We have been taught in high school that the reason humans and "all mammals" had external testes was to cool them. But elephants have internal testicles, and, apparently, so do hippos. This seems a much better strategy than having such an important (and sensitive!) organ hanging out at the mercy of predators, foes, or even banal accidents. The evolution explanation for this appears to be lacking.
Evolution is a process of massively parallel multistart hill-climbing where the objective function is "did this creature successfully breed". It doesn't settle on a global optimum, just finds many many local optima that enable creatures to succeed in passing on their DNA.
Why in human males is the prostate such a troublesome thing? Because by the time the prostate becomes a problem, males have generally done any breeding they're going to do, so there is no advantage to natural selection to improving it further. Is it optimal? Definitely not.
Presumably it is (taking the wide view) probably a good thing that evolution doesn't find global optima or there would be far less ecological diversity.
Short and sweet. An absolute masterpiece of scientific writing!
A family friend used to run a travel business with tours to the Okavango Delta. When I asked him how it was going, he replied "Great, we've only ever lost one honeymoon couple to hippos"! People don't realise they are one of the most dangerous animals to humans.
> hippos' stunning wound-healing abilities—perhaps related to the antibacterial properties of the creepy "red sweat" that coats their skin
sounds interesting and definitely something worth looking into as well
Animal cruelty is immoral.
So is sanctimony, good job nobody around here is being cruel or sanctimonious.
> The vets successfully castrated 10 out of 10 hippos with their method, losing only one of the animals to postsurgery complications
Yeah those are not good numbers.
Vets castrating an animal under anesthesia pales in comparison to male calves castration by using tight rubber band (AMZN sells them too) to cut the blood supply to scrotum and thus causing necrosis and ultimately scrotum and testicles falling off. Without any anesthesia. A widespread, most popular, practice in US. The animal suffers tremendous pain for several weeks. The true cost of beef.
> The true cost of beef.
There's also the animal's death.
I mean, sensationalistic or "Why didn't you post on / This isn't reddit" or not, this is one of the more amazing opening sentences ever...
> Few things in this world are as elusive as a hippopotamus testicle
I was fond of “all the surviving animals were able to return to their feces-infested communal pools within hours of the surgery with no negative consequences”
1 out of 10 died though.
(2014)
I don't think much has changed in the state of the art of hippo castration in the last twelve years.
Oh yeah, never mind. Not worth talking about. Didn't happen today.
They're not saying it's not worth talking about. They're saying it should have a date tag, as is customary for old articles on Hacker News.
Please don't post snarky comments here.
That user is one of the most engaged, helpful users on HN and it's a long-standing convention that the year is appended to titles of articles that are not current.
[flagged]
[flagged]
???
[dead]
How long before this is included in an AI benchmark? Can't wait :-)
We have been taught in high school that the reason humans and "all mammals" had external testes was to cool them. But elephants have internal testicles, and, apparently, so do hippos. This seems a much better strategy than having such an important (and sensitive!) organ hanging out at the mercy of predators, foes, or even banal accidents. The evolution explanation for this appears to be lacking.
Evolution is a process of massively parallel multistart hill-climbing where the objective function is "did this creature successfully breed". It doesn't settle on a global optimum, just finds many many local optima that enable creatures to succeed in passing on their DNA.
Why in human males is the prostate such a troublesome thing? Because by the time the prostate becomes a problem, males have generally done any breeding they're going to do, so there is no advantage to natural selection to improving it further. Is it optimal? Definitely not.
Presumably it is (taking the wide view) probably a good thing that evolution doesn't find global optima or there would be far less ecological diversity.
Short and sweet. An absolute masterpiece of scientific writing!
A family friend used to run a travel business with tours to the Okavango Delta. When I asked him how it was going, he replied "Great, we've only ever lost one honeymoon couple to hippos"! People don't realise they are one of the most dangerous animals to humans.
"Jaws" hippo edition:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aKEgTUkpk64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJQpq8mLbm0
> hippos' stunning wound-healing abilities—perhaps related to the antibacterial properties of the creepy "red sweat" that coats their skin
sounds interesting and definitely something worth looking into as well
Animal cruelty is immoral.
So is sanctimony, good job nobody around here is being cruel or sanctimonious.
> The vets successfully castrated 10 out of 10 hippos with their method, losing only one of the animals to postsurgery complications
Yeah those are not good numbers.
Vets castrating an animal under anesthesia pales in comparison to male calves castration by using tight rubber band (AMZN sells them too) to cut the blood supply to scrotum and thus causing necrosis and ultimately scrotum and testicles falling off. Without any anesthesia. A widespread, most popular, practice in US. The animal suffers tremendous pain for several weeks. The true cost of beef.
> The true cost of beef.
There's also the animal's death.
I mean, sensationalistic or "Why didn't you post on / This isn't reddit" or not, this is one of the more amazing opening sentences ever...
> Few things in this world are as elusive as a hippopotamus testicle
I was fond of “all the surviving animals were able to return to their feces-infested communal pools within hours of the surgery with no negative consequences”
1 out of 10 died though.
(2014)
I don't think much has changed in the state of the art of hippo castration in the last twelve years.
Oh yeah, never mind. Not worth talking about. Didn't happen today.
They're not saying it's not worth talking about. They're saying it should have a date tag, as is customary for old articles on Hacker News.
Please don't post snarky comments here.
That user is one of the most engaged, helpful users on HN and it's a long-standing convention that the year is appended to titles of articles that are not current.
[flagged]
[flagged]
???
[dead]
How long before this is included in an AI benchmark? Can't wait :-)