My name is Dakota (Cody) McCoy, and I am a rising senior at
Yale studying animal cognition and the evolution of intelligence. I am so
excited to be joining the elite ranks of the Marmoteers this summer at RMBL! With
the guidance of Matt “The Mentor” Petelle and Dan “Marmot-Whisperer” Blumstein,
I am studying whether a phenotypic correlation exists between the personality traits
of aggression and boldness, which would define a behavioral syndrome. Eventually,
I would like to determine whether these individual personality traits affect an
individual’s cognitive style.
So far, the highlight of my time marmoteering has been
discovering a highly unexpected connection between marmotology and another interest
of mine: Egyptian Hieroglyphics. I am near fluent in Middle Kingdom
Hieroglyphics, a skill for which I had never found a practical application… until
now!
Several days after I arrived, Adriana “Ever-Cheerful”
Maldonado Chaparro said to me, “Cody, we should soon be seeing marmot pups! To
be able to tell who we are looking at in the field, we need to think of new
symbols to paint on their backs.”
Symbols? But wherever would I find an extensive set of
pictoral symbols? A choir of angels sang in my head; I felt almost dizzy with
anticipation. I glanced over at Vanessa “Indefatigable” Alejandro, my good
friend and a fellow undergraduate marmoteer, and tried (unsuccessfully) to
suppress a broad, gleeful smile. Then I blurted out, “I HAVE AN IDEA,” whipped
out a blue ballpoint pen with exaggerated flourish, and drew a list of 40
hieroglyphics.
Adriana had to explain to me that eagles and seated pharaohs
were, regrettably, slightly too detailed to paint on 4 square inches of fluffy,
squirmy, adorable marmot pup. However, we have been able to use several of the
simpler hieroglyphics so far, including the symbol I painted on the first pup I
caught.
I sat in a field of wildflowers, a pup in one hand and a
toothbrush dripping with dark dye in the other, trying to choose an appropriate
symbol. The face of Gothic Mountain loomed overhead, a benevolent giant whose
snow-spots turned to glistening rainbow in the sun. Mule deer picked their way
delicately through the spruce trees, and a hummingbird zoomed up to inspect my
bright purple hat, hovering for an eternity of seconds before disappearing with
a flash of iridescence.
Suddenly, I knew exactly which symbol to choose.
A few decisive strokes of the toothbrush, and then I carried
the newly named marmot back to her burrow and to her mother’s watchful care.
Shouldering my backpack, I strolled down the slope, listening to the buoyant
calls of white-crowned sparrows; the East River sparkled in the distance,
merging at the horizon with the cerulean sky.
What did I name the
marmot? “Nefer,” the hieroglyphic symbol for “beauty.”
