I say, I say, I say… my dog has two noses.

The BBC is reporting that a breed of two-nosed dogs has been discovered in Bolivia. It’s hereditary, which suggests a genetic rather than developmental cause, although it sounds like they are only sometimes viable (at least when one of the parents is a one-nosed dog.) Apparently, the other dogs don’t like them, which is interesting and may be a informative about behavioural mechanisms for regulating mutation rates in animals - humans obviously have such responses to mutants, so it’s interesting to get another data point. Apparently they have a better sense of smell than normal dogs, although the evidence for that is entirely anecdotal, as far as I can see, so it’d really cool to get some actual scientific studies done.

Right now I have this weird mental picture of these things a few million years down the line; their superior sense of smell has made them a success, and having two noses allows them to more accurately detect the origin of a scent than other animals. Because of this there’s been selection pressure to maximise the distance between their noses, and they look something like terrestrial hammerheads - with flat rectangular heads many times the width of their bodies, sporting a nose on each front corner…

And yes, if any IDers are reading I’m kidding; that is not the sort of thinking that dominates evolutionary theory. And actually, even if I wasn’t kidding, it would just mean that I was stupid, not that there was anything wrong with the theory of evolution.

I do like the explorer’s description of how he discovered the breed; “I was sober at the time…”