Clear case of puppy love?
QUESTION My dog likes to tussle with me. Does play between different species occur in the wild?
THERE are many records of animals forging bonds across species. It is especially common with domesticated animals. There are examples of dogs having playful relationships with cats, foxes, ducks, ferrets, calves, fawns, piglets, goats, lions and even owls. Dogs are playful by nature and are socialised from a young age.
Instances of cross-species bonds between wild animals have been recorded. It is usually a mother/ orphaned child relationship that involves elements of play. Most occurrences are attributed to maternal instinct and young animals’ readiness to bond with others. Young animals release juvenile pheromones – a baby smell that can bring out the maternal instinct in other species.
Game wardens at Samburu National Park in Kenya reported a lioness who adopted six baby oryx – usually its prey – in the span of a year. German marine biologists recorded a dolphin with a spinal deformity that was adopted by a pod of sperm whales.
Film-makers following a young female leopard named Legadema in Botswana documented an extraordinary encounter with a day-old baboon, which is its common prey. Legadema started caring for the infant after killing its mother.
Other intriguing relationships include Suzie, a bulldog, who adopted three orphaned squirrels; a duck who bonded with a chicken and helped raise her chicks; and a mother cat that nursed a Rottweiler with the rest of her kittens after the puppy was rejected by its mother.
Three large shore birds, a longbilled curlew, whimbrel and marbled godwit, kept each other company every winter in Vancouver for many years. A horse and wild turkey displayed friendly, even playful, behaviour in which the horse would bow his head and allow the turkey to climb on his back.
One celebrated relationship was that of Owen and Mzee. Owen was a hippopotamus orphaned in the 2004 Kenyan tsunami.
He was brought to the Haller Park rescue centre where he forged a close bond with Mzee, an Aldabra giant tortoise, who was over 100 years old. Mzee is Swahili for ‘old man’.
Brian Charles, Nottingham.
QUESTION Where did Dublin’s Ilac centre get its name, and what was there before it was built?
THE Ilac centre, just off Henry Street in central Dublin, opened in 1981 and took its name from the initials of the firm that financed and progressed the project, the Irish Life Assurance Company.
Before the centre was built, the area consisted of a maze of small streets and lanes, a dozen in all. The largest thoroughfare was Coles Lane, and there were many tenement houses. There were also four outdoor markets in the area.
The largest of them was the Anglesea Market, long noted for its second-hand clothes, shoes and furniture. The other three, smaller, markets were the Norfolk Market, the Rotunda Market and Taaffe’s Market. The old Dublin Corporation removed all these markets in 1972, as it wanted to see the site redeveloped.
One of the streets swept away in the preparations for building the Ilac centre was Little Denmark Street. There, in 1926, 2RN, the radio station that was the forerunner of RTÉ, began broadcasting from Ireland’s first radio studio.
For many years, the Ilac remained in 100% ownership of Irish Life, but in 2016, Hammersons, a big UK property development firm, acquired a 50% holding in the Ilac centre, with the remaining 50% still held by Irish Life. That same year, Hammersons took control of the Dundrum Town Centre.
Over the years, various refurbishments have been undertaken at the Ilac centre. During the past few years, around €60million has been invested in keeping the centre refreshed. It has around 27,000 square metres of retailing space, around 85 retail outlets and welcomes 20million shoppers a year.
The centre also has the Dublin Central Library, the keystone of the Dublin city library service, which includes a music library and a business library. The Ilac centre even has a small chapel. The library in the Ilac centre is due to be replaced by a new Dublin City Library in Parnell Square, hopefully by 2023. When the Ilac centre opened, it was the first new-style shopping centre in the heart of Dublin. The Stephen’s Green shopping centre opened in 1988, while the Jervis Street shopping centre didn’t open until 1996.
One of the entrances to the Ilac centre is on Moore Street, the western side of which was developed in 1728, while the eastern side was developed later, in 1763. Moore Street is named after the Moore family, planters who had arrived in Ireland in the middle of the 16th century. The street has long been famed for its market stalls. But plans are in train to build the Dublin Central development, which will link Moore Street, Parnell Street and Upper O’Connell Street and will include the old Carlton cinema site. It’s to be developed before 2022 and when it’s completed, will pose strong competition for the Ilac centre, right on its doorstep.
Ed Kenny, Dún Laoghaire.
QUESTION Which art fake has sold for the most money?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, Han (Henri) van Megeeren’s Vermeer forgeries may soon be overshadowed by Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.
In 2017, the work, one of only 20 complete pictures attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was sold for a staggering $450,312,500 (€395,122,200) at Christie’s New York. The buyer was Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, acting on behalf of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi. The picture was supposed to be unveiled this September, but the event has been delayed indefinitely. This has led to allegations that it is a forgery.
Its origins had already been questioned. German art historian Frank Zollner wrote that it ‘exhibits a strongly developed sfumato technique that corresponds more closely to the manner of a Leonardo pupil active in the 1520s than to the style of the master himself’. University of Oxford art historian Matthew Landrus claimed only 20 to 30% was completed by Leonardo.
Those who believe it is fake point to the glass orb held by Christ and the fact it does not distort the light correctly. They argue that Da Vinci was fastidious about such things. Karen Burgess, Droitwich, Worcs.
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