Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time. When it comes to the fauna of the planet Aracus, your mind probably turns to the famous sandworm. Alternatively, you might think of muad Dib, the desert mouse, descended from terrestrial kangaroo mice that were
introduced to the planet by human colonists. But another introduced species concerns me today, the Coulon. Yes, the donkeys of Frank Herbert's Doone. The coulon are only mentioned twice in the original novel, both times in the appendix, were told that they were once wild donkeys of Earth's asiatic step and were introduced and adapted for work on the planet Aracus.
We also learn that some smugglers made use of coulon as pack animals, but quote the water price was high even when the beasts were fitted with modified still suits. This is the tidbit that enthralls me every time I reread it. Perhaps it's just the mental image of a donkey clad in a futuristic water reclamation suit, then used
by smugglers to traffic psychedelic space drugs. While the Dune Encyclopedia is usually quick to expand on concepts from the novels, they offer very little on the donkeys of Done except to claim that the Fremen inhabitants of Aracus employed them as well and use the animal's milk in their cuisine. By the way, this book features a few recipes you can prepare yourself. I often wondered why Frank Herbert would
choose to have introduced donkeys on Aracus and not camels. Camels, after all, are the ships of the desert highly suited for dry air environments, but the donkey, too, is a highly evolved desert ungulate. Both species offer energy and water savings, but is one truly a better choice than the other? Was I wrong to question Herbert's wisdom in giving oracous
the donkey as usuff at all? Explore In energy costs of walking in camels from nine, the camel benefits from low energy cost of walking, which results in an economy of heat production and food water requirements. Plus, the authors argue that the camel is unequaled by other mammals in its ability to carry heavy loads for long distances. The domestication and popularity of the camel is a topic of great interest and was the subject of historian Richard Bullets
book The Camel and the Wheel. In his two thousand five book Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers, he mentions that he nearly wrote a book on the donkey as well. Both animals would have entered the world of human domestication, he writes between four thousand and three thousand b c. As Roger S. Bagnal discusses in the paper The Camel, the Wagon and the Donkey in later Roman Egypt, both creatures had their advantages depending on the job and the environment.
The camel was superior in its greater range, endurance, and ability to go long distances without water, but it was also more expensive than the donkey, and its advantages would be less impressive if it was required for short and or infrequent trips. And so what of the world of Iracus.
We might well assume that the mighty camel's long distance, high volume skills were less necessary within a civilization full of high tech ornithopters, and on a world where travel across the open desert is so terribly risky due to
the sandworms attraction to the rhythm afoot and hoofsteps. Perhaps then the donkey was is the best fit and the domesticated species most likely to survive on aracous long term, as it was perhaps cheaper to keep and better used for short travel in protected areas and also as a dairy animal. Tune into additional episodes of The Monster Fact or The Artifact each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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