It can now be revealed the ibis – colloquially known in Australia as the “bin chicken” - was part of the some of the first debates about evolution in modern science.
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The debates between rival French biologists came 50 years before Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859.
The French debates included the world’s first tests of evolution but were only uncovered this year by Griffith University researchers led by Professor David Lambert.
The Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution evolutionary biologist's work, published in peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLOS Biology on Friday, revealed more than eight catacomb sites in Egypt were the final resting places for millions of sacrificed ibises.
The sacred ibis was revered by Egyptians 3000 years ago, regularly sacrificed and generally desiccated with salts and covered with oils and resins, providing a perfect comparison point for early naturalists.
The crux of the debate was: how could evolution exist if the sacred ibis of the Ancient Egyptians looked exactly like the ibis seen in Europe in the 1820s, 1840s, 1940s or 2018?
If the species had not changed over 3000 years, how could the evolution of species exist?
What Professor Lambert’s team found
- 1798 –French general Napoleon invades Egypt and his soldiers return with treasures including mummies of dogs and cats and birds, including the Sacred Ibis.
- 1802 – mummies of Egypt’s sacred ibis returned to France.
- 1809 – Zoological Philosophy by Jean Baptiste Lamarck is published but rejected.
- 1825 and 1829 – “The Great Debate” between French naturalists Charles Cuvier and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck over the Sacred Ibis.
Biologist Charles Cuvier argued the mummified specimens, which showed little difference to the specimens of his day, were proof that evolution did not exist.
He tested two ibis mummies collected from ancient Egypt, closely noting their black feathers and curved beaks, against six ibis skeletons from French museums.
“The measurements between the ancient material and the then-contemporary sacred ibis were similar, and Cuvier concluded that no detectable anatomical changes had occurred over time. This made him the first to test the idea of evolution,” Professor Lambert’s study team writes.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, however, argued evolution was slow and 3000 years was not long enough to notice significant change in a region where there was little environmental change.
According to Mr Lamarck: “it would indeed be very odd if it were otherwise; for the position and climate of Egypt are still very nearly what they were in those times".
“Now the birds which live there, being still in the same conditions as they were formerly, could not possibly have been forced into a change of habits,” he wrote.
Professor Lambert’s team believed Mr Lamarck’s theory of more gradual evolutionary change failed to be accepted because of Mr Cuvier’s more powerful personality.
“Lamarck’s prestige and political influence was modest in comparison to Cuvier’s ever-increasing prominence, intellect, and showmanship,” Lambert’s team writes.
“These attributes contributed to his notoriety in the scientific and popular culture of the time."
In contrast to Mr Cuvier’s “fixity of species,” Mr Lamarck argued for a “continuous slow transmutation of animal species over time”.
He published many of his ideas on evolution in 1809 in Zoological Philosophy, 50 years before Darwin published On the Origin of the Species.
“Cuvier’s rejection of the idea of evolution set back acceptance of the idea in Europe by many decades,” Professor Lambert said.
“I believe there has been evolutionary change of the ibis over time but only the study of genomes will reveal this.
“Lamarck was responsible for many of the major findings in the field of evolution. This even included that living forms arose from abiotic ancestors - from non-living matter.
“He is rightly one of the elder statesmen of the field, having identified 12 of these basic principles in evolution.”
The importance of the ibis in ancient Egypt
Professor Lambert said Egyptian families frequently sacrificed an ibis to appease the gods, “rather like lighting a candle in a church in the present day”.
Ancient Egyptians revered the sacred ibis as a manifestation of Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing.
“Generally, once killed, they were desiccated with salts and covered with oils and resins," he said.
"The wrapped birds were then typically sealed in large pottery vessels—sometimes two or more to a pot.
"Others were placed in wooden coffins or covered with a layer of cartonnage (similar to papier-mache) that was plastered and painted.”
Ibis images were also used in hieroglyphic writings and as amulets and statues representing Thoth.
