Halal and Tayyib Compared

This chapter differentiates between two largely concurrent yet also different shariah concepts: halal and tayyib (lit. pure, clean). Both refer to lawful varieties of food, yet tayyib adds the dimension of quality and natural appeal. Tayyib refers to objects, acts, and conduct that are not only permissible (halal, mubah) but also considered to be pure, clean, and wholesome by the people of sound nature. The term invokes people’s approval, often regardless and independently of customary practice. Some foods may be lawful, such as the desert lizard and locusts, yet can hardly be regarded as tayyib. Shariah scholars and halal industry operators are now taking renewed interest in tayyib.

Desert lizard diversity worldwide: effects of environment, time, and evolutionary rate

ABSTRACTBiodiversity is not uniformly distributed across the Earth’s surface, even among physiographically comparable biomes in different biogeographic regions. For lizards, the world’s large desert regions are characterized by extreme heterogeneity in species richness, spanning some of the most species-rich (arid Australia) and species-poor (central Asia) biomes overall. Regional differences in species diversity may arise as a consequence of the interplay of several factors (e.g., evolutionary time, diversification rate, environment), but their relative importance for biogeographic patterns remains poorly known. Here we use distributional and phylogenetic data to assess the evolutionary and ecological drivers of large-scale variation in desert lizard diversity. We specifically test whether diversity patterns are best explained by differences in the ages of arid-adapted lineages (evolutionary time hypothesis), by regional variation in speciation rate, by geographic area of the arid systems, and by spatial variation related to environment (climate, topography, and productivity). We found no effect of recent speciation rate and geographic area on differences in desert lizard diversity. We demonstrate that the extreme species richness of the Australian deserts cannot be explained by greater evolutionary time, because species began accumulating more recently there than in more species-poor arid regions. We find limited support for relationships between regional lizard richness and environmental variables, especially temperature, but these effects were inconsistent across deserts. Our results provide evidence against several classic hypotheses for interregional variation in species richness, but also highlight the complexity of processes underlying vertebrate community richness in the world’s great arid systems.

Female preferences for discrete and continuous male colour expression may help reinforce colour polymorphism in a desert lizard

Despite recognition that colour can vary continuously, colour expression in colour polymorphic species is usually treated as discrete. We conducted three experiments to evaluate the extent that discrete and continuous male coloration influenced female mating preferences in long-tailed brush lizards (Urosaurus graciosus). Each experiment provided females with a different social context: a dimorphic choice between a yellow and an orange male (coloration treated as discrete), and a choice between either two orange males or two yellow males (coloration treated as continuous variation). Females preferred orange males over yellow males in the first experiment, and the findings of our second experiment suggested that males with moderate orange coloration were most preferred. In contrast, females behaved randomly with respect to two yellow males. Our findings show that females in colour polymorphic species can evaluate both discrete and continuous aspects of morph coloration during mate assessment, which may help maintain their polymorphism.

On the taxonomy of the desert lizard Liolaemus stolzmanni (Steindachner, 1891): A third point of view (Squamata: Liolaemidae)

Recently, two publications, Langstroth (2011) and Valladares-Faúndez et al. (2018), have provided relevant information on the taxonomy of the poorly know South American lizard, Liolaemus stolzmanni (Steindachner 1891).. However, these publications contradict each other, in regards to L. reichei (Werner 1907) as junior synonym of L. stolzmanni and did not solve the problem of the type locality of L. stolzmanni. In fact, currently the type locality of L. stolzmanni is thought to be imprecise because the description (Steindachner 1891), written in German, stated it as “Hoch Peru” (High Peru), which has been erroneously understood as “northern Peru” or “high altitudes from Peru”, a zone in which L. stolzmanni has been never found. Here, we used the book of memories of Jan Stanisław Sztolcman, the Polish collector, a historical data never taken in account before, to restrict the type locality and provide comments on its taxonomy.