation period and further down only 15% of the chicks live beyond a year. On the other hand, Candor birds are monogamous by nature, takes turns to guard their eggs during the incubation period and ensure that their offspring are trained for the wild life before letting them free. Goes to show how much of a difference co-parenting does to the survival of its species.
Now, coming down to the intricate relationship between a flowering plant and insect makes an interesting case, let’s put the spotlight on Viola tricolour flower, heartsease plant and the humble bee. A visit by the fly mate enables cross pollination to occur thereby producing over 2500 seeds while its nectar proves a wonderful reward for the said service. Both the species are completely different in terms of their functional build up but a strong collaboration enables them to thrive, nature shows us the inherent value of symbiotic relationship.
Mortiz Wagner, a naturalist from the 19th century stated that migration and isolation are necessary elements for the formation of new species, having spent three years in Algeria, he had observed the presence of Pimelia, a flightless beetle. But Charles Darwin disagreed that Allopatric speciation to be the fundamental factor driving emergence of new species different from their ancestral population, sympatric speciation also being a possibility. Such is the diversity of species making it hard to pinpoint a singular or group of attributable reasons for causation.
Can we conclude that modified descendants and creation of profitable variations down the line, as the prime factor towards evolution of species ? As we keep discovering throughout the book, nature keeps surprising us in the range of diversity and possibility. Lepidosiren fish live in the slow-moving waters of the Amazon, Paraguay, and Paraná River basins in South America. It’s among the few species of living fossils on the planet, meaning there has been no change observed from the parent species that emerged thousands or maybe millions of years ago.
Can human intervention lead to the formation of sub breeds ? The question leads us to the principle of divergence, centuries ago hordes of horses were picked for war, thereby training them to be swift in their movements. While another section of horses moved into a completely different geography that required them to pull heavily loaded carts which made them strong. As generations of horses breed in geographical isolation, the first group of horses would weigh around 350 kgs and the second group over 1000 kgs bringing in a marked shift not just in weight but in their character as well.
It’s taken me a couple of months to finish the book and the reasons are obvious. The Origin of Species is one of the heaviest books in terms of content that I have read till date, recommended only for the passionate bibliophiles.
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