QUESTION: Can fish have hair?
True hair is a defining characteristic of mammals and not found in fish. It is made from a filamentous protein, keratin, which occurs in all vertebrates, making tissues such as scales and feathers. In mammals, it also makes hooves and horns.
Hair evolved in mammals because they are warm-blooded. It traps air, which is a good insulator.
Fish are the same temperature as the water they live in, and true hair would be of no benefit.
Hair-like structures such as threads and bristles occur among all living things. Fish often adopt camouflage to try to blend in with seaweeds and corals.
These fish will sometimes have filaments, giving a hair-like look. The hairy frogfish is an example.
If hairy threads are seen coming from captive fish, it may indicate a fungal infection, which looks like cotton wool.
Invertebrates such as worms have chaetae, which are bristles, and arthropods such as tarantulas, some caterpillars and bumblebees can be ‘hairy’.
The bumblebee uses the fur as insulation, like mammals, as it has to raise its temperature above that of its surroundings to fly.
Phil Alexander, Farnborough, Hants
Fish are the same temperature as the water they live in, and true hair would be of no benefit
QUESTION: How did Abbottabad in Pakistan get its name?
Abbottabad is located in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, north of the capital Islamabad.
It is situated in a picturesque valley surrounded by the foothills of the Himalayas, making it a gateway to popular hill stations and tourist destinations such as Nathiagali, Ayubia and Thandiani, which surround the Ayubia National Park.
Abbottabad was named by and after Major James Abbott (1807-1896), a British colonial officer who served as the first deputy commissioner of the Hazara district, which included the Abbottabad area, from 1849 until 1853.
Abbott’s original seat of government in the Hazara was at Haripur, but he eventually decided to shift it up to the new town in the hills.
He fell in love with the place. He was upset to be reassigned and his last public act as deputy commissioner was to invite every person in the district to a party lasting three days and nights.
He spent all his savings on the event and left a splendidly awful poem about his sentiments on leaving Abbottabad: ‘I remember the day when I first came here/ And smelt the sweet Abbottabad air/ The trees and ground covered with snow/ Gave us indeed a brilliant show/ To me the place seemed like a dream/ And far ran a lonesome stream/ The wind hissed as if welcoming us/ The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss/ And the tiny cuckoo sang it away/ A song very melodious and gay/ I adored the place from the first sight/ And was happy that my coming here was right/ And eight good years here passed very soon/ And we leave you perhaps on a sunny noon/ Oh Abbottabad we are leaving you now/ To your natural beauty do I bow/ Perhaps your wind’s sound will never reach my ear/ My gift for you is a few sad tears/ I bid you farewell with a heavy heart/ Never from my mind will your memories thwart’.
J. B. Allen, Penrith, Cumbria
Abbottabad was named by and after Major James Abbott, but is most well-known for being the hiding place of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden
QUESTION: What incomplete novels have been finished by other authors? Were any of these successful?
Sanditon, Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel, was left incomplete after only 11 chapters due to her illness and death in 1817, aged 41.
The Australian journalist Marie Dobbs, writing under her pen name Anne Telscombe, completed the story, which was published as ‘Sanditon by Jane Austen and Another Lady’ in 1975.
It was praised for its Austen-like prose and imaginative continuation of the story. Juliette Shapiro made an attempt in 2009 which some felt strayed too far from Austen’s style.
Upon the death of Charles Dickens, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood was unfinished. The story was a murder mystery in which Drood is supposedly murdered and suspicion is cast on his uncle, John Jasper. Many attempts have been made to ‘solve the mystery’.
In an 1873 attempt, T. P. James, a publisher in Vermont, produced a version he claimed had been literally ‘ghost-written’ by him channelling Dickens’s spirit.
In 1914, the Dickens Fellowship attempted to solve the mystery by bringing John Jasper to trial, with G. K. Chesterton acting as judge and George Bernard Shaw as foreman of the jury. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter.
A version finished by author Leon Garfield is perhaps the most celebrated attempt.
Victoria Stevenson, Ewelme, Oxon
Sanditon, Jane Austen’s final, unfinished novel, was left incomplete after only 11 chapters due to her illness and death in 1817, aged 41
