Yesterday marked the 203rd Birthday of Charles Darwin, and it was 152 years, 2 months, 19 days ago on 24 November 1859 that Darwin first published his ground breaking work titled: On the Origin of Species which gave us the theory of evolution by natural selection. The book was written with a laymen audience in mind so that the general public could understand the significance of Darwin’s findings, and to this day Darwin’s theory still stands as scientific fact.
To celebrate the Birthday of Charles Darwin Perth Atheists held a picnic in Perth Zoo.
Charles Darwin was also a member of the Glutton Club which would meet once a week for the purpose of eating animals not normally found on menus. During the voyage of the Beagle, he ate many of the animals that he discovered. Including the Lesser Rhea which he ate by mistake thinking it was the more common (and already documented) Greater Rhea. Realising that he had just eaten one of the specimeins he was currently searching for Darwin gathered up what was left of the Lesser Rhea and sent it back to London to be studied and now Rhea Darwinii is named after him..
Great for SoupUnfortunately we were not allowed to eat any of the animals at Perth Zoo, not even the Meerkats which look like they would go well with soup. So instead of eating the Zoo’s animal collection we held talks on the topic of Biology and Evolution. Our speakers were Rachael Richards, high school biology teacher who has seen creationism taught in high schools in WA. Mike Bamford, zoologist / ecologist / ornithologist / herpetologist and David Frank; head of Perth Atheists as MC for the event.
After the main event David and Mike had a brief discussion about the possibility of eating a Galápagos Tortoise and other animals not commonly found on Australian menus.
So Happy Darwin Day 2012, go and eat an endangered species to celebrate.