& # 39; The Lorax & # 39; could have been inspired by an African monkey loving trees

In the early 1970s, Dr. Seuss struggled.

Amid the growing environmental movement in the United States, punctuated by the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency by President Richard Nixon and the establishment of the Endangered Species Act , Dr. Seuss – otherwise known as Theodore Geisel – book on the theme of conservation for children.

But he was struck by the writer's block, he could not do it

"He struggled and struggled to do it," said Nathaniel Dominy, an anthropologist and biologist at the # Evolution at Dartmouth College.

That is, until Dr. Suess makes a trip to Kenya

In a new study published Monday in the newspaper Nature Dominy and his son team put forward a convincing argument that Seuss spied seldom -seen Patas monkey in Kenya, the block of his writer raised, and he wrote his famous book, The Lorax .

The monkey patas "look like a Seuss character," said Dominy. "The resemblance is striking."

The Lorax is a mustachioed character who mocks the destruction of fictitious Truffula trees, as they are cut for their silky foliage. It's an environmental disaster, filled with logging, industrial pollution and the depletion of trees.

In reality, Patas monkeys with the appearance of Lorax largely depend on a tree – the whistling whistling acacia – common in the Kenyan region visited by Seuss. In addition, the character Lorax has a "signature mustache" and an orange coat – just like the patas monkey.

Seuss went on to write a book on conservation in California, where he was also resisting attempts by developers to cut down trees around his San Diego home, said Donald Pease, a coauthor of the 39; study.

But when Seuss visited Mount Kenya Safari Club in 1971, he suddenly became inspired to write The Lorax .

"He wrote 90 in an afternoon on the back of a laundry list," said a well-known literary historian, noting that Seuss probably looked at a patas monkey eating the hardened sap of his wife. a whistling acacia whistling. (Eating that sap will not harm the tree.)

"The inimitable dependency relationship has revealed something to Dr. Seuss that has created a kind of eureka moment," said Pease . Lorax, by dint of inspiration, seeing the patas monkey, added Dominy.

To Reinforce the Argument – and test if the Lorax may simply have been modeled after another cartoon character Seussian – the study's authors employed a sophisticated facial recognition technology. see if the Lorax identified more with local monkeys in the area visited by Seuss or at other Seuss caricatures. "We found that the Lorax is better characterized by space facing primates than the most similar Seussian character," write the authors. , specifically referring to a blue monkey and a patas monkey.

"There is something not random, from the point of view of the computer," said Dominy.

"This could really happen," Trudy Turner, primate anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee participated in the study, said in an interview.

Turner saw patas monkeys in Kenya, and said that Seuss might very well have seen a patas, or two other closely related species, eventually inspiring The Lorax .

"The idea is absolutely delightful," admitted Turner.

A Prophetic Tale

Nearly 50 years after The Lorax was published, the patas monkey "the whole of the species is acceptable," says Dominy, even though we rarely see them. [19659002MaisauKenyaenparticulieressingespatasnothavebeenfullyourPopulationsinKenyahavehalfheartedforthecounterechallengeshaddominyparcewhichtheirdependsfromtheprivilegespecificissue

"This tree was my posted in recent years, "said Dominy

This region of Africa has experienced a more severe rainfall decline than ever during the past 1000 years, linked to climate change caused by humans.

Animals here, like rhinos and elephants, are forced to graze more on the leaves of drought-tolerant trees, making trees more vulnerable to drought. Trees are also cut down and used to make charcoal

These are obvious environmental struggles in Kenya, perhaps reminiscent of the exhaustion of Truffala trees in The Lorax . we are witnessing a prophetic example of life mimicking art imitating life, "write the authors in the study.

And maybe a quote from The Lorax himself is the best way to explain why we should all be concerned about the future of the environment:

"Unless someone like you cares a lot, nothing goes wrong. improve, this is not the case. "